European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 22, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                The dynamics of Speed Reading demystified Bomarc Idunn associated press ack in the sixties when stood Reading was the rage comedian Woody Allen quipped i read War and peace in 15 minutes. It s about  that s overdrawn but Speed readers Don t comprehend More that the Gist of a ext unless it deals with familiar subjects,.two researchers say you Don t want you lawyer Speed Reading says Marcel just a psychology professor at Pittsburgh s Carnegie Mellon University Speed Reading has its uses and to Don t mean to debunk Speed Reading says just. But some claims Are not accurate. One hears almost anecdotally about people Reading �,000 words a minute or something fantastic like 10,000 words a minute. Vet there s Seldom perhaps never a lest of comprehension he says. Some people do read fast even really really last to race through Mounds of material but there s nothing magical or supernatural about that just says. Many intellectual feats Are like that he adds citing championship chess As an example. While hey Are still very impressive it s when you Analyse them that they gel  by monitoring Eye movement with a computerized track just and Patricia Carpenter his research partner and wife pick out about every third word regardless of size or importance. The result they say is a vague understanding but within its limitations there s a Lime and place for Speed Reading depending on the Reader s purpose and material according to the . The couple s Speed Reading study is one of the first at its kind dealing with that skill the study is reported in their new textbook. The psychology of heading and language comprehension. Speed Reading was popularized through Evelyn Wood a former Utah school teacher who opened her first Reading dynamics Institute in 1959, she Lauril readers to guide i Teir eyes Down a Page with a rhythmic hand movement and to take in groups of words at a time. She cautioned readers against saying the words in their Heads a habit she said slowed them Down. A person who Speed reads and does in correctly can read with belter comprehension i m sure of in says Wood who is now 78, we be had too Many hundreds of thousands of people who could do  since 1359, More than 2 million people have passed through the Evelyn Wood Reading dynamics program now owned and operated by american learning corp. A subsidiary of encyclopedia Britannica inc. The Roll Speed a afdera pick third word Myrtt Zarchan Patricia cart nor  with computerized Eye tracker included the staff of president John Kennedy and president Jimmy Carter and his family. In addition 46 major . Corporations such As ism and general motors have altered the course for employees according to Claire Carlyle director of Speed Reading for american learning corp. The average person who takes this course is usually a professional looking to improve his Reading skills to try to Clear the paperwork Oil his desk or get through journals quicker is. Carlyle said. Although still popular Speed Reading no longer attracts As much attention irom educators As it did during the 1960s and t970a, said Alan Farstrup director of research and development Lor the internal clonal Reading association. Speed Reading he says allows you to plow through Iho material and find those places where you really need to read Wilh care. You just have to be realistic about what it does for  Long intrigued by the mental processes of Reading and Why some people Are better readers than others just and Carpenter decided to study Speed Reading when a subject in one of their adult Reading tests proved to be an extraordinarily rapid Reader. Their Opportunity came in late 1979 when an Evelyn Wood course was offered Al Carnegie Mellon of the students and University Stalf members enrolled in the seven week program. 11 agreed to take Par in the professors Experiment. Three were tested before and after the course White others were studied immediately afterwards we studied people As they stepped out of the  As opposed of those Wilh years of practice just said. Just Carpenter end research associate Michael mass ii compared the 11 Speed readers who clocked in at about 700 words a minute to 25 University affiliated people who had never studied Speed Reading. Half the untrained readers were asked to read at a Normal rate or about 200 to 250 words a minute. The other half instructed to Shim zipped along at about 600 words a minute. The 36 subjects were Given relatively easy sex carols irom Reader s digest on familiar topics such As the adventures of a 19th-Century american frontiersman As Well As technical articles irom scientific american. The lexis 1,500 to 2,000 words each were presented on a video Monitor. One by one Day by Day for several weeks the subjects read the articles As instructed using a Long Pointer to Pace themselves while moving through the text. The computer recorded the duration of the readers gaze on each word indicating exactly what was being looked at and what was being missed. Just and Carpenter found that the Normal readers looked at 64 percent of the words compared to 33 percent for the Evelyn Wood students and 40 percent for the untrained skimmers. In addition the Normal readers spent an average 330 dreams of Universal literacy Bomarc Idunn associated press despite a crippling stroke and a Long recovery. Evelyn Wood the Grande Dame at Speed Reading still is championing the quickens Bailer cause and dreaming o Universal literacy. And Al age 7b, Che still is stood Reading. I could t stand it it i did t stood  she said speaking in a soft faint voice irom a wheelchair at her daughter s Home in Tucson Ariz. Since the 1976 stroke that Lor years lot nor unable to Wafic or talk i be become More appreciate of Reading and what it should do Lor me she said in e Telephone interview. The Lormer Utah schoolteacher who launched her International network of Speed Reading institutes 28 years ago has contended from the Start that anyone can read three to 10 limes taster with practice while comprehending and remembering More i m certain a person can do much better Reading faster than he can Reading slower said mrs. Wood the most important thing is Hel people Start getting something out of what they re Reading thai s the thing that started Evelyn in the Lisl  said Doug Wood 83, her husband of 57 years. Mrs Wood was seeking neither Fame nor Fortune when she became interested in Speed Reading during the 1940s while doing graduate work Al the University of Utah she discovered one of her processors could read 6,000 words a minute with Atmos 100 percent  i was so excited i could hardly stand it she recalled. I started asking questions. I wanted to know what to did and How he  mis Wood taught her first Reading class a remedial course while working As a High school Counselor during the 1950s. Tests administered by the school psychologist showed she increased students Reading skills by More than Lour times in a single year. At the same time. Mrs Wood was offering Speed Reading classes at the University of Utah the program was so popular that students lined up with sleeping bags the night Bosforo to assure themselves a spot in the course. At the urging of friends and colleagues the Woods moved to Washington. Doand opened the first Page 14 the stars and stripes sunday