14 DAY TRIAL // There is a huge amount of information flowing around us at an extraordinary rate, on a day to day basis, and a big chunk of it is in written form. AceReader Elite provides practice drills and reading tools that will change the way you deal with text.
Evelyn Wood is probably the first name that comes to mind whenever speed reading is concerned, but both tools and theories have evolved over the years. There seems to be a consensus that most people are kept back by inefficient reading practices which can be eliminated by certain exercises.
AceReader Elite is also available in Spanish and you can extend its capabilities by purchasing the Spanish Test Set or the Text-To-Speech add-ons (these are useful for fluency training or vision impaired users).
The AceReader Elite Premium Package edition also includes a collection of Iris Speed Reading videos, which, judging by their YouTube channel, could prove to be quite useful.
The installation process is reduced to simply dragging and dropping the AceReader Elite folder to your drive, but that directory seems a bit crowded since it provides access to the app’s support files without an obvious reason. However, the app needs just a few resources to run properly.
The Looks
AceReader Elite sends out the vibe of an application lost in time: the login window looks quite austere and things do not improve much when you actually start using it. In fact, the interface does not follow Apple's current OS X Human Interface Guidelines at all.
The app is divided into three main areas: the Course Mode (where you go through the list of speed reading course activities), the Menu Mode (that lets you choose between various training exercises for determining and increasing your reading speed) and the Reading Mode (you can practice your reading skills by using your own material).
AceReader Elite comes with an Administration panel that allows you to manage/create comprehension tests and other types of drills. If you forget your admin password, the AdminTools.app included in the package offers you the possibility to quickly reset it.
Although the built-in tests collection is quite large, the admin panel is great if you want to use your own materials or if you want to create a custom course for your "students" (the app provides support for multiple users).
The Works
The speed reading drills revolve around correcting three bad habits: fixation (you stop and read each word separately without making use of your peripheral vision), regression (you go back and read again certain portions) and subvocalization (you are accustomed to "reading aloud" in your mind).
Theoretically, these are inclinations developed when you first learn how to read and, through practice, you should be able to eliminate or at least reduce their effects. AceReader Elite provides a wide collection of exercises and tests designed to help you train, but it also comes with a step by step course that will get you started.
To see what it is all about, you should start following one of the standard courses: "Double or Triple Your Reading Speed" or "Reach Your Goal Speed." The Comprehension Tests have different themes: General, American History, Earth and Space Science, Famous People, Fun Facts, or SAT-ACT Test Preparation.
You can also adjust the text complexity degree: the app comes with 13 levels and the default one is 3 (texts below this difficulty level are intended for children).
Last but not least, the Reading Mode makes it very easy to open your own text files and start reading at a speed of your own choice, using different text viewing modes. The reader’s main window comes with a tools panel where you can view your statistics, adjust the target reading speed, search for certain text strings, and more.
In addition, the AceReader Elite’s Preset-Options menu enables you to decide how you want to see the text: each word/sentence/phrase in the center of the window, as book pages, as newspaper columns, highlighted or not, and much more. Each preset is intended to develop a certain skill and, once you learn what you need to improve, you will be able to mix and match.
As far as workflow is concerned, certain oversights tend to be annoying. For example, in the Reading Mode panel you'll find the "Go directly to Reading Mode after logging on" option, but when you choose to enable this feature, you are notified that it is turned off and it can be turned on via Admin/Misc option setting. Naturally, you navigate to that panel and discover that the option is nowhere in sight.
Irritating conditions accompany the quitting process since, except when in Reading Mode, you cannot simply close the app and go about your business: you have to first log off, return to the initial panel, and only then quit the app.
AceReader Elite comes with a 30-day trial that should help you decide if it is the right tool for you, but the app also has many other restrictions, beside the time limit, which might seem a bit excessive and corrupts the whole experience.
The Good
Bottom line, its effects depend on how much you focus and practice: AceReader Elite is only a helping tool.
The Bad
There is at least one inconsistency within the app: the "Go directly to Reading Mode after logging on" option is not where it’s supposed to be. The fact that you cannot quit the app without logging off first is also quite irritating.
Furthermore, some workflows are not intuitive at all. The Reading Mode presets are accessible from a general app menu and you do not receive any hints regarding the fact that text/background combinations can be changed within the player window.
