Flash Reading
This application will flash words on the screen at a speed of your choice. Sit back, relax, and let the words come to you! Just paste in the text you would like to read, click the continue button, and you’re ready to go! If you can’t think of anything to read, try looking in Wikipedia for an article!
In the main screen of the application, you’ll find sliders to adjust the Words Per Minute (WPM) speed, the Chunk Size, and the Font Size; below are the Play, Pause, and Stop buttons. Be sure to tweak these to fit your personal ability and preference. It is recommended that you set the WPM speed to at least one notch higher (75wpm higher) than your regular reading speed, so that you push your reading speed higher than it normally goes.
The main purpose of this application is to help you read at a speed high enough that subvocalization is rendered impossible. When words flash at a certain speed, each following word will come before the completion of the subvocalization of the previous word, resulting in a sort-of “assisted speed reading”, in the sense that subvocalization is forced to be absent.
In addition to eliminating subvocalization, this application will improve your word recognition ability, and with practice, your comprehension rate as well.
So push yourself to the max, and see how fast you can go!
This application is actually just a small part of a new speed reading program we’re working on. Keep your eyes open for new details and free demos in the upcoming days.
If you want to get updates on this new software, and be notified when the FULL VERSION is available, then sign up for the “Priority Notification List” at this link: CLICK HERE for Priority Notification.
its great. I would be interetested in your views. do you stay at one word chunk and go for a faster speed or should we pushing for say 5 words at a slower speed. Also while it seems easier with the larger font, it is obviously not the norm, so should we reduce accordingly
Rgds S
Sliders that aren’t numerically measured? WPM that doesn’t have a number for each marker? And the ability only to change the font size, when everything, including font color vs screen color, screen resolution, color contrast, sarif vs sans sarif, and typefaces, to name a few, all impact on the reader’s final speed and comprehension. I am a speed reading instructor, so I’m familiar with the process, and this one doesn’t fool me for a minute.
@Sean
I usually keep the chunk size at 5 or 6, and put the WPM slider up to 1200. When you adjust the chunk size, the program recalculates the speed, so that the same amount of words per minute are flashed.
If you find it easier with the large font, then by all means, use the large font. But you also have to think about what you’re training for — do you do most of your reading on the computer, where the font size is always easily adjustable? Or do you mostly read books, where the font size is always quite small? If you’re training for books, I’d suggest decreasing the font size to something similar to what you would find in a book.
@Miriam
Strange comment… Are you commenting on the right blog?
- All of the sliders ARE numerically measured.
- Font color vs screen colour cannot possibly get more effective than black on white, so adding that option would be redundant, and would clutter the interface.
- Screen resolution is set by adjusting the desktop properties on your PC — it’s never done in an application like this.
- The current typeface allows for maximum speed. (We tested this and found that no one wanted to use other typefaces much.)
- If you’re a “speed reading instructor,” you should know that this is one of the oldest and most effective exercises for improving your reading speed. It started with the tachistoscope, used in the military to train pilots to read instructions extremely quickly. This application uses that same concept as the tachistoscope, but adds more control, and lets you read whatever you like.
This is a great tool, Stephen! Looks like you took some of the ideas from Zapreader and from Spreeder, and combined it all into something even better!
I can’t wait to see what the rest of the software does!
Thank you for making the use of this program free. I find it very useful. Please don’t pay much attention to any negative/ hostile comments you may get. These are most likely written by people selling competing software. Leaving them up on your site, instead of killing them as most sites do with negative comments, adds to your credibility in a huge way. Your YouTube commercial was excellent because it gave me a positive FEELING that brought me immediately to your site, whereas the competing YouTube commercials tried to speak to my intellect. When I try to look at the topic of speed reading from an intellectual standpoint (reading articles and so-called reviews), all I find are various shades of skepticism on the one hand and hype on the other. Thus all commercials that deal with the “facts” draw me into a negative/ skeptical mood which leads me to avoidance of their web sites. Your commercial (“This is very good”) is truly ingenious, imho. Rarely have I seen anything like it. By the way, it seems that you haven’t made your deadline for finishing your software program and making it available for sale. Please don’t give up. Hang in there and sustain purpose. You can do this. You obviously have huge talent for advertising, and your free software is very useful to me, making it possible for me to conveniently force myself to regain the modest speed reading abilities I had learned in the 80’s on my Apple II+ computer. When your full software package is complete, I hope to be able to double my speed or better, even at my staggering age (54). Regarding the promotion of your software on your web site, I suggest that you do something completely different: talk about the pros and CONS of your product. Also talk about the pros and cons on the subject of speed reading. It would put you into a unique niche with customers who cannot be easily sold through hype, “magic” words, and unquestioned assumptions such as, “everyone has the same ability to speed read regardless of age, visualization talent, visual memory ability,” etc. And find one key thing about your software that is unique. Push that hard, while allowing the competition to match or even out-do you in a few areas that you are happy to point out on your own web site. The people buying speed reading software are not the same crowd as those who, for instance, are searching for the “holy grail” of stock trading. Be level-headed with wannabe speed readers (like me). Hey, I’m an almost-over-the-hill guy, so cut me some slack for all this lecturing.
Best of luck, Morrill
When I decide that I want to go back and look at my text in the middle of a read is there any way of continuing where I left off instead of automatically starting at the beginning. Another alternative would be to have the program save where it stopped and show a cursor in the text telling you where you are. Then one could simply erase the portion that was read before returning. Or maybe since I go back many times because I wish to see where I am in the document you could have a percentage read counter or page 1/whatever indicator in the corner of the tachistoscope window.
Good ideas, Manuel! I’ll definitely include something like that in the next version.
Great app, just hope it doesn’t cause some poor fellow to undergo a seizure.