Customer Reviews

The Evelyn Wood Seven-Day Speed Reading and Learning Program

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The presentation here is well organized and easy to follow but there is a lack of detail and a failure to address key points. For instance, how long should one drill on techniques presented to improve "linear reading" before moving on to "layering"? The title implies a seven day structured course. Yes, exercises are suggested and methods to improve reading speed are clearly explained, however, there is no clearly defined seven day syllabus. I am intrigued by the teasing suggestions that, fully applied, one may experience a paranormal "visualizing" when reading. Unfortunately, I have not been able to successfully progress past step one. The tape is primarily geared to secondary or college students and some helpful study tips are presented which I would like to have gleaned when I was in those learning years. Because the prospect of reading beyond my current, pitifully slow, level is so enticing, I have not given up on the idea that this process may work. However, if you are (as I am) curious about the prospect of reading at a rapid pace with high comprehension, I suggest seeking out a speed reading course that goes into more detail and presents a more formalized plan for achieving proficiency.

Reading this book feels like talking to a used car salesman. Stanley Frank spends as much time in this (very thin) volume giving anecdotes on how wonderful Evelyn Wood speed reading is as he does giving any useful information about how to read faster. The book does give some rapid reading techniques, but fails to link them into a curriculum for actually training oneself to increase reading speed.

By contrast, I found Peter Kump's "Breakthrough Rapid Reading" (recommended by another Amazon Reviewer) to be quite helpful. Kump's book mixes the theory of Evelyn wood with comprehensive exercises to put these ideas into practice. Kump also gives the reader a way to record and track progress through the course.

The concepts of rapid reading are not difficult, the challenge lies in putting them into practice. Save your $7, skip Frank, and buy a book that will actually help you learn to read faster.

There are only about 20 pages in this book that have to do with Speed Reading. Most of the book is success stories and how to improve your study habits which would be fine if the book was titled "Improve Your Study Habits and Get a Brief Introduction to Speed Reading" but it's not.

My reading speed shot up from 143 words per minute to 450 in the first 10 minutes of doing the program. This book offers valuable tools on time manegement and note taking useful to any student in any realm. In order to reach supersonic speeds when reading, the book claims you must take information out of order. Unfortunately, it never explains how you should go about conditioning yourself to do so. However, this book is worth investing in even if only for its study skills section alone! 4 stars!

Amazon as sells this book under the title "Remember Everything You Read", it is the exact same book word for word. This one is hardcover and the other is paperback. From reading the description for the one about it being adapted from "Remember Everything You Read", I thought I was getting two different books.

Unfortunately, returning it isn't worth the money.

Picked this book up with an interest in increasing my reading speed, but was disappointed when the book turned out to be one big ad for the Evelyn Wood Speed Reading Courses. Most of the book was devoted to informing the reader how fast and efficiently they could study, and how successful their courses are. There was very little instruction and what was there was vague. The book ended up being of negligible help to my reading speed.

I read this book because it claimed to help increase reading by 50%. I thought that I was a strong reader. I read about 230 words per minute. Well, after reading this book, I read about 250 words per minute. 20 words wasn't worth it!

I, like most other people, bought this book because I honestly believed it would lead to an increased reading speed. I can now tell you that this book will NOT produce those results. I think the biggest mistake the author has made is giving you tips on how to speed-read before you even learn any tips on comprehension. You are supposed to hurry through the first two chapters and time yourself to get your Words Per Minute ratio. This is a major mistake because these first two chapters should actually be closely examined, not just skimmed over like the author suggests. These chapters should also teach you something about comprehending what you are reading at that moment. I felt like a total fool after I had completed the second speed reading test and was informed my Word Per Minute ratio should have increased significantly since the first test. It had not. I imagine several other people experienced the same thing. Avoid this book at all costs and get something else if you want to learn about the Evelyn Wood program. There is a reason I got this from the bargain bin.

I wouldn't exaclty label this book as worthless; indeed, there are many useful tidbits and techniques which can help many students become more successful in the classroom. My complaint concerns the nuts and bolts of how to attain the "3,000" word per minute reading level which is regularly advertised throughout the book. In fact, I found the book largely containing anecdotes and stories of how other readers utilized the program to acheive superhuman reading levels. I was left thiking "is there a book 2 that I'm missing"? If you can learn to read via skimming your fingers underneath the sentences you've pretty much already got 90% of this book down. Perhaps the author should have focused only on speed reading rather than incorporating other information regarding studying skills, note taking, etc; all worth while, but not pertinent to those who got the book for the primary purpose of reading faster. In short, there are more useful books out there on the subject.

Just to be short and concise (so you can "speed read" this review), don't bother with the book. I might extend that to include all Evelyn Wood material. As others have noted, the simpler concepts that are introduced are too basic to have a great effect on your reading/comprehension. The more complex concepts are glazed over too quickly.

Essentially, a majority of this book consists of pop psychology to make you feel good about your potential and of inspiring anecdotes from the program's students that, I suppose, are meant to lend some credibility to the concepts in this book.

Its saving grace is the few chapters it spends on outlining proper methods for studying in preparation for tests and exams. While nothing revolutionary, it manages to approach that topic in a practical way, which might be helpful for mediocre students that might be looking to develop non-existent study skills.

But this book isn't supposed to be about studying, is it?