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Exercise: Eye Swing
You can train your eyes to pick up key words. Learning to "swing" your eyes helps them become
more familiar with the efficient eye movements necessary for faster reading. With a little practice,
you develop a smooth reading rhythm.
Begin reading by stopping your eyes on the thick line at the beginning of the first line. Then jump
your eyes over the dots to the next thick line. Continue to the end of the paragraph. Do not move your
head: Let your eyes do the moving. Try this exercise several times as quickly and as accurately as you
can. You can return to this exercise whenever you feel it is necessary.
Exercise: Discipline Your Eyes
This exercise was originally published in 1956 in Reading Improvement for Adults by Paul
Leedy (McGraw-Hill), and to this day I still use it effectively in my seminars. It is a simple yet
incredibly powerful drill for building efficient eye movements.
1. On a separate piece of paper, draw a chart with two columns: Date, and Time
2. Put today's date under the date column.
3. With a clock with a second hand next to you or a stopwatch, time how long it takes to read the
exercise. It may take you as long as two minutes or as little as thirty seconds.
•Read across the lines, not down.
•Read for comprehension.
The purpose of this drill is to discipline
the little muscles that move the eyes from left to right.
Incorrect habits of reading have frequently caused
these muscles to behave in an undisciplined
and inefficient manner. Try to make your eyes march ahead
in three rhythmic leaps across the line.
Try to feel the tiny tug on these six
little muscles that move each eye. You will note
that some phrases are short others are longer.
This is done intentionally. The amount
of line width that various people can see differs
with the individual. In these exercises try to group
as one eyeful all the words in the unit;
look at a point just about midway in each word group.
At times you will feel as though the field
of your vision is being stretched. So much the better!
At other times the phrase will be too short.
We shall strive for wider and wider units as we proceed.
In that way your eyes will grasp more and more
at a glance. Read this exercise two or three times
every day for a few days. Try always
to cut down on the time that it took you
to read it each preceding time. You will soon get
the knack of it. Do not let your eyes "skid"
or "slide" when you look at a phrase.
Look at it in the middle. Give it a strong,
fleeting glance. See it all, in one look;
then be off to see the next and the next,
and so on to the very end of the exercise.
And now, how long did it take you
to read this? Put your time on your time chart.
Now write your total time in minutes and seconds next to today's date under the time column. At
this point, you have read and understood what the exercise described. You now have something
extremely valuable you did not have a minute ago. Can you guess what it is? What is one of the most
valuable pieces of information you can have as a reader? Background knowledge! Use this
knowledge to really help you push yourself on this exercise.
Now read this exercise again, timing yourself. But this time read for speed, not comprehension.
Then track your score on your time chart. On your mark, get set, go!
When you read it the second time, you may have felt a reading rhythm of three stops and
three jumps across the line. Because your eye muscles were stretched out from the first time you did
the exercise, the words flowed better to your eyes the second time. If you can identify the intended
rhythm of this exercise, then it is easier to re-create it with your own material.
Your timing goal of the exercise is between fifteen and forty seconds. If you can consistently read
this within this time frame, you are well on your way to building efficient eye movements.
Now that you are familiar with both the Eye Swing and Discipline Your Eyes, which works best
for you?
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