Customer Reviews

Speed Reading: Third Edition (Plume)

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

 

 

To begin, I think that it's important to note that Tony Buzan does not specialize in teaching Speed Reading. From what I can tell, he specializes in a technique he's coined called "Mind Mapping" which can be found in his other books: "Use Both Sides of Your Brain" and "Make the Most of Your Mind." I think that these two books are a far better use of Buzan's knowledge, as they represent areas in which he focuses the majority of his time to.

Basically, I think that this book is a decent introduction to speed reading, nothing special. You can aquire the same basic knowledge from any other speed reading books that are out there. Though the book seems to boast some sort of revolutionary approach to speed reading...don't be fooled, there is nothing revolutionary about this book. The most valuable thing about this book is that it points out the major problems that most readers have--and these problems are easily overcome, and you can improve your speed by fixing these problems:

1) Subvocalizing: mouthing words outloud or silently while you read
2) Regressing: constantly going back and re-reading material
3) Lack of concentration & interest
4) Unorganized Approach to reading: not having a set of concrete questions about the text before diving into it.

Of course, these are in no way innovative ideas in the field of speed reading.

It is very dissapointing that most of the book is dedicated to things other than speed reading, like how to take notes (Mind Mapping), vocabulary, and random passages about history/music/art..ect. Buzan 'beats around the bush' throughout the book, never really giving distinct instruction on how to reach these insane speeds he speaks of in the riviting introduction. This is not Buzan at his best..and there is certainly no "general education" being given here (not that you want one from Buzan anyway), despite claims to the contrary!

I am just about half way through the book and have already double my reading speed without much difficulty while increasing my comprehension. I was a 248 words a minute reader with 66% comprehension. Now half way through and am reading 550 words a minute with 85% comprehension. The book guides you through with plenty of exercises and checks throughout with a chart to map your progress. But a word of warning: Don't just think that you can start reading 2000 words a minute just by reading this book. You do have to practice and actively push yourself to break your own barriers. If you are serious about improving yourself and willing to put in some work and practice then buy this book. There are so many crappy books out there purporting to increase your reading speed, usually only doubling your current speed (normal readers read at about 200 to 300 wpm) but Buzan promises to take you up to 2000 wpm!! But remember, you still have to work at it.

The book is systematic, clear, quite concise, full of motivating examples, and full of practice exercises. It is an effective training technique.

However, most of the info about reading potential is wrong, and it systematically trains you to miss important material. As far as has been measured by professional reading experts, speed reading experts are unable to read at over 700words per minute at any more than 50% comprehension. Buzan claims that you can. To prove it, he sets up some nice and clear exercises and comprehension tests.

The reading tests are concocted by him. They have all the main info to be tested in prominent places, written in a concrete way so they are easier to comprehend, and they repeat info that is written all over the book including the back cover. The tests themselves are so easy you could get over 50% correct even without reading the material. Some are common knowledge, and others can be worked out by looking at the other questions. He breaks every rule of comprehension testing in an effort to make his methods and seminars look like magic. Please do not be fooled!

If you do not like reading and you want to train yourself to misjudge comprehension, this book is for you. If you want to get a book for improving study reading, just get a good book on study techniques (sq3r etc)). If you like reading, just get one of those nice helpful books on how to understand and appreciate novels.

Cheers
D.Rayt

What I missed in this book of Buzan is the final step from reading faster (stop subvocalizing) to reading superfast (reading blocks). The "what" is explained but the "how to" is omitted. In my opinion? Take another book on speed reading (by Robert Zorn for example).

First, this book is in British English. This may bother those into spelling (ex: realise instead of realize) Starts with reasons for bad reading skills and even provides answers to obstacles a person may encounter in their quest to increase their reading speed. Provides very short chapters of between 2 to 10 pages covering a varity of subjects related to speed reading. Provides reading material for testing speed and comprehension. Goes unnessarily into the parts of the eye. Plugs his memory book on occasion. Very much into hand scanning. This is OK for starting but you would want to loose that habit since this attracts too much attention to what you're doing. I couldn't get into the scanning exercises since they were too short. I took about 40% of the info presented to heart. I especially liked the quote at the beginning of chapter 8. The human eye in theory should be able to read a page in 1/12 of a second. Extending this- a regular book in 6-25 seconds; an encyclepedia in one hour with comprehension. At least, I know what my maximum human limitations are. This book should be used with another speed reading book and not by itself.

A this book is a horrendous confusion of second hand opinion on reading rate. As with good learning ability, the more strategies and accurate knowledge you have about reading, the better you will become. However, this book twists pseudoscience and misleads the reader at almost every turn.

The term reading, involves at least 5 seperate rates which have different goals (Memorising, learning, Rauding(normal reading rate for good comprehension), skimming, and scanning). The author uses only the word "reading" to account for all of them. He claims that you can read at a breakneck speed with full comprehension. However, even an inexperienced reader would class that as skimming, and reasonably expect a severely reduced comprehension level. Reading research (and common sense) will back this up.

Skimming is useful at sometimes, when comprehension is not important. However, the author seems to be encouraging the blanket application of skimming, thereby training possibly the worst kind of reading habit possible: Single track ignorance.

The exercises and tests given are not reading comprehension tests. They are a combibation of skimming and general knowledge tests. A very cheap confidence trick.

Find a good book on reading skills, and some good books you like reading.
Victor

Starts with some useful background information about impediments to reading and reading comprehension, and a little history on the practice of speed-reading itself. Each chapter has some keen info on related topics (such as the eye movement of a speed-reader as opposed to one with poor reading skills), but the book LACKS CLEAR instructional knowledge. Most of the technique exists in passing comments and there's no clearly defined method. For example, in the chapter on eye movement, the author claims he recommends reading a page vertically as well as horizontally and has a bunch of illustrations on how to guide your eyes across the page when you speed-read (one of the illustrations is a line going zig zag left to right back to left, repeat). How the hell would this would work? I mean, how is it logically possible to read vertically and backwards and still comprehend the material? You won't find an answer in this book. And about halfway through, the book turns into an infomercial for mind-mapping, which is where I really started to get disappointed. It's like Mr Buzan wrote this whole book called speed-reading, not to teach you how to speed-read, but to try to impress you with his knowledge of the human mind so you'll buy one of his other books.

I am not sure about this book. Maybe because my expectations were different. I expected to increase my reading speed by reading this book. That did not happen. Maybe I get an improvement after more practising. Maybe it is because English is not my first language. Also only about half of this rather small book is dedicated to speed reading. The other half is filled with, although useful, hints on not necessarily directly related issues. Tony Buzan also repeats some ideas presented in his other (and better) book - Use Both Sides Of Your Brain. That caused another disappointment. It is a good and worthy book, but do not expect too much. The other book I mentioned above is better.

Good book covering basics for beginners. Has skim reading, surveying and various methods for speed reading including paragraph analysis and idea organizationm but no new ideas. A little less emphasis on 'unlimited brain potential' and selling 'mind-mapping' would be refreshing though!

I felt the main content of the speed-reading course was not dealt with in adequate detail.

The book starts by urging us to avoid certain bad reading habits that slow us down and there is a lot of motivational content that gives specific examples of speed-reading champions. The motivational section is really motivating.

My disappointment is with the actual techniques, that I feel, are dealt with too briefly (especially the meta-guiding techniques). There is not much help here for a beginner. I was very keen on learning the techniques and was very motivated by his examples, but I felt defeated after trying to understand the meta-guiding techniques.

Tips about sitting postures, ideal reading environment are really useful. I feel the vocabulary section is a misfit into this book and it more of a digression.

Overall, I feel the book is not as much of help as it claims to be.