Evelyn Wood Speed Reading

Evelyn Wood is regarded by many to be the “pioneer of speed reading,” if there is such a thing. Of course, people had been speed reading before Evelyn Wood came along, and even now, many people learn how to speed read without hearing anything about Evelyn Wood. But, it’s worth learning something about her.

Evelyn Wood was the one to coin the term “speed reading“, and she helped develop one of the earliest speed reading books, called “Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics”, published in 1959.

She spent 2 years touring around the world finding people who knew how to speed read, and she studied the tactics of all of them. She even managed to find some people who could read over 1500 words per minute – keep in mind that the average reading speed is 250 words per minute. Evelyn wood once wrote: “The purpose of reading is to get the information, feeling, and understanding the author is trying to convey.” If you’re able to grasp that from a text, then you’re taking in everything the author could ever want you to take in.

Although Evelyn Wood passed away in 1995, her speed reading program “Reading Dynamics” is still up and running. If I’m not mistaken, that program still teaches in a classroom-type environment. It might be difficult to schedule a lesson with them, but if you’re in the USA and you’ve got some free time, you might want to check it out!

There is also a program you can order online, but it’s preposterously expensive. There are different versions of it, but the cheapest one I found cost $199.95. (Not a good price!)

I really respect Evelyn Wood and what she’s done for the world. Her research gave a jumpstart to the credibility and to the popularity of speed reading all over the world. If it weren’t for her, this website might not exist!

So now you know some history on speed reading, and if anyone ever asks you who Evelyn Wood was, you’ll have the answer!