Reading With the Right Brain: Read Faster by Reading Ideas Instead of Just Words (8 page)

1. Read meaningful groups of words at a time.
   
2. Concentrate on whole ideas instead of words.
   
3. Conceptualize the meanings of those ideas.
   

This can even be further shortened to simply:
Conceptualize
the
ideas
of
meaningful word-groups
.

That’s it; the rest takes practice. Simply put, reading faster requires comprehending faster.

That’s
how
you do it, but of course the only way to turn knowledge into skill is by doing. But although there is practice required, I promise I’m not going to waste your time with a bunch of strange and impractical exercises. You won’t be asked to dwell on things that don’t work, don’t interest you, and don’t make sense. Instead, the specially formatted practice exercises are a kind of rapid immersion into reading for ideas.

But please do me a favor…

Forget your dreams of becoming the next Kim Peek. You’ve probably heard of incredible savants like Mr. Peek, amazing people who can read thousands of words per minute. Very few people are savants, and I would think few would want to be. These rare people are not what they may seem. They can “read” at astonishing speeds—often even remembering every word—but the fact is, they usually don’t understand what they’ve read. They may be able to recite every word of a book, but they can’t actually have a conversation about it. In this way, they are a bit like human computers: all speed and memory, but no comprehension.

The goal of this book is not to make you a savant, but to give you something valuable and honest, the ability to get more out of what you read—in less time—by
improving your comprehension
.

So, how do you improve your comprehension? The answer is surprisingly and almost deceptively simple: by
improving your thinking
.

Strangely, the thinking part of reading is often taken for granted. People frequently imagine that learning to read simply involves learning how to recognize written words, but words are practically meaningless without the context of their surrounding words.

Not until you think about what whole groups of words mean does text become ideas and raw data becomes meaningful information. “Thinking” is what happens when data is conceptualized—when it is classified, categorized, filtered, and evaluated as to what it means to
you
. When you conceptualize the ideas of meaningful word-groups, you translate the text from words into information. And when this information is associated with previous information, it becomes new knowledge by modifying your existing information.

So let’s explore what these three “reading tricks” mean.

Trick 1
- Read Meaningful Groups of Words at a Time

To understand faster, you will need to read whole groups of words at a time. And in order to understand word-groups at a glance, these must be groups of words which form independently meaningful ideas on their own. But you already do this.

Reading multiple words at once is not a new idea. For example, before 1940, the word “percent” was more commonly written, and understood, as two words: “per” and “cent.”

Today, “percent” is not only considered one word, but a single, unified idea as well. The two ideas, “per” as
for each
and “cent” as
one hundredth
, were combined into a new larger and more complex idea. After constant and regular use together, the two words gradually became accepted as one word, “percent,” with one meaning,
for each one hundredth
. Joining these words meant more than just omitting the space between them; it meant actually beginning to think of this word-group as a separate, uniquely distinct idea of its own.

This is the same way many compound words were created—they started as separate words and became meaningful word-groups. The words were combined because it was easier and faster to think of them as single, complete concepts.

So we’ve always combined meaningful word-groups. Now, we are taking it to the next level by combining even more words. Just as you can immediately understand the whole concept of a compound word—such as “
forever
” (1890), “
nearby”
(1925), or “
worthwhile
” (1960)—you can also instantly imagine the concept of a multi-word thought unit—such as “
for-a-while,
” “
near-my-house,
” or “
worth-your-time.
”

The point is, it has always been possible to read words together as long as the word-groups formed meaningful ideas; reading thought-units is just a further extension of this process of thinking and communicating in larger, more complex—and thereby more efficient—conceptual ideas.

Trick 2
- Concentrate on Whole Ideas Instead of Words

The only way to be able to understand word-groups at a glance is to think of them as ideas rather than just words.

You can’t
say
two words at the same time because it’s not possible to pronounce words simultaneously, one on top of the other. Even if you could, it would not be possible to understand the resulting cacophony. Likewise, it’s also not possible to
think
of separate words simultaneously.

But it
is
possible to think of complete and more complex ideas—single thoughts represented by groups of words—all at once. In fact, it’s even easier to imagine the meaning of such word-groups, because their combined information is more specific. For example, “driving rain” is more specific and easier to imagine than just the words “driving” or “rain” alone. The single words “driving” or “rain,” without the context of supporting information, are so vague as to make it almost impossible to know what to imagine. Words have definitions, but real meaning is determined by the way multiple words are put together.

The information from a single word is so small and vague that it is usually difficult for our minds to know what to do with it before we connect it with its neighboring words. A meaningful word-group though is much easier and quicker to imagine and understand.

The larger ideas represented by groups of words are not only easier to imagine, but they are also easier to connect to our previous knowledge, making for stronger and longer lasting memories. These word-groups are easier to connect because they have more potential connection points due to the larger number of attributes each of them contains.

For instance, consider the two words “red” and “cat.” “Red” can connect to our knowledge of colors, and “cat” can connect to our knowledge of animals.

But “red cat” taken as one complete thought—even though it is only two words long—can connect to both
colors
AND
animals
. These extra connection points make this larger, more complex idea
stickier
, which makes it faster to imagine and easier to remember. When you think of “red cat,” your mind can associate it with red things as well as with animals.

Of course, this example has been intentionally over-simplified to make a point. There are actually many possible connections for either “red” or “cat.” For example, “red” can be associated with bright things or danger. And “cat” can be associated with furry things or pets. Furthermore, by considering “red cat” as a complete thought, you also introduce additional points of contact, such as unusual cats (because red is an unusual color for a cat) and unusual red things. The larger and more complex an idea, the more ways you will have to remember it and the more things it will remind you of.

The main point here is that larger, more complex ideas have many more possible points of contact in your mind. Think of those stubborn little burrs that get stuck in your socks—the more points they have, the easier they stick and the longer they hang on.

Trick 3
- Conceptualize the Meaning of These Ideas

This is a simple, yet powerful trick to get your right hemisphere involved. By conceptualizing ideas, you force your mind into a conceptual thinking mode. When you see a phrase—for example "the fat blue dog"—and you conceptualize this by imagining it as an image, the image will cause several more neurons to fire than would have if you had only thought of the words and their sounds. Your mind will also instantly pay more attention because humans are very visual animals and images are what our brains crave most.

Please note that I will often use the words "conceptualizing" and "visualizing" interchangeably. There will be more discussion of these terms later, but the basically, visualizing is a subset of conceptualizing, and because of this relationship, doing one often leads to the other.

Now, although conceptualizing is actually a simple trick, it may not seem so simple to actually sustain at first, and you may feel yourself going into and out of the conceptualizing zone. Here’s why:

When you visualize the meaning of phrases, the ideas will seem to leap off the page and into your mind as your right brain focuses on the conceptual nature of the information. However, it takes practice to learn to “see” ideas as you read, and at first this process may slow your reading. You may then become impatient and be tempted to return to your old way of reading—by simply connecting text to matching words and sounds. And if you get frustrated and skip visualizing one phrase, it makes it harder to visualize the next one, and then the next. You will lose your connection with the material, but you will still be tempted to keep reading along anyway, without visualizing and without
comprehending
.

This type of mental “blanking out” is an important thing to understand. It happens often in reading, and it’s necessary to consider the cause in order to prevent it. It isn’t that you are not paying enough attention or concentrating hard enough. The problem is that your chain of comprehension becomes broken when you skip a piece of information.

Imagine your concentration as an airplane trying to take off. But the engine begins to sputter—first once, then a few times. Each time the engine misfires makes it harder to get off the ground, and as long as this happens, it will never gain enough power to become airborne. If it can gain enough speed to liftoff, then staying airborne will be relatively easy.

Similarly, each time your concentration misfires, it also loses power. It takes discipline and effort to conceptually visualize what you are reading, but this visualizing will get your powerful right brain involved in reading and lift your reading into the higher conceptual comprehension necessary for faster reading. This participation of your right hemisphere will also make your reading come more alive as you begin seeing the larger conceptual nature of the ideas you are reading.

The act of using your visual right hemisphere will also cause you to direct additional mental attention to the information, and it will cause you to filter out more distractions. The text will also become more meaningful since even attempting to visualize forces you to actually
think
about what the text means.

At this point, we have mostly considered visual imagery, but visualizing pictures is only one form of conceptualizing. We will get more into other types of conceptualizing later, including how to conceptualize unobservable ideas, but for now at least make sure to actively
think
about what you’re reading. Instead of your consciousness just sitting back and listening to you read it a story, you will use conceptual images to wake it up and say, “Pay attention. This is important.”

Keep These Tips in Mind

• Visualize. The brain is wired to notice and react more quickly and emotionally to visuals.
  
• Thought-units are ideas, not sounds; think about what they
  mean
  .
  
• Words in thought-units give each other context and become more meaningful. Looking for that meaning will help you to see those word-groups.
  
• If at times you get stuck and lose concentration, stop focusing on speed. Refocus on ideas by forcing your brain to visualize. Concentrate on comprehension and the speed will come.
  

The suggestions in this book may appear unusual to some people, but have you noticed that the other methods aren’t working? Learning to read phrases is as simple as it is uncommon; it’s a simple
uncommon
-sense solution to reading more efficiently, effectively, powerfully, and quickly.