PIANISTS Read 3 Lines At Once — WHY CAN’T YOU?
Have you ever watched a pianist closely while they played a complicated piece of music? I used to watch my mother while she played the piano or the organ in church on Sundays. I could never figure out how she could see so many lines of notes at once while she played.
It seemed so impossible.
And yet, she continued to read multiple lines of music while playing the notes with her fingers, on both hands.
And my mother wasn’t unique in her musical skills. There are literally millions of piano players just like her (or even better than her) out there.
About 20 years ago, I had a conversation with a 35-year old Natural Speed Reader who was a chiropractor in a nearby city. She has been a Speed Reader as far back as she could remember (nobody ever taught her to Speed Read — she was a Natural Speed Reader). As she described the way that she Speed Reads, I realized that she was consistently reading 3 lines at a time.
Every time that her eyes would sweep from left to right on a page of print, she was seeing 3 lines at once, instead of the normal 1-line-at-time that most of us read. And with the next sweep of her eyes, she would take in the next 3 lines of print on the page.
In only 8 to 10 eye-sweeps, she was done with every page. I estimate that she was likely reading 1,500 to 1,800 words per minute.
No wonder she was done with her homework every night by 10:00 pm while she was in Chiropractic college. Her fellow students consistently studied until 2:00 in the morning.
Almost every YouTube video on Speed Reading teaches people to see 2, 3 or even 4 words per glance. But almost nobody points out the obvious fact that our eyes aren’t limited to seeing things horizontally. We can also expand our vision vertically, to see more than one line at once.
I’ve conducted experiments with young children and they learn how to read multiple lines much more easily than adults do. But there are many adults that catch on to this. Maybe you can, too.
If you want to try reading 3 lines at a time, a good way to begin is to get a Kindle app, and set it so that the size of the font is pretty large (as in the picture above). Then, with your index finger, simply swipe 3 lines of print to your left, once every second. By doing this, you’ll be reading about 660 words per minute. That’s twice as fast as most college graduates!
You may find different variations in style, in viewing all the words in the 3 lines. For example, you may simply move your eyes horizontally, in a straight line, left to right across the middle line, while taking in all 3 lines.
Or, alternately, you could move your eyes across in a “wavy zig-zag” as you move your eyes to the right, over the 3 lines. For some people, the “straight line” eye pattern will bring better comprehension. For others, their brain will register better comprehension by viewing the words with the wavy eye-pattern. Everybody’s brain works differently. So, don’t be afraid to experiment.
ONE MORE THING that will help you to understand stories at higher speeds while retaining comprehension better: While you are seeing 6, 8, 10 words per second — FOCUS your mind on converting the whole story into a MOVIE in your mind. The better you visualize that little movie in your mind, the better your comprehension will be. Work on this detail and your comprehension at higher rates of reading speed will SOAR.
With 10–20 minutes of practice each day, you’ll get confident at reading 3 lines at-a-time, and you’ll get used to your new reading speed within a few days.
Please watch the following video to see one explanation of how it works:
This little exercise isn’t just for adults or teens. You may be surprised to know that little kids catch on to “3-lines-at-once Speed Reading” much more easily than grownups do. (That is, if they can already read.)
Try it with your children today.
There is a really good probability that your children will do better at this than you can, and with very little practice. In fact, they may improvise methods that are unimaginable, and raise this skill to a whole new level.
Please email me and let me know how this goes for you.
Thanks,
George Stancliffe, author of Speed Reading 4 Kids