How to Read Better and Faster

419 Pages·1958·7.47 MB·English

by  Norman Lewis

COPYRIGHT © 1958, 1951, 1944 BY
NORMAN LEWIS
Third Printing, May 1959
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO part of this book may be reproduced in
any form, except by a reviewer, without the permission of the publisher.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO. 57-11901
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
Mary,
Margie,
and
Debbie

Prefaces are often cavalierly ignored.
Since this one contains important infor-
mation on a time schedule for your train-
ing, it should be read before you tum to
Chapter 1.
PREFACE
TO THE THIRD EDITION
How to Read Better and Faster is a step-by-step, day-by-day train-
ing manual in the techniques of rapid and skillful reading. As such,
it is intended for careful study, intensive and exciting learning, and
immediate, practical application.
It is a manual designed for the person who wishes to become a
faster and much more efficient reader than he is today and who is
willing to spend time and creative effort toward attaining his goal;
it is planned for anyone who has a good capacity for learning and
can work enthusiastically on an immensely rewarding project. For
such a person, the training offered in these pages can produce re-
markable results—not because this book pretends in any way to be
remarkable, but because sound training in the techniques of efficient
readingis a remarkable and dynamic process, a process that actually
works, a process that unfailingly shows remarkable results in a
comparatively short period of time. With sound training it really
is possible to increase your general reading rate by 25 to 100 per
cent and simultaneously sharpen your comprehension. It is possible
becausefew people,withoutsome degree oftraining or self-training,
ever read at the high level of skill and speed that their innate
capacities make easily attainable.
Because this is a training manual, it will be calculatedly repeti-
tious, in the same way that any good classroom or clinic teacher
is repetitious—like such a teacher, it will pound and pound and
pound at the important principles, hammer and hammer at the
significant points, offer specimen after specimen for study, review
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and review and re-review, until it is certain that you have over-
lcarncd, i.e., have learned so completely that the correct reactions
come reflexively, almost automatically; it will call for practice and
more practice and still more practice, until it is assured that your
learning has been driven deep into the lower levels of conscious-
ness and has caused an actual and measurable change in your pat-
terns of thinking and response.
Such learning requires time as well as calculated frequency of
repetition. How much time? You can, of course, read through the
information in this book in a few evenings—but to get the maximum
degree of training, you should plan to cover the material in a num—
ber of successive periods of spaced learning.
Howyou space this learning willdepend on yourpersonal circum-
stances, and on the amount of free time you have, or can make,
during your typical week. An ideal and most effective schedule, and
one that I hope you will find it possible to follow, is to devote
about an hour every day, or almost every day, to your work. I
have divided the twelve chapters of the book into thirty sessions,
each of which will require anywhere from 45-60 minutes of study
and practice. This is a reasonable and realistic program that will
not unduly interfere with your other activities or with your profes-
sional, required, or leisure-time reading. Operating under such a
schedule, if you cover five sessions of material a week, you will
finish your training in about a month and a half.
Perhaps you will prefer to cover more ground each time, or you
may feel so stimulated at the indicated end of a session that you
will want to go right on with the next session. By staying with your
training for as much as two hours at a time, five days a week, you
can complete the course in well under a month.
On the otherhand, ifyou find it possible to work on your training
only two or three days a week, one session each day, it will be
about three to four months before you turn the last page. This, too,
is a good schedule and one that will produce excellent results.
In any event, bear in mind that your total training should take
no more than four months; that short, frequent sessions, especially
when you feel fresh, result in the best learning; and that the im-
portant thing is to decide on a reasonable and convenient schedule
and then to follow that schedule methodically, even religiously.
Now, before you turn to chapter 1, glance at the table of con-
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