The last couple of blogs were about how to read a newspaper, a process that applies to news magazines as well.  Perhaps even more important is how you engage your brain when gathering information. 

One of my favorite websites is www.factcheck.org.  Below I have shared their article, “A Process for Avoiding Deception,” designed to help students learn to think for themselves.  I like it so well that we use it as a practice article in our speed reading classes.  I especially like the last paragraph about the rooster.  I often think of this mistaken cause-and-effect example when reading “facts” in newspapers and even health journals.  Enjoy!

 A Process for Avoiding Deception  397 words
http://factchecked.org/tools-of-the-trade/

• Keep an open mind. Most of us have biases, and we can easily fool ourselves if we don’t make a conscious effort to keep our minds open to new information. Psychologists have shown over and over again that humans naturally tend to accept any information that supports what they already believe, even if the information isn’t very reliable. And humans also naturally tend to reject information that conflicts with those beliefs, even if the information is solid. These predilections are powerful. Unless we make an active effort to listen to all sides we can become trapped into believing something that isn’t so, and won’t even know it.
• Ask the right questions. Don’t accept claims at face value; test them by asking a few questions. Who is speaking, and where are they getting their information? How can I validate what they’re saying? What facts would prove this claim wrong? Does the evidence presented really back up what’s being said? If an ad says a product is “better,” for instance, what does that mean? Better than what?
• Cross-check. Don’t rely on one source or one study, but look to see what others say. When two or three reliable sources independently report the same facts or conclusions, you can be more confident of them. But when two independent sources contradict each other, you know you need to dig more deeply to discover who’s right.
•  Consider the source. Not all sources are equal. As any CSI viewer knows, sometimes physical evidence is a better source than an eyewitness, whose memory can play tricks. And an eyewitness is more credible than somebody telling a story they heard from somebody else. By the same token, an Internet website that offers primary source material is more trustworthy than one that publishes information gained second- or third-hand. For example, official vote totals posted by a county clerk or state election board are more authoritative than election returns reported by a political blog or even a newspaper, which can be out of date or mistaken.
• Weigh the evidence. Know the difference between random anecdotes and real scientific data from controlled studies. Know how to avoid common errors of reasoning, such as assuming that one thing causes another simply because the two happen one after the other. Does a rooster’s crowing cause the sun to rise? Only a rooster would think so.

Multitasking May Hurt Your Performance, But It Makes You Feel Better.

Is It Biased? You also want to decide if the story is slanted or balanced.  For a good many years, the publisher or the editor of our local paper had a definite political bias, which was reflected in the headlines and opening paragraphs.  The balance or other side of the story did not appear until half way to two-thirds into the article.  I think they thought we’d stop reading it by then, and so I told my students during that era that they needed to look in the middle of the articles for the real story.   For a while, our local paper was much more balanced and accurate than that, but it is now balanced on some articles and not on others.  It seems they alternate days, and the articles are particularly biased near an election.  Sometimes, however, you can tell that the story was used “as is” from a press release provided by Washingon, the governor’s office, or something like that, as when a news article next to it has opposite “facts.”   

When  reading an editorial or an op-ed piece, I always read the author bio, the publication they write for, and the first and last paragraph first.  These paragraphs are usually good introductions and excellent summations.   If I think, “These comments are really wacky,” I remember what publication they work for.  There are some publications with consistent leanings so opposite of mine that I rarely like or agree with anything they have to say.  But if I need to get my adrenalin going, I’ll read them as well as the letters to the editor.  Sometimes, I actually agree with something they say!  And my horizons have been broadened a bit.  It also helps to read papers with different views.  I had a student once tell me that she never read anything she didn’t agree with.  People like her used to be rare.  Now it is easier than ever for people to shield themselves from the “danger” of an open mind.

Our next blog will be “A Process for Avoiding Deceiption from FactCheckED.org.

Mark Twain was a very wise man!  But to start with I must state that I believe in getting informed through newspapers.  I firmly support our newspaper in this day of TV soundbites and website headlines and videos.  I want my local newspaper to succeed.  I get plenty irritated with it sometimes, but I will always subscribe, read it, and let the editors know when they have missed the mark.  The key to getting the most out of a newspaper is reading it in the right way, so I’ve decided to post a series of articles on how best to read a newspaper.

Mark Twain’s statement is definitely true in too many publications, particularly those with a definite bias.  Some have a subtle bias.  Some used to only have a bias close to elections–but since it is always “the silly season” these days, it’s always good to read with a skeptical mind.  I wrote the piece below 5 years ago as a response to a student’s question.  So the examples of the articles are old news, but they are still valid.  I’ve added some current findings in italics in the body of the article.

From April 2007:  We were discussing how to read a newspaper in my introductory speed reading lesson the other night.  I always teach my students to read the first and last paragraph in journal articles and newspaper human interest stories (along with headings and visual aids) and the first paragraph in news articles.  One of my students said that she had noticed that the writers in our newspaper had started to get creative and were not getting to any facts until about the third paragraph.  So the next morning I did a survey by reading all of the first paragraphs of all the articles in our paper. (Being a speed reader really helped with that!)

The Structure  The first paragraph in most hard-news articles—business, world affairs, events and even sports–are classic journalism style with the facts presented in the opening paragraph.  The human-interest articles that accompany the hard news are told as a story, as my student was saying.  As that paper was dated the day after the tragic events at Virginia Tech, most of the main section was about that tragedy.  There were two main articles:  one on the left and one on the right with a picture in the middle.  The article on the right was straight forward with just the facts and the first paragraph containing the most pertinent information.  The article on the left was told like a story, building curiosity and interest and gradually getting to the facts.  Either way, the first paragraph sets the stage for the article, and you can quickly find out whether it is going to give you hard news you want or a human-interest story.  The human interest stories do give the facts two or three paragraphs down, but a news article gives them straight out.  By reading the first paragraph, you can determine if you want to read the rest.  Now, the front page is arranged this way only when something major has happened.  Recently, the articles on the front page are all over the place for subjects and range from journalism style to  human-interest style. 

The last paragraph in a news article is still a summation of what has been going on about that subject forever (i.e. Anna Nichole’s marriage/baby/son/death) that you would only need if you had been on a desert island for a month or two.  But you might read them, if you really have been out of touch.

Headlines can be deceiving.  They can show a real bias in a publication known for a slanted view—or possible sensationalism to grab attention.  You really can only use the headlines to determine the subject and decide if you want to read the article, not to form an opinion.  I have seen headlines that are actually opposite of the conclusions drawn from the entire article.   Sometimes I swear headline writers have never read the articles.  What sticks in my craw after decades was a headline that declared a standoff with police from a young man barricaded inside his house.  The sad truth was that the gunshots neighbors heard were the young man killing himself.  He was dead before the police arrived. 

The next blog will have more about bias and reading opinion pieces.

You know the secrets to living a longer, healthier life:  quit smoking, eat a healthy diet, get your beauty sleep, and exercise.  But did you also know that exercising your mind is just as important as exercising your body?  Exercising your mind will keep you young, keep your memory sharp, and even help ward off Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, dementia, and strokes. 

 ”When you challenge the brain, you increase the number of brain cells and the number of connections between those cells,” says Keith L. Black, M.D., chair of neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. ‘But it’s not enough to do the things you routinely do — like the daily crossword. You have to learn new things, like sudoku or a new form of bridge.”  (From Beth Howard’s article for AARP The Magazine | Feb./Mar. 2012 issue.)

There are all kinds of ways to challenge your brain.  Jack Tatar in his book, Safe 4 Retirement:  The 4 Keys to a Safe Retirement, offers several suggestions for exercising your mind:

1. Take a class.
2. Read!
3. Turn off the television unless you’re watching a documentary.
4. Talk to people with an open mind.  Remember to listen, listen, listen.
5. You know what to do.  Just go out and do it!

Another way to challenge your brain is to learn to do something in a new way.  Deliberately changing how you do something that you have been in the habit of doing one way for years and doing it a new way really excercises those brain connections.  Our speed reading course does just that.  Going from deliberately seeing and saying one to three words at a time to seeing paragrahs all at once and thinking concepts and ideas is definitely changing a habit!  It’s challenging–but doable.  It also covers all five of these suggestions listed above:  You’ll be taking a class, reading –not watching t.v., talking to new people, and we’ll get you to trust yourself enough to just do it!  This is a great way to excercise your brain and keep it young if you are retired.  You’ll get to read all those things that you’ve wanted to read for years.  It’s also a great way to excercise your brain and to keep learning no matter what age you are–and to keep your mind agile and used to challanges for your career and/or education.  Here’s to staying young and continuing to learn!

Judith Barker and Bonnie James

Speed reading has its roots in research conducted by the United States Air Force in the 1940s.  World War II fighter pilots used an instrument called a tachistoscope to identify aircraft silhouettes flashed on a screen for a fraction of a second.  Air Force scientists wondered what would happen then if the images were replaced with words.  The pilots worked up to reading four words at a time flashed on the screen at five-hundredths of a second.  This proved that with practice people could learn to read at rates much faster than “normal.”

In Advanced Reading Concepts’ early years, our fastest adult student had received Friend or Foe Recognition Training when he was in the service.  In this training, which engaged the participants’ peripheral vision, different kinds of aircraft were flashed on a screen to be recognized as friend or foe.  In battle, the pilots had to trust this recognition enough to instantly decide whether or not to push a button to bring the aircraft down.  Our student applied his earlier Friend or Foe Recognition Training to his speed reading, knowing that while using peripheral vision, the subconscious will accurately remember the information.   He told me that, while the rest of the class was initially skeptical that speed reading would work, he knew from his training that there was no doubt speed reading worked and jumped right in to apply it on the first day.

Today the United States Air Force encourages Air Force personnel to learn speed reading, which is especially important in required academic and leadership courses.  Our company has conducted many courses for them and other military organizations.  Speed reading has branched out from its roots.  Our eye techniques don’t flash words; they develop peripheral vision so that the reader sees, not individual words, but whole paragraphs at once, and, along with other comprehension techniques, they teach the reader to see the big picture as well as the details and to trust the information that the eyes have funneled to the brain to be recalled later. 

Some speed reading courses only teach eye techniques, but we use a variety of approaches to cover all kinds of written and electronic reading material from memos and emails to research reports, journals and procurement documents.  And something that our course includes (that the pilot did not need) is instruction on how to organize the information learned for later use for writing reports, taking exams and giving presentations.

Skeptics, take notice.  If no less an authority than the United States Air Force believes speed reading to be scientific fact, not science fiction, then you can believe speed reading is indeed scientific fact.

Judith Barker and Bonnie James

Bonnie James reads :Walter the Farting Dog" to 3rd grade class--showing how much fun a story can be.

How do you get a room full of 3rd graders to laugh outloud while still concentrating on a story?  Read them something hilarious.  A student at my alma mater,  the Ohio State University, asked me to participate in the NEA’s Read Across America annual reading motivation and awareness program.  It was started in 1998 on March 2nd  as a celebration of Dr. Suess’s birthday and has grown each year since.  I was asked to read to a class of third graders at Prairie Norton Elementary School where I had read to a class of first graders last year (Archie Griffin read there last year as well) and is also where I taught shortly after graduating and loved it.  I didn’t read a Dr. Suess book this time, but with permission from the teacher, I gave the students a choice of books, one of them being Walter the Farting Dog by Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray, illustrated (terrifically) by Audrey Colman and of course they chose it.  I told them to me it was a magic book and they had all kinds of suggestions as to why I would say that.  I related that it was because of how magically it changed things on the day I bought it.  Our family was at COSI and it was one of those days when no one could get along and some were pretty grouchy. On the way out, I found this book at the gift store and we shared it in the car on the way home.  Soon, everyone was laughing so hard that they couldn’t be grouchy any more. 

I asked the class who liked to read.  The majority raised their hands and a few boys did not.  (As you might have seen from other posts, there would have been more that don’t like to read if they were teens.)  When I told them that I teach teenagers and adults to like reading better by reading faster,  they seemed surprised that there are grown ups who take classes to learn to read better!  I decided to not just read the book to the class, but to start with some of the comprehension building techniques we use in our courses.  I asked them what they do before they start to read a book.  They had some really good answers–read the title, the author, flip through it to see if you’ll like it, read the back cover and read the beginning.  (In our course we call that the Overview.)  I was impressed and told them they had some good teachers.  (Their teacher in the back of the room smiled.)  I shared that I had asked the same question of a high school student recentlywho said he just started reading it.  Again, they were surprised.  I suggested that maybe he hadn’t had their good teachers, or maybe he had forgotten what he’d been taught.  

We did those things and then I read them the important dedication at the beginning of the book:  “For everyone who’s ever felt misjudged or misunderstood.”  To build on prior knowledge and get them personally involved,  I asked them if they ever had a dog that farted.  They giggled and some of theirs do.  They were shocked to learn that my cat does–but I told them that nobody’s perfect.  I asked them if they ever blamed anything they did on their dog–more giggling with some raised hands. 

Sometimes I read the page and then showed them the picture and sometimes I showed them the picture first and for really great pictures, we took the time to look at them closely before continuing the story.  During the course of the story, one of the boys raised his hand and suggested what might happen next.  I asked the class what he was doing by guessing what might happen.  They knew the answer–he was predicting or anticipating.  I told them it was good to anticipate because they would then pay attention to see if they were right.  And by looking for answers to questions, they would have better comprehension.  As we got closer to the end, there were a lot of predictions.  The children had fun finding out if they were right.  When we were done, they passed the book around.  While that was going on, some of the girls came up and were fascinated by my book earrings, my “So Many Books, So Little Time” shirt, and my book dickie.  They said, “you must really like books!”  As I was leaving, the students were back at their desks where they enjoyed answering questions their teacher asked them about the story.  It was a great experience.  Wonderful children, wondeful teacher Kelly Egbert and great school.  And I hope that those boys who said they didn’t like to read, got a feel for how fun it can be.

Read Across America is designed to motivate children to read because children who read do better in school.  NEA’s Read Across America also provides NEA members, parents, caregivers, and children the resources and activities they need to keep reading on the calendar 365 days a year.  In addition to the 3.2 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support professionals, school administrators, retired educators, and students preparing to become teachers who make up NEA membership, some 50 national organizations and associations give their support.

 It might be too late to participate in this year’s annual event, but NEA’s Read Across America  has resource materials which offer numerous opportunities for involvement in children’s reading throughout the year. According to their website, “the only thing you need to do is plan how, where, and when you will read to a child or teen in your life – everyday.”  The Read Across America has a Fan page and Cause page on Facebook and also has the Read Across America Channel on Schooltube.com for videos.

Have some fun, too!

Bonnie James

What do Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter have in common aside from having served as President of the Unites States?

1. The were all Republicans.
2. They were all Democrats.
3. They are all on Mount Rushmore.
4. They were all speedreaders.

The answer is 4.  All of these Presidents were speed readers.  Rumor has it that George Washington and Abe Lincoln were also speedreaders–but we really don’t know.   The Roosevelts were self-taught; whereas, Kennedy and Carter took speed reading classes.  Jimmy Carter participated in speed reading classes at the White House with his wife Rosalynn and daughter Amy and read two books a week even with his busy schedule.  Kennedy took speed reading classes with his brother Bobby. Both presidents then brought in speed reading instruction for their staff so that they would be productive readers as well.   JFK could read 2,500 wpm, in part because he was able to read large groups of words at a glance, and regularly read 6 newspapers front to back at breakfast.

Jimmy and Amy Carter engaged in a speedreading course at the White House.

The Roosevelts both taught themselves to speed read.  FDR began his speedreading training by reading two or three words at a time, building to reading two or three lines at a glance, and eventually working up to absorbing entire paragraphs.  Sometimes he would glance at a page, then turn the page and consider what the writer was saying.  Teddy read a book before breakfast every day when he was President and sometimes read as many as three books a day.  His comprehension and recall were fantastic:  He could remember all the important points and even quote from the books he read.

There is a bumper sticker that says Readers Are Leaders.  In the case of these presidents, we could say Speed Readers Lead.  I have met many highly successful people who have told me that they had taken a speed reading course along the way, and we have taught many rising leaders.  I taught a high school sophmore last weekend who doen’t aspire to the presidency, but he has definite leadership goals and this was a step in meeting them. You might not become a president after taking our course, but you will have the tools and confidence to reach your career and education goals.  To honor the Speed Reading Presidents, all who sign up for any of our spring courses by Wednesday, February 22nd can save $50 and take it for the student rate of $425.  Become a speedreader:  You’ll be in great company!

Judith Barker
Bonnie James

When learning a skill–be it baseball, conversational Spanish, or guitar–you know that practice is the key to mastering it.  (By mastering we mean becoming excellent, not perfect.  As Michael J. Fox once said, “I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection.  Excellence, I can reach for, perfection is God’s business.”)  In his new book Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning, Gary Marcus, a cognitive psychologist at New York University, sets out to learn to play the guitar at the advanced age of 38.  What Gary stresses in his book is that deliberate practice is the key.  “Playing for fun and repeating what you already know is not necessarily the same as efficiently reaching a new level.” 

What is important is a “constant sense of evaluation, of focusing on one’s weaknesses.”  Whether it’s your batting swing, your Spanish pronunciation, or your guitar chords, practicing them wrong is doing more harm than good.  This is true for reading as well.  To get better and better requires letting go of old habits and doing the hard work to form new habits; then practicing them to become and stay an excellent reader, while letting go of the idea of being a “perfect” reader.

I’ve heard parents complain about their children and their ability to read:  “I make him read every night for an hour, and he still is a terrible reader.”  Chances are the parents were never taught to read correctly.  They were taught just to pronounce words by pointing at each individual word making sure “they got it” (were perfect) before moving on.  This misinformation they passed on to their child.  So the child practices reading incorrectly every day and gets further entrenched in bad reading habits–and this practice is boring, even tortuous–and eventually he will hate to read .  What the child–and the grown up version of that child–needs is instruction on how to read correctly and then deliberate practice.

If you’ve already taken the Advanced Reading Concepts speedreading course, you know that mastering speedreading does not end when the course does.  It is essential that you continue to do your eyecharts and to practice the techniques you’ve learned, particularly those that are most difficult.  It is through diligent, deliberate practice that you will be a master speedreader.  If you’re a graduate and would like some help with your speedreading practice, consider purchasing our WIIFM Stick™, a little flash drive that reviews everything covered in our course.

Judith Barker

Bonnie James