Speed Reading with the Right Brain: Learn to Read Ideas Instead of Just Words

From page one, I felt connected with the writer. Like him, I have been frustrated by reading at a snail's pace.And I'd like to thank Dan for writing this book. He opined his reading to be slow at an age I've yet to reach. But I think he wrote it at just the right time because this feels like the type of wisdom that comes with age. He has thought a great deal about his subject and addressed it thoroughly.I'm glad I picked Speed Reading with the Right Brain as my first on the topic of speed reading because Dan is very familiar with the rest of the scene and he has seen for himself that some “methods” are advertised to produce more exaggerated results than most of us reach.If a headline promises you'll read a 200-pager in an hour, yet the number of people who reach 400 WPM is so small . . . you start to think there's more going on here than what some sales messages say.Largely, that is what attracted me to this book rather than others. The frankly-put title, description, and first few pages drew me in. You can see its message is about understanding your brain and why you read at your current speed, rather than selling it based on a result that can't be guaranteed.It is also easy to read.The passages used for exercise are from classics like Frankenstein, from writers with distinct voices . . . making the practice sessions a journey through various styles of story.This, in its way, helped to raise the point of the book.You see, many factors affect the speed you read at, perhaps the most important being better comprehension.It gets you into a flow state where the words are just flying by, and you find yourself INSIDE the book, living the lives of the characters, talking to them, smelling the ocean with them, feeling what they feel. That is the power of the right brain: to think conceptually and to let you envision what you're reading to such an extent that you're part of it.So, if you read something with an obscure vocabulary and language that's not sensory, it makes sense that you'll slow down. So, too, is it only rational that you may want to take your time to stop and think about what you've read more often when you're reading non-fiction.The greatest value I got from this book is the way it helped me to think about how and why I read rather than dictating techniques to speed up (which are also covered).It introduces principles that act as a new way to think about reading and can be internalized to reach your ideal reading speed in a natural, beautiful way.Speed Reading with the Right Brain gets you to question how you approach reading faster and, therefore, it is exactly what I was looking for.

I read a great deal and constantly have too much to read, so I have gone through a lot of speed reading stuff--videos, books, software, you name it. And I kept getting frustrated because it wasn't working like it was supposed to. Now, thanks to David Butler, I know why.If anyone wants to learn speed reading, I suggest they go through his book first. (I certainly wish I had.) That way when they start coming across weird eye movement training, or odd things to do with their hands on the page, or instructions to read without comprehending (which by some magical process is supposed to kick in later), and so on, they will have a decent context for it. I will not judge anyone who gets value from that stuff, but it didn't work out for me.btw - It says I am reviewing the Kindle version. Probably my mistake, but it's too much of a hassle to fix this. I did get the Kindle version, but I bought the printed version, too. And that's the one I read. Good thing, too, because I was able to mark it up.David Butler's concept of "speed comprehension" works far, far better. Also, he goes into lots of discussions related to speed reading, the history of it, how the mind processes information, and so on.I read one chapter a day--very carefully--in order to let the exercise at the end (which I read twice) make an accumulated effect. As there are twenty chapters, that took twenty days. I like my progress and improvement so much, I am going to do it all over for another round. As a bonus, there are several classics (which he used for the exercises--he used the first 1,000 words of each) I now want to read. Also, there are other texts formatted by him and he has a free online training software that I intend to get back to (after screwing it up the first time around a couple of years ago).The reason I'm not jumping straight into the extra stuff right now after reading Butler's book is that his novelty method of alternating black with gray text in order to emphasize conceptual groupings of words on the page is clever, and it probably helped, but I did not find it essential to improving my reading. My conceptual groupings seem to fall naturally to slightly larger numbers of words than his. Still, I use the same idea and it is extremely powerful.Frankly, after one failed attempt after another at speed reading, I'm relieved to find out that I'm not crazy or mentally deficient. (At least not because of speed reading trouble. :) ) That alone is worth the value of this book. But it's good to know I can improve my reading--both speed and comprehension--for real, as I have already done. Not super-speeds, but solid. It's also good to know I can improve even more over time with this system and, based on my own experience, know it will work.

I appreciate the work that the author put in this book, I really did the excersices and I believe that this methodology works for me. I enjoyed a lot the training and feel very enthusiastic to practice this method with a lot the books. It's a great 👍 work. Congrats 👏

Something diferrent and smart on the field of speed reading and its good do know about it although some things cant be exactly useful.

I had too bought courses for reading faster and the emphasise on not needed to comprehend was always there.I feel that is why my progress has slowed, this book however seems to preach a much more realistic way of effective reading which i will look to apply in all my reading moving forwardThanks David for seeing the right and getting to the correct facts through all the noise that is out there in the speed reading industry

Center of the whole book: comprehension and read ideas not words. These two aspects really made a change for good in my way of reading a book. Used to get really tired after reading 3 pages, now I know why: no imagination while reading just decoding.. that is boring. Reading ideas is so much powerful and enjoyable. Thumbs up for this book

this is a different to the usual approach to this subject and it makes far more sense.it is easier to learn and whats more it works