Remember Everything You Read: The Evelyn Wood 7-Day Speed Reading \& Learning Program pdfdrive com

particularly important, then it’s probably a good idea to revert to the
subvocal approach. But if your main objective is to absorb the meaning
of the passage as effectively as possible, the visual-vertical approach will
be more appropriate.
How to Fine-Tune Your Hidden Voice
Subvocal linear reading is clearly an important part of your repertoire of
reading skills. Becoming proficient in this slower-paced technique will
increase your reading speed far beyond its present rate and is an
essential first step in Mentally Soaring with visual-vertical reading.
But how exactly do you fine-tune this skill?
First, it’s important to evaluate accurately, in hard, clear terms, just
how fast you can expect to read using the subvocal linear approach.
Second, you must learn to anticipate and overcome the speed plateaus
you’ll encounter periodically as your reading speed increases.

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Specifically, as you develop your subvocal linear skills, you may
expect to move through these levels:
• 
200–400 words per minute.
In this speed range, you are reading rather
inefficiently. There are periodic or frequent regressions, where you
stop and look back over material you’ve already supposedly read. Your
mind tends to wander, and your concentration is relatively poor.
• 
400–600 words per minute.
At this plateau, your subvocal linear reading
has become more efficient. You regress infrequently, if at all, and are
most likely making good use of the simple underlining hand motion to
pace yourself. (I’ll describe this technique shortly.)
• 
600–900 words per minute.
This is the highest possible speed for those
using the subvocal linear approach. It does represent a significant level
of achievement. At this level you do not regress; your concentration is
high; and your underlining hand motions and horizontal, linear eye
movements are operating at their top level of efficiency.
About 900 words per minute is the absolute maximum speed a student
can hope to reach by using the subvocal linear technique. In a sense, this
speed represents a kind of “sound barrier” for speed reading. To break
through it, you need to employ different tools and techniques. It’s at this
point that visual-vertical reading and other, more sophisticated study
strategies and hand motions become necessary.
On the other hand, although there is an outside limit to this subvocal,
“subsonic” kind of mental flight, those who have perfected this
technique really do seem to untrained readers to be whizzing quickly
through the printed page. The difference between this top subvocal
linear plateau and the average student’s reading speed is startling in
many ways.
Think about it for a moment: A person reading a 90,000-word book at
900 words per minute would finish in 100 minutes, or an hour and forty
minutes. By contrast, a student reading at the average of 250 words per
minute would take 360 minutes, or six hours.
So if you never move through the 900-word-per-minute barrier, you’ll
still be in much better shape than if you stay at your present level. On
the other hand, I can promise you that you will crash through that

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subvocal barrier into the realm of Mental Soaring—
if
you first learn the
basics of subvocal linear reading, and then try the visual-vertical
approach.
Now, what are these basics that can turn you into a highly efficient
subvocal linear reader and move you up toward the 900-word-per-
minute barrier?
The tools and techniques you’ll need are basically quite simple. I’ve
already referred to them briefly in the first chapter and encouraged you
to begin using them, as I expect you’re doing right now. In more detail,
here are the basics I’ve already introduced, along with some new tips
and techniques: