A recent visitor to my site inquiring about speed reading asked, “How can I move away from actually saying the words, and learn how to identify the symbols?” The question demonstrates a knowledge of one of the difficult habits to overcome in learning to speed read – sub-vocalization. Sub-vocalization is seeing the words, then saying the words in your mind, then hearing the words, and finally understanding them. It is a four step process. Reading is defined as getting meaning from printed materials – seeing them, and creating understanding. Theoretically, reading should be only two steps. This article will give 7 tips to overcome and transform this process.

Sub-vocalization is heralded by most uninformed pundits as the primary block to slow reading. It is a difficult habit to overcome. Too often speed reading learners get too hung up in the beginning because they become so focused on this habit. It is a problem for speed reading depending on how you define speed reading. If someone currently reads at 250 wpm (words per minute), and then learns to read at 500 wpm, is that speed reading? If so, that is still a speed in which the spoken word can still be understood, but it is below the visual reading threshold which occurs at about 600 wpm. From my experience of using and training tens of thousands of learners, speed reading occurs much faster than that.

Tip One – Get physical – learn to move the eyes more rapidly and fluidly over the print. All speed reading programs cover some sort of physical eye training. Unfortunately, most programs stop with the physical training, and that is one reason why speed reading programs often get negative reviews. Keep in mind the eyes are the mechanics in reading. Learning to move the eyes more fluidly and getting them unstuck from focusing on single words and phrases is very important to getting the mind to respond faster. You do need to see the words faster. But in the early stages, this can be unsettling. Know that you are making dramatic changes to your perceptual processing of the material and stay focused and disciplined.

Tip Two: Since sub-vocalization occurs below 600 wpm, increase your rates far beyond that. In fact, you should consistently move at least twice that speed. Breaking sub-vocalization by fast practice is useful in stimulating the brain’s nervous system in a way that is similar to driving a car. You might feel comfortable driving at 30 miles per hour.Then you drive on the freeway. As you accelerate, you focus on controlling the car as you ramp up to 70 mph. After a couple hours you exit the freeway and slow back down 30 mph. It feels very, very slow. Training your eyes and brain to focus and understand at accelerated rates follows a similar principle.

Tip Three: Think about what you are seeing. After all, reading is a thinking skill. As your eyes are passing over all the words, think about what the material is about. Do not focus on saying to yourself, “Stop Sub-vocalizing!” Paying attention to your sub-vocalization and telling yourself to stop only interferes with any comprehension.Your mind will be thinking about the sub-vocalization, not the material.

Tip Four: Use multiple rapid exposures to the material. The brain has an incredible capacity to recognize patterns and relationships of visual symbols at extremely high rates. Seeing something very fast more than once leads to recognition and then comprehension.

Tip Five: Ask questions of the material as you pass over it. Questions have a powerful impact on the mind. Questions seek answers. Allow your mind to start stringing things together. Use any clues you get to start forming a mental picture of the material.

Tip Six: Monitor your thinking. If your mind is not responding to the material below, or in front of your eyes, notice what you are thinking about, and then bring it back to the material. Constantly ask yourself, “What is this about?” When you speed up the eyes moving over the material, the mind will naturally become more engaged until you get to an overload point. When that happens, combine the above tips. The experienced speed reader can read in almost any environment with precision concentration. He/she has full control of the mind’s focus.

Tip Seven: Practice, practice, and practice some more. Overcoming sub-vocalization is a tough habit to beat. Your old ways will easily slip back until you remind yourself to behave in new ways. Don’t “practice” in materials that are important for you fully understand and retain. Comprehension and retention are a separate part of the process. Use materials that are interesting to you, but you don’t need to master. You can work on comprehension and recall after you’ve reached a level of some comfort with the basic mechanics.

Overcoming sub-vocalization is only part of the process. There are other strategies and tactics in learning speed reading, such as the comprehension process and building memory and recall. All the above tips should be done together. However, the goal of overcoming sub-vocalization is not to quiet the mind. You do not want your mind to go to sleep. You want to replace sub-vocalization with your mind’s response to the print. A skilled speed reader’s mind is very active. It’s not sounding out the words verbatim in the order of the printed sentence, but rather, you are summarizing as you go. Those are skills that I write about in other articles and in a full course.

For now, I want to remind you that there is more to effective speed reading than merely moving the eyes and overcoming sub-vocalization, and that is comprehension, but that is for later tips. I’d like to invite you learn more about the dynamics of speed reading and better comprehension by visiting the link below for more free tips on speed reading.

Author: Ed Caldwell
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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A digital SLR camera gives you the power to capture some amazing effects, once you know how to use it. You can develop all the skills of a professional once you understand your manual settings.

If you have grown up with a ‘point and shoot’ camera and have just taken the plunge with a new digital SLR, don’t just leave it on auto. That is a waste of good technology; it means you are still using your equipment as a point and shoot camera. The key to improving your photography is to learn to use your manual settings.

One of these settings is Shutter Speed. It is fun to experiment with and easy to see the results in your photos. Although we usually try to freeze our subject with the fastest shutter speed possible, you can get some great effects by using a slower shutter speed to capture movement effects.

To try this out, you can set your camera to Shutter Priority, in which case you can set the shutter speed and the camera will take care of the aperture for you. Or, you can go to fully manual and adjust both settings yourself. Just remember to keep your exposure balanced by compensating each movement in the shutter speed setting with a corresponding movement of the aperture setting.

Remember to always use a tripod for slow shutter speed photos.

Here are five ideas for great capturing great motion effects, simply by slowing down your shutter speed to capture the movement of the subject. If you haven’t tried this before, you will have some fun and be thrilled with the results.

Slow Shutter Speed Subject #1. Waterfalls. This is the obvious first choice. You have certainly seen the silky effects of flowing water in photos, but perhaps you have wondered how it is done. Just set your camera to a very slow speed; about one second or a half-second, and see the results. The silky slow-movement effect is not always your best option. For each waterfall you should try a few shutter speeds to see which one works best for that particular subject.

Slow Shutter Speed Subject #2. Cars at night. When doing night photography, you usually need fairly slow shutter speeds anyway. If you try shutter speeds of one second, two seconds, ten seconds, and even longer, you will see some amazing results. The lights of the vehicles will create streams of bright colour, stretching away into the distance. The more traffic you see, the more remarkable the effect can become.

Slow Shutter Speed Subject #3. Lightning. People often ask me how I take my lightning photos. Some people imagine it takes superhuman reflexes to snap the picture at just the right moment. The truth is, my approach is exactly the opposite.

First, I wait for a storm (at night) with lots of lightning; in particular, fork lightning that will appear well defined in a photo. I set the shutter to the ‘B’ setting, which lets me open the shutter for any length of time I choose. Then I wait for the lightning to flash. I can capture just one flash of lightning, or several flashes, just by leaving the shutter open for longer.

Slow Shutter Speed Subject #4. Waves. The movement effect of water in a waterfall can also be applied at the beach, although you don’t see it so often in photography. When you visit the beach, experiment with different shutter speeds. Sometimes you will find that soft movement effects are just as satisfying as freezing everything with a fast shutter speed.

The misty appearance of fast moving water captured with slow shutter speeds can be most effective where waves are crashing over, or swirling around rocks.

Slow Shutter Speed Subject #5. Crowds Of People. A crowd of people moving in different directions can create a fascinating motion effect in a photo. You don’t need extremely slow shutter speeds to capture some nice results. Photos taken around 1/4sec will show substantial blurring, but of course you can exaggerate the effect by going even slower.

For a really impressive image, have a friend stand very still, while everyone around them is moving. Your subject will appear frozen in a sea of moving humanity. Very striking!

So there you have some experiments to go out and try yourself. If you haven’t done it before, you are bound to have fun and be excited by the results. And of course it will force you to get to know your camera a little better, which is guaranteed to make you a better photographer.

Author: Andrew Goodall
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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The main idea of speed reading is to start reading faster. Speed reading is an essential skill when you need to read large information quickly.

Speed of reading refers to how many words you read in a minute. For most people it is around 125 to 250 words per minute (wpm). This varies with education level, with more highly educated readers often reading faster than others. Speed reading is definitely a skill that needs to be practiced or you lose some of your ability.

Speed reading is the process of reading everything, whereas skimming is only a portion of reading at the upper limits of your reading rate. The techniques of speed reading are an attempt to slowly push your reading rate upwards so you can understand and retain information at high speeds.

Speed reading is really the act of quickly absorbing written information. The goal is to read quickly but still retain comprehension of the material, although during exercises to build reading speed comprehension may be allowed to lag temporarily.

Speed reading is an extremely important skill that you really do need to possess. Almost every form of education involves reading. Speed reading is a useful concept for higher level, often dense, collegiate material.

Speed reading is characterized by an analysis of trade-offs between measures of speed and comprehension, recognizing that different types of reading call for different speed and comprehension rates, and that those rates may be improved with practice.

Improving information retention provides us many benefits. One is the ability to remember daily lessons better. Improving reading skills is without a doubt necessary for increasing reading speed, and improving reading comprehension. The easiest and most effective way of improving your reading skills is by approaching reading material differently.

Practice reading without a great concern for your comprehension. This sounds odd, but it works to loosen up your eyes. Comprehension lags for a while but when it catches up it makes a stunning difference. Practice will help you read faster.

You may also find that you can increase the number of words read, by holding the text a little further from your eyes. Practice like a madman or madwoman! The techniques must be understood and perfected.

Practicing time reading is also good, set up a timer and see how much you read in one minute, and in five minutes. Try and honestly estimate how much did you get from the text (make sure this is something you read for the first time), and try to beat yourself at this over and over again, until you start to feel that you have improved. Practice, practice and practice more. The general rule is that the more you read, the faster you will read.

Speed-reading is about reading–and being able to recall–more written information in less time. Speed-reading can be done by almost anyone willing to take the time to learn some simple techniques and tricks.

One technique you can use is scanning. This involves moving your eyes quickly down the page seeking specific words and phrases. Scanning is also used when you first find a resource to determine whether it will answer your questions. Scan the text to find the answers to your questions. Your reading speed improves by doing this, and you stay focused on the material. Scan the table of contents and first and last sentences of each paragraph. You’ll improve your reading speed and comprehension if you understand a book’s structure first.

In summary, speed reading is an essential tool for the modern man or woman. Take the time to learn it and you’ll be forever happy you did!

Author: Kaizer Kaizen
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Because of that, there are law enforcement officers that are spying up on speeders. Even if you’re just going 5 miles over the speed limit you can still be caught and will be fined. Besides, the fines and points on your license will increase insurance rates.

Almost all countries in the world have a speed limit on the road. Speed limits apply ideal driving conditions. There are situations where you need to slow down such as heavy rain, passing a construction zone, or a housing area. Speeding at these conditions is not only dangerous, but it is illegal too.

Exceeding the speed limit or speeding is very dangerous. There is no statistically discernible relationship between the fatality rate and average speed, though there is a strong relationship to speed variance. Dangerous speed kills. That’s why there is a speed limit. Most accident cases were caused by driving over the speed limit.

But why do people speed? There are many reasons why people speed even though they know it’s dangerous. Some of the reasons are because they’re in a rush and want to reach their destination fast, some of them want to feel the thrill of speeding, and some just can’t be patient.

Whatever the reason is, there’s still no exception to speeding over the limit. Even if you’re in a hurry, speeding won’t save you that much time. In fact, it is not worth risking your life. Facts show every 10 mph traveled over 50 mph can doubles the risk of death if a crash occurs. So speed limits are not just guidelines, but they were meant to save lives.

Worst of all, you’ll have a higher chance of having an accident that can lead to serious injuries. You’re not only risking your own life but other drivers or pedestrians too. And if you’re lucky that you’re safe from accident, you will still get in trouble where you could be fined a substantial sum of money or your driving license could also be suspended.

In a nutshell, just drive to the legal speed limit. Keep in mind that speeding won’t give you any benefits. It will only risk your life and others. Drive carefully, remember your loved ones.

Author: Darrell Freeman
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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