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Does anyone have any experience with the Effective Reading program? (http://www.effectivereading.com/) I've seen a few flyers around campus mentioning a 'free seminar' tomorrow and Thursday, and the claims piqued my interest. Seems like the claims are 'too good to be true', e.g. doubling reading rate and retention, but with the workloads at Berkeley - any little improvement might help. The course itself, which tomorrow's seminar just baits you for, costs $270. Is it snake oil? Bona fide? Worth it?

By Esun (Esun) on Thursday, September 02, 2004 - 01:03 am: Edit

I've taken a speed reading course before (a looong time ago). Didn't help much. It taught methods for reading faster (scroll along reading 3-4 words at a time with 3 fingers). It "taught" me how to retain information (basically by having you read a paragraph or two, then regurgitate what it said--a brute force practice method).

You have to remember that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If your reading sucks, then it could help you. If you are average, it probably won't do you much good. Of course, there's absolutely no harm in going to a free seminar, so you might as well check it out.

BTW I've seen the flyers as well, but I definitely will not bother going to the seminar.

By Flamingo (Flamingo) on Thursday, September 02, 2004 - 09:42 pm: Edit

its too late now, i guess. In any case, i went to the first speed reading seminar. I've been to other speed reading courses before, where they teach you to scroll along the page with three fingers (like wat Esun said). This seminar did that, too.

One thing the seminar did do immediately doubled my reading speed (from ~300wpm to ~650wpm w/ maximum comprehension-->I read slowly.)The instructer had us turn our reading material upside down and scroll through the material (with the cupped three fingers)at super quick speeds.

The point wasn't to actually understand what was read (as the material was all upside down), but to recognize words and to make our eyes move quicker.

I don't actually intend on paying for the reading classes, but just practicing the techniques i learned.

hope that helps.