# Speed reading courses in dublin?



## dublinsense (15 Aug 2006)

Does anyone know of any good speed reading courses in dublin??? Has anyone had good / bad experiences with speed reading??


----------



## envelope (15 Aug 2006)

*Re: Speed reading courses in dublin???*

what is speed reading?? sounds like it could help with my cramming for exams in 3 weeks.


----------



## Beefs (15 Aug 2006)

*Re: Speed reading courses in dublin???*

I did a course with a company called Reading Development Institute based in Bray, Co. Wicklow - ph: (01) 2865553/087-2295489. Email: reading@ireland.com

It wasn't really what I was looking for - just took course out of interest - but picked up some useful tips!


----------



## redbhoy (16 Aug 2006)

Tony Buzan's 'speed reading' book is worth a look. Costs about 12 euro in easons.
Some interesting stuff in it including some unbelievable claims of how quick some people were able to read.


----------



## dublinsense (16 Aug 2006)

Hey envelope, Speed reading is a technique thats makes develops your reading speed. Some people can read 1000 words a minute (apparently - well so a business guy called Wayne Dwyer in america said in a book i just read). I think most courses claim to double or triple students reading speeds, so i thought its worth a shot.

Got intouch with the reading development, thanks beefs. Any other recommendations?? Anyone heard of mary Meaney?? Is her course any good?


----------



## gianni (16 Aug 2006)

There is/was a sign for it on the railings of a house in Ranelagh village. It looked as though the house was the location of the office/school. The house was one of the big tudor houses to the left of the entrance to Sandford Park school.


----------



## envelope (16 Aug 2006)

thanks, sounds good.  could come in very handy


----------



## efm (16 Aug 2006)

From my recollection of the short course I did on speed reading the key to the technique was to realise that to understand a sentence in english one doesn't need to read every single word in a sentence. Also the eye can capture more than one word at a time so the key is to break a sentence into managable groups and make your eyes "jump" from group to group without neccessarily reading every word. (If I remember the optimal was 3 groups but it depended on the size of the text and the page - for newspapers you should try and read each line in one go because the lines are narrow)

Once this relatively simple technique was understood it was then a matter of practice to increase your level of comprehension and retention while using the technique.

It was also pointed out that most people will read "non technical" text much faster than "technical" text - ie you will read a novel much faster than you would read a maths text.

From memory I believe I was timed at reading "non technical" at 450 words per minute with 80% comprehension and "techincal" at 250-275 words per minute with 70% comprehension.

However, I have found I rarely speed read when reading for recreation as it kind of defeats the purpose and you don't get to enjoy the talent (or lack thereof) of the author as much if you rush through the text.

I also found it was most useful for "wordy" technical text eg history, law, HR, psychology etc but not as good for science based text eg maths, accounting, statistics etc. I also found that in areas like philosophy and "english literature" I would miss some of the important nuances within the text by only focusing on the "big" words.


----------



## ajapale (23 Oct 2010)

mod bump


----------



## Bob the slob (26 Oct 2010)

whats it for exactly? i did a class memory techniques course if thats the reason for doing it.


----------



## ajapale (1 Oct 2011)

Over the years on AAM we have had many discussions about speed reading and memory techniques. If I find the links Ill post them here.

I remember reading interesting books and letters to the Irish Times by Joe Foyle some years back. Twenty years ago (or more) Joe was extolling the value of speed writing as well as speed reading.



gianni said:


> There is/was a sign for it on the railings of a  house in Ranelagh village. It looked as though the house was the  location of the office/school. The house was one of the big tudor houses  to the left of the entrance to Sandford Park school.


 I think thats Joe Foyle who must be into his nineties at this stage!


----------

