Harris Institute of Speedreading

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Reading is a skill like any other. The same principles of learning that apply to walking, talking, playing a musical instrument, typing, whitewater canoeing, catching a ball, playing tennis, golf or just about anything, also apply to reading.

The Harris technique will enable you to read the easiest or the most difficult texts more quickly, while gaining the comprehension and appreciation you need and enjoy.

Whatever kind of learner you are, if you are managing to read now, our technique will provoke your learning process to function more quickly, whatever process that may be.

In the case of dyslectics, sometimes the slower they go, the more they get bogged down. Going faster can leave less time to get confused. Dyslectics usually do well in our classes.

Our technique is good for any language, even Arabic, Cree or Chinese. We only teach in English and French, but having learned the technique in one language, you can apply it to any other language you can read.

It is also effective for second language learners, once they are fluent enough to understand most of what they read. Usually the recognition of words is less automatic in a second language and readers often get bogged down with self-translation, analysis of grammar, word accords and chasing after unfamiliar vocabulary in the dictionary.

The Harris technique enables you to read as fast as you can understand, rather than as slowly as you can self-translate and analyze grammar. It helps encourage you to read more in the second language, and the more you read, the more proficient you become in the language.

We often lump a whole range of activities under the term "reading" - learning new words and terms, analyzing the significance of an idea, reflecting on and appreciating the style and beauty of good writing, examining and analyzing charts and graphs, etc...

In its most simple definition, to read is to recognize words you know and grasp their meaning.

Acquiring vocabulary is a pre-requisite to reading, not a part of reading. If you try to read a text in Greek and you don't understand a word of Greek, the problem is lack of vocabulary, not a lack of ability to read.

Whether you are reading romance novels or nuclear physics, you have to recognize words and grasp their meaning, then analyze and comprehend concepts.

With the Harris technique, the mind has less unnecessary work to do and can concentrate more exclusively on understanding the ideas. The technique enhances both speed and comprehension of even the most difficult texts.

There is a difference between learning how to read and reading itself. A good technique for learning how to read is not the best technique for reading, once you know how.

To learn to read, you learn to decode and recognize words. Typically, Grade One students do this by beginning to read out loud. They make the connection between the words they know how to say and the black marks on the page that represent those words. In my generation it was "See Dick. See Jane. See Spot run".

Once you can read and correctly pronounce words out loud, the next step is to read silently. Teachers usually instruct their students to "read silently by saying the words to yourself, instead of saying them out loud".

And that's it. That's the last instruction on reading technique that most students ever receive. Sure, they're told not to move their lips, never to point to words with their finger, how to find the main idea, to expand their vocabulary, and they're given all sorts of study tips, but those are strategies, not techniques.

The mechanics of coordinating the eyes and the mind with the words in order to read can be summed up with: "Look at the words and say them to yourself". The common term for this is "subvocalization".

This instruction is the reading equivalent of two-finger typing or any amateur technique at golf, tennis or music. It leaves students reading words they know and can recognize easily with the same technique they used initially to decipher and identify words back in Grade One.

We teach a technique of better coordinating the eyes and the mind with the words, just as a golf pro teaches a good technique for coordinating the body with the golf club and the golf ball. In both cases, the techniques streamline the process, sychronize the faculties involved and maximize the performance for the effort put in.

(Many speedreading courses insist that to read faster you must absolutely stop subvocalizing, but average readers can more than double their reading speed and still be subvocalizing. More about this later)

At the beginning of every class, I test participants for their reading speed and comprehension. If there are 15 participants in the room, they don't all read at the same speed.

The fastest reads, 2, sometimes 3, sometimes 6 times faster than the slowest and usually the faster readers have better comprehension than the slower ones. This in itself indicates that better speed usually improves comprehension.

Average reading speed at the beginning of a session is about 240 words per minute (WPM). Sometimes there's someone reading at 500-600 WPM, and sometimes someone is at 100 WPM.

Speed of reading is like speed of driving. Going faster doesn't cause problems, going too fast does. As long as your reading speed is reasonable for your ability, your comprehension will not decline. The formula at all times is to read at the best rate that satisfies your normal demand for comprehension.

Average improvement in our one-day classes is approximately double. The person starting at 600 WPM usually hits close to 1200 WPM, the person starting at 240 WPM gets to 450 - 500 WPM and the person starting at 100 WPM gets to around 200 WPM.

Every study I've seen indicates the maximum speed of subvocalization is about 650 WPM.

The person starting at 600 WPM is already close to the maximum and must break the sound barrier and start reading visually to improve. The average readers can double and more and still be subvocalizing, while those starting at 100 WPM can improve 600 % before leaving subvocalization behind.

My own top speed is 1800 WPM in simple material and at that speed I can't tell I'm not subvocalizing. I feel like I am reading every word and enjoying the text more than I did 20 years ago when my speed was 270 WPM.

Thinking about not subvocalizing doesn't make it go away, only speed does. If your speed is less than 650 WPM, you're subvocalizing. It's like getting an airplane off the ground. Only at a certain speed does it become possible.

The last thing you should be doing when you're reading is thinking about whether or not you're subvocalizing. You should be thinking exclusively about the content you are reading. Drills will develop your speed and take you into visual reading.

There are similarities in the process of seeing and recognizing a word, and seeing and recognizing a moving tennis ball. In both cases, it is a mental reflex to recognize the word or the ball.

In tennis, someone hits the ball and provokes the mental and visual reflexes to see and recognize the ball. Then your mind interprets the direction and tells the body to move and the arm to swing the racket. The faster the ball is hit, the faster you must react.

In reading, the eyes throw the words from the page to the mind and provoke a mental reflex to recognize the words. Then your mind interprets the meaning of the phrase and develops comprehension of the concepts. The tougher the idea, the slower you will read, but the sooner you connect the first word to the fifth word or the tenth, the sooner the mind has an idea to work on.

It is your system of delivering the words from the page to your mind that we can change and make big improvements in your reading speed. You can't read words unless you see them and improving your speed starts with increasing the speed at which you see words in order to provoke your mental reflex.

The eyes work differently when they are looking for something than when they are following a moving object. When you look at a page in the traditional way, your eyes have to look for each word. If you move your finger or something like it across the line and follow with your eyes, you can't avoid seeing the words.

Improving your system of delivering words starts with giving your eyes something to follow, instead of making them look for the words you want to read. Then it is a matter of a methodical learning programme and practice. That is what is worth paying for.

Typists don't type faster by skipping letters - with the help of a good technique, they develop the coordination to type all the letters more quickly.

Musicians don't play faster by skipping notes - they use good techniques to permit them to play all the notes more quickly.

At the Olympics, runners don't run record times by skipping steps - they make those steps much faster.

Reading is similar to all these activities. There is no need to skip words to read more quickly. With a good technique, we can coordinate our eyes and mind to read all the words more quickly and as competently, sometimes more so, than before.

Much of the academic reading community seems unable to make this connection between reading and tennis or typing, and they cannot imagine the notion of a better reading technique than what is taught in Grade One. They assume that reading faster involves faking it, skimming, skipping words, and losing comprehension. Too bad for them.

In this text, I've tried to share my observations and findings of 20 years of teaching speed reading and contribute to the demystification of the topic.

This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what can be discussed about reading speed improvement.

The public debate on the subject is dominated, on one hand, by marketers selling improbable miracles and, on the other, by uncurious academics.

How can you pick out the key words if you don't read them all first to decide which ones are the key ones?

There is a speed reading instructor who claims he "reads" quickly by just reading the nouns and the verbs. Given that analyzing the grammar is much harder than simply reading, he is indeed a phenom of some sort. It's kind of like counting sheep in a field by counting the legs and then dividing by four.

If the phrase you're reading is "The house is burning", then sure, just the words "house" and "burning" (the noun and the verb) give you what you need.

But what if the phrase is "The house is not burning"? If you catch the noun and the verb, but miss the little word "not", you miss everything.

In a legal document, the difference between a comma and a period or between the words "and" and "or" can be crucial. If you miss them, you might miss important implications that can make the difference between success or failure.

Small words can be just as important as big ones. It's easier to read small words than it is to decide not to read them.

One-syllable words can be grasped almost instantly by the brain. The mind will naturally put greater effort into the recognition of multi-syllable words without requiring the sacrifice of reliable comprehension of the smaller ones.

Seeing words (or anything else) provokes an instant mental response to recognize them and interpret their meaning. The essence of good reading is to facilitate this natural reflex as much as possible and be receptive to it rather than interfere with it.

Catching anything less than all the words is called "skimming", not "reading". Skimming has its usefulness, but it should never be confused with good quality reading. Quality of reading does not need to be sacrificed to read faster.

Average readers at 250 WPM can therefore more than double their speeds and still subvocalize.

Subvocalization doesn't go away by thinking about it. Subvocalization goes away by reading fast enough to break the "sound barrier" - about 600 - 700 WPM.

Thinking about whether or not you're subvocalizing will likely distract you and slow you down as well.

It is difficult to distinguish between subvocalizing and thinking. At 1500 WPM it is possible to read every word and have the impression you're subvocalizing.

And who's to say you're not? What's important is that you're reading and comprehending as competently as usual.

Reading out loud may help the concentration of someone using the traditional technique of reading, but speed will be limited to the usual rate of vocal reading - usually 150 WPM.

The mental effort to pronounce words correctly may interfere with comprehension. It is possible to read out loud without understanding what you are reading.

The hand technique, with the mental challenge it brings, is the best way of enhancing concentration.