NLP for Slow Reading

How can you use NLP for slow reading?  Learn from the story of a college student whom I gave NLP strategies for slow reading:

I’m a first-year college student and I often struggle with slow reading. I started reading when I was 4 and always loved it.  And the speed at which I read started to affect me more when I was in the 4th grade.  I read really slowly, but I comprehended everything I read.  Going through middle school I started figuring out how my brain processed stuff.  I do really well with memorizing things because I picture them in my mind. Colors and shapes come to mind for every word, date, or number I confront.  Then when I go to recall the thing, it’s a color sequence, not an actual word.  

This was the cause of my slow reading.  I had to read every word and turn it into a color or shape.  Now I’m at college and my professors have little sympathy for slow reading.  I struggle a lot because the only way I can memorize things is by picturing them, converting them, and processing the information. But by the time I do that I’m way behind.   Hence I want to know if there’s something wrong with me or if it’s just how I learn best. Is there anything I can do to convert things faster or some way I can make the synapses more efficient?

Here’s how I advised this student to use NLP for slow reading:

What can you do to convert things faster?  You must visualise words as pictures = words instead of colors or shapes. Visualising every word as colour or shape will logically slow you down.

• Start with seeing shapes as you normally do.  This is familiar and you’re good at it.
• Now start teaching yourself to see the shapes of words = what they look like when they’re written.
• To do this you must observe a lot and carefully.  Observe what letters and then words look like.  Start with simple 3-letter words like cat, dog, fox, bed, pen, etc.  Write each word on a separate A4 blank paper, put the paper in front of or slightly above your eye level, and look at the written word for 15 seconds.  Close the eyes.  Do you see the word?  Has it quickly faded?  Or do you see something else?  If you see the word, how do you see it?  Are the letters big enough to see them comfortably but not so big that you don’t see the whole word?  Are they on a background of a contrasting color?  And are they in upper case or lower case?  See the letters in the other case. Is that less or more comfortable?  Experiment with this.
• Can you spell the word forwards and backwards from seeing it?  If you can, you definitely see the word. That’s important!

Is there something wrong with this student? I told her:

Yes! You have developed the wrong habit of visualising for words.  For seeing words you need to see words.  Seeing shapes or colors is the wrong tool for this job.  This is the only thing that’s wrong with you.  Absolutely nothing else.  And you can change the ways your brain works!  Being present in the moment and really conscientious in working with yourself is the only way forward.  Once you see words as words instead of as colors or shapes, you’ll read much faster!  Fast readers recognize whole words as blocks at the back of their brains, not letter by letter.  Slow readers read slowly, because if they can see letters at all, they look at letter by letter.  Once you get good at seeing whole words, your brain will automatically send them to its back.

Your fantastic memory is another strong asset that you can use.  Photographic memory is the best type of memory one can have – especially for seeing words!  So when you write a word on a blank paper, take it to your eye level, look at it, take a picture of the word in your imagination.  Teach yourself to see the word as if it was a photo in your head.  When you see the word as a photograph, you’ll see it as a block.

Practise.  Do all these exercises here only until seeing words as blocks becomes automatic.  Once it does, you’ll be reading so fast anyway that you won’t have time for all this.  This will get you on the right track – this will teach the brain a new way of thinking.

And remember these tips:

• always hold any page you’re reading at or slightly above your eye level.  That’s where your visual field is.  Never hold reading material in the lap so that you have to look down at it!  Never!  Because there you’d be in the feelings which is the wrong tool for a visual job such as reading.
• Whenever you read, sit with both feet firmly on the ground.  This will give you grounding and an extra sense of calm, safety, security.
• When reading, do your best not to pronounce the words in your head.  This would also slow you down.  If you don’t do it, great.  If you do, gradually teach yourself not to do it.

Call or email me for more NLP help with slow reading or other things.