Shadowing Practice: I Read 1247 Pages In A Day... Let Me Teach You How - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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I used to struggle a lot with reading and with studying in general.
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I used to struggle a lot with reading and with studying in general.
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Two weeks after my final exams, they found out I was actually pretty severely dyslexic.
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Which explained a lot, but didn't solve anything.
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I was still reading painfully slow and the information just wouldn't stick.
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That frustration turned into fascination.
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I wanted to understand how my brain takes in information and how can I actually remember it.
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Eventually, I developed my own system and method.
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And it worked so well that I was able to finish my psychology degree, which normally takes about 40 hours a week, in just 8 hours a week.
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Hi, my name is Mark Tichelaar.
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I'm also known as Focus with Mark.
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I have a background in neuroscience and neuropsychology, and I've sold over 300,000 books on focus.
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I've also trained more than 100,000 people to read faster without losing comprehension.
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And some of you are thinking, well, there's no way I could ever do that.
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I get it, but I'm severely dyslexic.
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If I can do it, you can do it.
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What I like about this video is we're not only talking about it or explain how to read faster, we're actually going to do it together with simple exercises.
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And just like lifting weights, you always start light.
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So please grab a book that feels easy and comfortable, even if you read it before, that's totally fine.
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Are you ready?
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Let's train your brain.
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Well, the first misunderstanding about speed reading is if I read faster, my comprehension will drop.
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Funny thing is, the opposite is true.
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If you read faster, your comprehension will actually increase.
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Why?
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Our brain operates around 1400 words per minute.
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That means in one minute you can think of 1400 things.
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But the average reading pace is around 250 words per minute.
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Meaning there's a gap.
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And that gap is always filled with your own thoughts or with distracting surroundings.
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If you increase your reading pace, let's say to 400 words minute, in this video you're going to discover how, you're closing the gap or in other words you're filling the void.
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Meaning there's less room available to be distracted and therefore you're more focused and therefore your incomprehension increases.
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Of course if you go too fast your comprehension drops again.
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It's all about the balance.
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The second misunderstanding.
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I must be skipping text if I read fast.
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Nope.
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With this method you read every word, every comma.
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You can skip information if you choose to, but the method itself doesn't skip anything.
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After this training, I can only read fast.
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Also false.
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Think of it like shifting gears in a car.
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You gain more gears, but you decide when to use them.
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You can read slow, you can read fast, you're always in control.
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The reason why speed reading works is because of two reasons.
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First, you train your eye muscles.
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Second, you guide your eyes more efficiently.
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That's the foundation.
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Let's look how your eyes move normally across a line.
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Imagine a line of words.
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This is how our eyes move across that line.
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They're jumping forward, forward, backwards, forward, backwards, backwards, forwards.
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Those backward jumps, they're not really helpful at all.
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It's not conscious rereading, they're automatically little glitches in how our eyes move.
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So the first goal is turn that into a smooth movement that looks like this.
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Once again, the words and this is the movement.
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Do you see the difference?
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Let's try a quick test.
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My question is make a small circle motion with your eyes.
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Keep your neck still and only move your eyes.
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It's harder than it sounds, right?
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If I draw your eye movement, it looks like this.
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Alright, now the second part.
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Make the same motion again, but this time follow the circle motion with your finger.
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Alright, well done.
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If I draw this, it looks like this.
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Did you feel the difference?
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What's the second time when your eyes were guided?
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More difficult or easier?
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More intense or lighter?
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And this is speed reading.
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With speed reading, you guide your eyes during reading.
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Guiding your eyes make the movement smoother, what also means you absorb information faster with less effort.
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Let's start applying this on a physical book.
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Later, you can do the same with software when reading from a screen.
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Please grab your book right now.
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Let's start this method on paper text.
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You will use a finger or a pen underneath the line.
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Just guide your eyes from left to right.
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Let me give you some quick posture tips as well.
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Bring the book close to the edge of the table.
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Sit slightly back, move from your elbow, not your wrist and keep your arm relaxed.
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Ready?
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Here we go.
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Alright, and stop.
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I'm curious about your experience.
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Most people find this awkward at first.
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Your eyes want to go faster than your pen.
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It's totally normal.
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Around 85% of you will experience this in the beginning, including me.
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A small group, around 15%, immediately feels more rhythm and focus.
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Either way, for now, is totally fine.
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You will notice the difference soon.
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Let's start with the first exercise to train your six eye muscles.
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During this exercise, you will hear a tick.
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At every tick, your pen or your finger should be reaching the right side of the line.
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This exercise is not about comprehension at all.
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You won't understand what you're reading.
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And that's fine.
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We're simply training your eyes to handle higher speeds.
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Grab your text right now.
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Ready?
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Here we go.
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Let's go.
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Please make the veil particular with the lightest and lightest capacity and isús anniversaries into this post sieve.
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figures and theisha by the tens self ダメ has captured the najgo
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walls.
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Here there is a hole in between whether
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All right, the last tempo was actually the same tempo when we started this exercise.
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Did you feel it was a little easier?
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Or did it felt a little slower?
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That means the training is already working.
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Normally we focus on one word at a time, but our eyes are naturally see several words at once.
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In technique 2 we're going to use that.
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It looks like this.
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Your eyes make fewer stops per line, which increases your reading speed and still keeps your comprehension.
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The key here is keep a steady rhythm.
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If you start thinking too much of where to place the pen, your tempo becomes choppy and your comprehension drops.
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Smoothness is key.
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Let's test this out.
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Grab your text again, read at your own normal comprehension level and apply the second method.
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If your comprehension feels choppy, add one extra stop per line and smooth out your tempo.
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Alright, we're going to do a second exercise to train your eye muscles.
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Once again, during a training exercise, we deliberately don't focus on comprehension at all.
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We only focus on training the muscles.
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And the only way to do that is going faster than our brain is able to comprehend the information.
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During this exercise, we're going to read in three blocks.
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Your normal speed with full understanding of the text, doubling your reading pace, roughly 50% comprehension, tripling your reading pace, almost zero comprehension.
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And then we go back to normal.
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This trains your eyes to move comfortably at a higher pace.
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Ready?
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Here we go.
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Start reading the text at your normal reading pace with full comprehension.
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Now double your reading pace, you should have around 50% comprehension.
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If you can still fully understand the text, you're not moving your eyes fast enough to train them.
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Great, now triple your reading pace.
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You should have zero comprehension.
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Just move your eyes from left to right, as fast as you can.
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Great, now start reading the text at your own normal reading pace.
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Awesome, you're done.
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Now the third technique.
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Earlier I told you to start at the first word of the line and end at the last word.
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That was on purpose so you wouldn't guide only half the line.
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But now we're going to adjust that.
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Your eyes can see several words to the left and right from where you focus.
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So instead of guiding from the first word, we're actually going to start between the first and the second word.
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You still see every word.
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You're just using your visual field more efficiently.
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This adds another 10 to 50% to your reading speed.
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Alright, grab your own book or study material.
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Choose a fresh chapter, something you haven't read yet.
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Important principle, maybe the most important principle.
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Never ever force your reading speed.
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If your concentration drops, go a little faster.
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If your comprehension drops, go a little slower.
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Always stay at 100% full understanding of the text.
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Speed reading also means smarter reading.
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And one item is always highlighting.
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Should you do it or not?
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I did it intensively during my study.
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I highlighted pretty much every line in the book.
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Well, a study from Harvard shows that highlighting information has no effect whatsoever on remembering that information.
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It is useful though to find information back, but it doesn't help you to store the information in your long-term memory.
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The second element in reading smarter is when do you remember the information?
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Let me explain.
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Most people like to combine reading with remembering.
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And it makes sense, right?
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I'm reading a line.
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I want to remember that line.
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But keep in mind, absorbing information and understanding information and remembering the information are two different parts of our brain.
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If you try to remember the information during reading, it means you're ping-ponging back and forth between two brain regions.
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and that slows you down tremendously.
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It's way more effective to focus purely during reading on absorbing the information, understanding the information and only after reading, let's say after a chapter, try to remember that information.
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It sounds pretty weird but keep in mind this is not a different way of remembering, just another way to structure your time.
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Is it reading, remembering, reading, remembering, reading, remembering, reading, remembering, exhausting, or is it reading, reading, reading, remembering, remembering, remembering?
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The second way to structure your time in this fashion is increasing your reading pace, and more importantly, it makes remembering information much more effectively.
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All right, let's move on to reading from screens.
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Reading from screens is totally different for our brain.
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First of all, we read much slower from a screen.
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Even from an e-reader, we read about 20% slower.
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From a traditional screen, we read about 25% slower.
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Second, we absorb the information not so good.
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Our eyes tend to fall off the lines more and obviously we scroll more.
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And last but not least, it's quite difficult for a brain to remember a digital text.
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With a normal book we roughly know I'm one third of the book and the information is on the left corner just below the image.
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With a digital text it's just one blur of information which makes it more difficult to remember that information for our brain.
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But obviously you cannot print out every information so luckily there are software that assists you to read faster from a screen.
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There are two software tools that pops to mind.
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The first one is focusreader.com and I'm one of the founders of that.
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That software tool guides your eyes pretty much in the way we did with the first technique, so in the fluent motion.
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The second one is called Spritz.
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It's based on the second technique.
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Spritz shows one chunk of text at a time in the center of your screen.
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Therefore, your eyes doesn't need to make any jumps.
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Spritz is great for a quick overview.
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Focusreader is better for deep reading, especially pdfs.
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Alright, nice job.
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You learned the the foundations you trained your eye muscles, now it's time to apply this on your own real reading.
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So, pick a chapter today and practice one of the techniques.
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And let me know in the comments which is your favorite technique.
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I'm reading all the comments and obviously I'm speed reading them.
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I hope it was helpful.
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I hope you hit the like button and subscribe so the algorithm knows you love this video.
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Thanks for watching and see you in the next video.
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About This Lesson

In this lesson, you will practice techniques inspired by Mark Tichelaar’s speed reading method, which reveals how to enhance your reading speed while maintaining comprehension. You’ll learn to train your brain using a series of exercises designed to improve focus and efficiency in reading. By engaging in shadow speaking activities, you will not only boost your reading speed but also improve your overall English language skills, including listening, pronunciation, and intonation. This practice will integrate the idea of shadowspeak to help you internalize language patterns much like acquiring a new skill.

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

  • Dyslexic: A term referring to individuals who have difficulty with reading due to brain differences.
  • Comprehension: The ability to understand and interpret written information.
  • Speed reading: A technique aimed at increasing reading speed without significantly sacrificing comprehension.
  • Neuroscience: The scientific study of the nervous system, including the brain's impact on learning.
  • Eye muscles: Muscles around the eyes that help focus and move the eyes efficiently across text.
  • Distractions: External or internal stimuli that can disrupt concentration while reading.
  • Focus: The ability to concentrate on a task without being sidetracked.
  • Guide your eyes: The process of consciously directing your gaze while reading.

Practice Tips

As you embark on your journey of learning English with YouTube, consider implementing these shadowing strategies to amplify your skills:

  • Choose the Right Material: Start with easy and familiar texts, similar to how you would begin lifting light weights. This will build your confidence and comfort.
  • Utilize a Shadowing App: Use technology to enhance your practice. Many apps can assist you in shadow speaking along with engaging videos, ensuring you can follow along with excellent clarity.
  • Focus on Pacing: Maintain a steady pace when shadowing. If you find yourself overwhelmed, slow down. With practice, you can increase your speed while ensuring comprehension remains high.
  • Record Yourself: Document your shadow speech sessions. Listening back helps to identify any areas for improvement, particularly in pronunciation and intonation.
  • Practice Regularly: Consistency is key. Devote time each day to practice, gradually challenging yourself with more complex texts as your skills advance.

Incorporating these methods will not only enhance your reading but will significantly contribute to your overall language development in English.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

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