It all starts with your eyes

When we read a text, our eyes don't glide evenly through the lines but jump from point to point and from word to word. These small fixations allow us to capture the text in multiple snapshots.

The information is then received by our eyes and transmitted to the brain. When we jump to the next word or fixation point, this jump is called a saccade. During this jump, no information is transferred; it is only transferred again upon re-fixation. In addition, our eyes constantly and unconsciously jump back in the text, which is called regression. These regressions alone reduce our reading speed by up to 30%.

The human eye must fixate on a passage of text for two to three-tenths of a second for the retina and brain to grasp words and then shift the field of vision to take in the next information.

All these eye movements, consisting of snapshots (reading fixations), shifts in gaze (saccades), and jumps back (regression), take time but can be trained and utilized more effectively.

If we capture several words simultaneously with just one fixation, we make fewer saccades and thus save time. We often do this habitually with articles and smaller adjectives, so that only one snapshot is sufficient here. With technology and training, this is also possible for larger word groups. The fewer eye movements, the higher the reading speed.

We must not forget that our eyes have muscles, and these, like any other muscle, can tire. Too many unwanted eye movements make them tire more quickly. This is one of the main reasons why, over time, we can no longer understand and absorb the content of text sections. Who hasn't experienced asking themselves what was even written on a page they just read? Weakened eye muscles lead to a drop in concentration, and we no longer properly grasp text passages. In an attempt to regain understanding through unconscious regressions in the text, we overexert ourselves even further.

Reading is a psychomotor skill where the two components, brain and eyes, are highly adaptable.

 

A brief digression: If individual words are shown to us at only one point on the screen using Speed Reading Apps, there is only one fixation point for our eyes. There is no need to shift gaze to the next text area, so no regressions in the lines are necessary, as the words always appear in the same place. Thus, words can be grasped more quickly, as the transition to neural processing occurs faster. It is important to understand that our brain is not the limiting factor. On the contrary, it can process far more if we just let it. The first step, therefore, is to improve eye control.

What happens when we guide our eyes with a reading aid?

Using a reading aid as a visual guide helps us control our eyes. It is a biological impulse to follow a movement with our eyes to quickly recognize dangers or react adequately to an external stimulus.

If we now guide our eyes through the text with a reading aid, we reduce regressions and accelerate saccadic jumps to the next fixation point. Since we are now actively setting the pace and our eyes are following, we no longer have time to audibly decipher individual words; instead, we increasingly grasp multiple words visually. There simply isn't enough time, and the brain relies on our existing internal word lexicon because it wants to keep up. The internal lexicon contains words that we have already audibly decoded through frequent reading and can now grasp directly visually. We thus force the eyes to make fewer regressions and fixations, to move faster from fixation point to fixation point, thereby breaking old habits and increasingly utilizing other ways of text processing.

The stimulus triggered by the reading aid activates the motor cortex, and the conscious increase in reading speed enhances alertness, concentration, and attention. Combining two senses, visually through the eyes and kinesthetically through hand and arm movement, strengthens focus, as an action of this kind is attributed greater significance.

The higher pace opens up our conditioned, narrow field of vision, and the enlarged span of gaze improves the uptake of word groups, allowing us to perceive more in less time.

Using a reading aid is therefore the easiest way to read faster, easier, and more efficiently. Give it a try.