Super Speed Reading
 
   

Articles:
1) Book of Apple 84

2) The Key to reading

3) Mind your business

4) Bytes for Brights

5) T.H.E Journal

6) Softalk 83

7) Softalk 84

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Press Release

 

At a time when most of us are feeling bombarded with more information than we can comfortably handle, few among us would deny the advantages that accrue to those who can read fast and comprehend what they read. With that in mind, we'll begin this month's column by looking at some ways to improve our reading skills.

A computer equipped with speed-reading software can be a very useful reading improvement tool. It can place reading material on the screen and keep it there for decreasing periods of time, thus forcing you to improve your rate of speed; it can monitor your progress and give you a printed report of how you're doing; and it lets you practice, practice, practice-after all, it never gets tired.

Speed reading may not strike you as

   a legitimate business application, but think again. If using such a software package helps you increase your reading speed even a little bit, the payoffs in time saved and reading accomplished could be substantial.

The first package we'll look at is Magnum Software's Super Speed Reading. This menu driven program requires a 48K Apple II, II Plus, or He with one disk drive. It offers three options: You can work with sample reading passages provided on disk, sample reading passages from the user manual, or passages of your own (but you'll have to do a bit of word counting in order to work with your own material). Menu choices include first steps to speed reading; recording progress; timing your reading; high-speed reading; school, business, and computer techniques; and practice text and charts.

  Many speed-reading systems use a pacer, which the user moves down the page to help train eye movement. Super Speed Reading has a built-in pacer for use with text on disk. The pacer moves at the speed you select. You also tell the system how long you want to read and which block on the page you wish to read. When reading material stored on disk, you can choose to read from a low of 100 words per minute to a high of 3,000 words per minute.

The documentation that accompanies this program is well done. It would be nice if Magnum Software released more practice disks with material already on them. Disks customized to users' needs (containing a financial report or a statistical summary, for example) might also be a welcome addition.

 

To contact us send eMail. ScottMcTyre@MCFIII.COM