I was running a Speed Reading training course just recently and I was challenged by one of the participants who said to me:

"Michael, what if I don't want to read everything quickly?"

My answer was quite simple:

"Well don't then!"

For a moment or two this person was lost for words and that gave me time to explain the challenge faced by people who have not developed their reading abilities above and beyond that taught in schools.

There is a huge problem with the standard of reading, not only in this country but across the world.

I am not talking about levels of illiteracy.

I am talking about the millions and millions (if not billions) of people who have completed their education (whether that be school, college or university) and who are ignorant of the fact they have a massive reading problem.

So what is that problem?

Well if I told you of a school that is turning out pupils with only 25% of the qualifications they are easily capable of achieving, I am sure you would be shocked.

If you had kids you certainly would not want them to go to THAT school.

If you were a radical social activist, you might campaign for the school principal to be reprimanded by the local education authorities, possibly suspended and maybe even replaced.

The story would certainly hit the local press and depending on that day's world events, it might even appear on the national six o'clock news.

Now whilst there are fewer and fewer schools with that sort of record across the range of qualifications expected of those leaving school, every school that has reading on the curriculum is churning out pupils with a reading ability 25% or less (and more likely to be less) than what they are capable of.

Why is that so?

Why is this not reported on the News?

Has there been a cover up?

No, there has been no cover up because hardly anyone knows about it.

Only the few of us who have sought to increase our own reading speed and then have gone on to teach others how to do the same really know and understand the problem.

I run Speed Reading courses.

I prefer to call them "Effective Reading" courses because that is a better description, but essentially I show people how to get through written material faster.

How do I do that?

Well first of all I take away the bad habits instilled by our good old education system.

Habits that occur as a by-product of the archaic reading development typical across the world.

Now that might sound a little harsh but here is what I experience on a regular basis.

Professional people attend one of my courses and they generally have a reading speed of somewhere between 250 - 350 words per minute.

There is a bit of Speed Reading Training folklore that a few years ago the United Nations identified the average reading speed necessary to be "functionally literate" in today's information driven world.

They came up with a figure of 400 words per minute.

Now whether this is true or not, I have never been able to verify because I can't find an official UN reference to that figure or the study, but if it is true, all the people who attend a speed reading course are, by definition, functionally ILLITERATE!

With a little bit of new information, a short amount of practice, I can on average double someone's reading speed in a day, with NO loss of comprehension (see my recent post "Speed Reading Techniques - Do They Work").

So the average speed then becomes 500-700 words per minute whilst they are with me and then they walk away with a plan to even double that.

No I am no magician, I don't impart Effective Reading wisdom, I just remove some barriers that hold back the reader and give a few additional strategies to help people get through their reading faster.

And it is when this objective comes up that I usually get the "What if I don't want to read everything quickly" type comment.

You see because of the way most of us have been taught to read, our frame of reference is a "one gear only" reading engine.

So as soon as there is a suggestion of doubling the output, some people balk at the idea.

What they don't realise is that for the variety of different reading material they encounter they need more than the one gear given to us at school.

You wouldn't savour the nuances of the vocabulary of a great poem in the same way as you would read the instruction manual for your new cell phone.

Different material requires different approaches depending upon the type of material you are reading,  what you want to get out of it and the time you have to achieve that.

Using the reading skills we have been given at school is like a single (poorly tuned) violin trying to play all the parts of a full orchestral piece.

mmm….first time out for that analogy….not sure it it works but I will leave it in because it is close to what I mean and besides I am in mid rant so a little leeway won't go amiss.

But as I have seen over and over again, people are easily capable of 1000 words a minute plus, and with full comprehension too.

So for the average reader with their 250 wpm levels that have changed little since their school days, they really are only operating at 25% of their capabilities.

What could they have achieved if they were operating closer to their full potential?

Although more important in this day and age is the ever increasing problem of information overwhelm and whilst reading faster may not be the whole answer, it would really help.

And so with this information readily and freely available it is criminal that our school systems do not embrace this knowledge and develop their teaching to equip pupils with reading skills closer to their true capability.

The trouble is, most teachers read slowly too and so it is a bit like the blind leading the blind…that too in my mind is criminal.