Customer Reviews

Triple Your Reading Speed, Fourth Edition

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Most speed reading books are on skimming. I suggest you toss anything out that expects you to skim. Some will say "how to read a book" and basically tell you to look at chapter titles and headings and then skim over them quickly - toss those books too.

This book has real techniques - several. It handles sub-vocalization, covers widening your vision, reading 2 lines or more at once, handling your eye movement, techniques like a two stop method (I won't explain here as it is his own), and more.

I collect speed reading techniques. They are very hard to find. Most speed reading books do not have them. I feel like I hit gold with this book. It has many.

I think this guy wrote a decent book because he's been doing it since the 1970's and has been focusing on collecting techniques.

Forget the other books, buy this. You will read much faster and have many different "real" ways of doing it. You can pick which you like best and adopt that method. Don't skip this book, it's gold.

I've read a couple of different methods to manage my wpm (words per minute) ratio and with Cutler's book I achieved the highest speed I could ever imagine. Exceeded all my expectations!!!

At first all books start with reducing all natural habits we have i.e. repeating what we read or loosing focus and concentration with a result of going back to the last word we remember and many others.
Some methods tell you to skip whole sentences but grab the meaning of the paragraphs (which by the way does not help at all when studying GMAT since you miss all the desired details).
Others tell you to keep reading even if you get to the point that you don't understand what you read...

Well with Triple your Reading Speed, you start with a few easy exercises to cut down all the bad habits and then it puts you to the most interesting part were you actually start counting your self while seeing results....
Without missing sentences or words, just by widening your area of viewing. you learn how to concentrate in three parts of every sentence in the beginning of the sentence, middle and end.
Then it takes you to the next level were you keep focusing on these three parts but not right into the sentence But in the middle of two and later three sentences. You actually double and then triple the amount of words by reading in the middle of the sentences and perceive the three parts of three sentences at the same time while manage to process them at the same time.

You will understand how valuable it is to maximize the speed of your reading when you read your first book, or start reading all the GMAT paragraphs and remember every single detail and information.

The book contains a number of solid techniques on how to improve reading speed. It also describes a number of things that can really slow you down. There's an interesting explanation of how we are "trained" to read slowly at school, and how this manifests itself in later years through "blocks to better reading". As a newbie speed reader, it was a bit of an eye opener to realize how many ways you can subconsciously slow your reading down. The good news is that they are fairly easy to recognize, although I can't attest to how easily they are to overcome.

I also liked the techniques given regarding how to preview reading materials to improve your comprehension and retention of the materials. I read the WSJ every day, together with lots of business magazines and many books, so it was good to understand a few simple techniques that I could put into practice immediately.

The bulk of the book contains reading exercises and tests to both improve your speed and comprehension, then later quantify it. I'm pretty analytical, so this facet of the book was particularly appealing.

All in all, a great resource. The one downside is that you really need to practice the exercises to get the best out of the book. This isn't meant to be a negative comment regarding the material, far from it. Just setting expectations I guess.

There's no silver bullet to improve your reading speed, but I certainly found a lot of very worthwhile "ammunition" in this book :)

I am a teacher, and I have been using this book in my classroom. It does, in fact, triple your reading speed without reducing your comprehension.

You should know, though, that this book is not intended to be read cover-to-cover; it's really a set of drills, a full course of speed reading exercises in a book with accompanying instructions, and it may take you weeks to work through it completely and thoroughly (although some people see results much faster). If you take the time, you will almost certainly get the results you want, but you should expect to make an investment. Some of the drills themselves look a little strange--almost like eye charts--because one basic aspect of the book's approach is to change the way your eyes focus as you read. It turns out that these drills do accomplish their purpose and do make you read much faster; it just requires a leap of faith to invest time into the exercises.

Another reviewer quoted the book as saying that you should read faster, then make up for lost time by rereading. Taken out of context, this is a little misleading. The author does suggest that you are better off reading quickly even if you have to reread--because reading slowly is so time-consuming--but he doesn't suggest that you should reread everything all the time.

It seems to me that most positive reviews of this book are from people who treated it as a reading course and did the exercises; most negative reviews of this book are from people who read it from cover to cover looking for descriptions of new speed reading tips or techniques. Buy, or don't buy, accordingly. :)

As a writer, one of the requirements of my trade is to read books. All the time. Sometimes you need to read up on a subject for research, other times just to know what current trends in your genre of choice are. As I child, I used to love reading and did it daily. As an adult, I have more pressing things to do than spend 11 hours reading a mystery novel. Consequently, I've been reading less and less over the years as my personal responsibilities increase.

I've always been a slow reader. My reading method was to savor every single word. I tried to learn speed reading when I was younger. Although I identified my bad habits, I had little success overcoming them and the "finger pacing" methods they taught me were just tedious. After a whole book, my hand was tired and the tip of my finger was tender from cheap paper. My weak spots, specifically, were these: I read one word at a time, I sounded the text aloud in my mind as an inner dialog, and I tended to jump backward and read things twice.

I'm only half way through this book, and have practiced the techniques less than I should have, but my reading rate has indeed tripled. I started out reading 130 words a minute when I began this book. I'm currently reading 400-425 words a minute. I just completed reading a series of 320 page novels that would have taken me around eleven hours each to read. Now, they each took me between 4 1/2 to 5 hours to read. I'm reading two entire lines at a glance, and yes, my comprehension is excellent.

I've read other reviews where people complain about the drills. Why? They work. Did you learn algebra by reading a book and never doing any practice problems? The drills train your eyes to see more words at a time and comprehend larger bites without analyzing individual words. When I started, I had my doubts about whether I would overcome my bad habits, because I'd failed to do so with other techniques. I'm pleased to say, having only finished HALF the book so far, I did overcome them all, thanks to the drills. Now further improvement is only a matter of more practice. I'm excited to think how quickly I'll be reading by the time I finish this book. And the real benefit... I enjoy reading again, the way I used to when I had nothing better to do on a summer afternoon than absorb the words of Tolkien like a sponge.

This book gave me the potential to be able to read much faster. Myself, I read at about 200 words per minute, and after I finished this book and its exercises, it increased to 300 words per minute. Of course, you have to practice what you learned and these results are based on a short time span but it is still working. Every time I read, I can see myself reading faster and faster. Cutler, the author, gives many self-tests, passages, and excellent explanatory methods to help read faster. This book helps someone find what keeps him or her from reading faster, and fix that problem. Cutler's writing is more informative than anything, but contained within the information is encouragement and hopefulness. To me, the stories that Cutler picked out was quite interesting and are well written and the tests are challenging. Since it is the fourth edition, I can see that Cutler just had to keep making it better and better, and apparently this is the latest and best edition. I have to admit, the most difficult part in reading this book is actually correcting the problem of reading slowly that was taught to you from your kindergarten teacher. The reason that I picked up this book is because I have just realized that I am just a little older and have a higher reading level than a common kindergartener and need my reading speed to reflect this. I suggest anybody who is above the age or reading level of an average kindergartener to read this book. Those who shouldn't read this book are those people that enjoy reading slowly and like losing the opportunity to read all the good books that are being written.

This book gives a very concise and useful insights into how anyone can improve his or her reading skill.

Wade Cutler doesn't waste your time with stuff you probably already know. His techniques really do work, and anyone (including the seasoned, advanced reader) can benefit from this book.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to improve their reading speed. You won't be disappointed.

I've been using the technique's in this book for a little over a year now and for me...it works.

I can't stress strongly enough how important it is for the newcomer to adhere exactly to what is put forth in this book. For example, I practiced one of the eye exercises everyday for weeks till I aced it!
Trust me there is no "magic pill". It takes work. And this book will show you how if your willing.

I learned through the book,(with no distractions)that I can visually read and comprehend one line of text in a average sized paperback in one stop,(as well as newspaper/magazine columns and web sites. I learned to absorb the sentence as a whole then move down the center of the page with little or no side to side eye movement. Took a ton of practice your mileage may very.

Personally I do pretty well with comprehension so I skipped much of that training in this book. And mainly concentrated on techniques.

The first few chapters are very important to read and understand as well. He discusses many of the bad habits readers use and other little quirks. Increased my reading speed a bit just by knowing what I was doing wrong.

My tips.
A good vocabulary helps a great deal. Have a good handle on where prepositions(on,in,for,to.etc.) are placed.

And most importantly...
Practice..everyday
Patience....stay with it.

I had high hopes for my first book on Speed Reading. I read it in one day so it must have helped. But the FIRST technique had to do with focusing on the center of the line, then using peripheral vision to scan left then right. The SECOND technique had the reader practicing an imaginary line down the center of the text... then "absorbing" the left side of the text with your eyes, then the right. So when I went to apply the techniques in regular reading, I was confused about what I was supposed to be doing. Perhaps the "in class" version of his course would have been more helpful so I would be able to ask questions.

Also worth noting, a lot of the book was just study questions for stories in the book or books he recommends you read for practice. He also had some helpful suggestions for test taking and studying, in general.

I have been working with this book for only two days. I'm only on page 110 of 416. So far, I've doubled my starting speed of 140 wpm. I'm now reading 300 wpm. Based on these results, I think I'll easily exceed the promised tripling of my reading speed, with further practice.

I worked with Evelyn Wood techniques years ago, and found the effort was too much and it tired me out more than normal reading, so I never finished the course. I also was frustrated with the "finger pacing" they advocated. It's not that I found the technique embarrassing, it was tedious. When doing a great deal of reading, the tip of my finger would get tender from the texture of cheap paperback pages. It also aggravated my tendonitis. I'm pleased to say that I get much better results with the techniques in this book, without utilizing my finger and I do not find speed reading tiring now.