14 DAY TRIAL // I remember the days back in college when I had a very smart room mate that could not read fast. He had to spend almost twice as much time to study than most of us. The truth is that he had an incredible memory and only had to read once the materials. I asked him one time why does it take him so much time to read a text. He said that he had to read each word, letter by letter in order to understand what it was about.
I am sure that you are aware of the study that proved that human beings do not have to read each letter of the word and that the order of the letters does not really matter for the human eye as long as the length and the first and last letters are correct. That is true and this is the reason why some of us read slower while others read faster.
Only after lots of years did I realize that when my "reading" teacher taught me to read, she said to read the words in my head and recommended that if I lose track of the idea, to go back and restart the process. Well, this little issue is called skip-back. I also learned in time that I can read entire blocks of words instead of stopping for every word.
As poor readers tend to dislike reading and as more reading is the key to success (until we all get hard drives into our head in order to store the information), new tools have been developed so that reading speed be much improved.
Speed Reader is such a tool that will help you increase your reading skills and comprehend better the texts, in a shorter time. The software is freeware, so the user will benefit from its advantages for as long as s/he wishes. The interface is not much, in fact, I cannot even call that an interface, but that's no problem as once you try the application, you do not want to be distracted (although there is also a fullscreen function available). So, plain and simple is good as long as you do not use the application in fullscreen mode.
The first window you see when launching provides all the options available in the software. Up in the left hand corner there is the speed adjusting slider and at the opposite side, there is the font size slider. These two options are almost enough to proceed with your reading skills improving. The two sliders can be used even during the speed reading session and the WPM (words per minute) will display the currently selected value (the minimum is 60 WPM).
The text area can be modified in terms of color. You can change the background or text color according to your needs. You do not want to hurt your eyes, so I suggest choosing warm colors. The color options also contains the default options, three presets of color combinations that the developer thought would be appropriate (green on black, white on black and black on white).
Stopping the text display can be done at any moment by simply pressing the Stop or Resume buttons. A great proof of the flexibility of the application is the fact that you can add whatever text you want. The only condition for this to be achieved is that the file should be a TXT. Another important aspect is that you can very easily paste a piece of text in the Current Text window.
Fullscreen mode will enlarge the application the way a video player does and will take all of your desktop. This way you will no longer be distracted by any other open windows. For returning to the normal mode, just click anywhere.
The Good
The application is free and will help you achieve great reading speeds. The color changing options allow you to choose appropriate hues and colors so that your muscle eyes will not contract too often, thus avoiding exhaustion of the eyes.
The Bad
Full sentences or chunks of text are not available, so you are stuck with word by word reading. Also, font changing is impossible. I wish there was some kind of built-in text library available from which the user could have chosen a text of some kind.
The Truth
All in all, having in mind that it is a free application and the noble purpose it serves, it definitely deserves a chance. Try it and see for yourselves the efficiency.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
