Use this method to charge reading and listening speeds and turn all your text into audiobooks!
The method examined in this article allows you to turn any e-pub, pdf, or article into an audiobook. The method will help you to read faster, and it is an excellent utility for people with distraction problems and dyslexia to overcome their reading struggles. It allows you to become twice as fast or even quicker compared to the average reader.
THE GOLDEN METHOD
I am speaking of the app T2S (text to speech) for android or natural reader text for chrome. If you are not working on those platforms I am sure you will be able to find similar tech on your machine by some internet searches. Those apps are free visual attractive and do what they are made for very well. But feel free to use any other text-to-speech app.
This particular app/technology allows you to load a file, whether it’s a pdf, text document or e-pub, and get spoken audio! It speaks the text by using Google text-to-speech AI. You can have any language and many different voices configurable to female or male voices. WAIT you might say, “I don’t want to listen to a robot”, honestly, the AI is getting very good and it is getting better and better those days at pronouncing text with good pronunciation. Really, give it a try! Maybe it’s not ready for science fiction or novels yet, but it’s definitely ready for non-fiction books and articles. The crux of that matter is that you can control speed, get text highlighting, and text-to-speech all at once. You dont need audible or other paid subscriptions with limited availability.
Okay, and how does this so-called T2S help me with focused reading, combat dyslexia, and speed reading!?
Speed reading
I have been learning speed reading for some time now. For those who need a refresher, speed reading is the art of reading faster and increasing information retention through various techniques such as silencing the inner voice, skipping certain words, reading text globally, creating mind-maps, etc… The average reading speed is 250 WPS and spoken speech is usually about 100–130 WPS. People who use these skills can increase this number fourfold or even fivefold and become highly effective, efficient, and fast readers.
People with dyslexia, ADHD, and ADD, have a biological challenge to read faster and keep focus. If you have tried and tried, but hardly succeeded, were stuck at a certain level, or have difficulty increasing your WPS, this method will change your reading performance! IT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE TO BECOME A TOP-SPEED READER EVEN WITH A DISABILITY.
Okay, please tell me how it works
This app allows you to change the reading speed by a factor of 0–5. 1 being 200 WPS and 5 being 1000 WPS. While spoken text at those speeds will be nonsensical it still will be sensible up to 500 WPS. Even if not all words are understandable at speeds higher than 500 WPS, if you read along, you will still be able to pick up a general gist of the story.
One can slowly increase the speed of T2S to the extent that one feels comfortable and able to follow along. Read along with the automatic sentence accentuator and the spoken voice at a constant speed and try to push your limits by increasing the speed to your comprehension limit. The human brain will adapt to new speeds over time. Don’t worry if you are distracted for a few seconds, because it is spoken, you will be able to continue reading with the ongoing voice. I think this is the best benefit of this method for people with concentration problems. However, if you want to read along at higher speeds it is still important to silence the inner voice. Refer to the internet for more information.
If you only use the voice option and do not read along, you can still enhance your day-to-day social interactions because you are able to process words faster. Just imagine everyone speaking at ~120 WPS while you are able to process at 500 WPS. It would give you a 5X benefit over the others.
Even if you manage to increase the speed by a factor of 2, which is pretty reasonable, you will be able to read 400 words per second. Just think about that for a moment! You, even if you have concentration problems or dyslexia, will be able to read a book twice as fast, 100% faster, compared to the average. This can give you a huge advantage in learning and at work. There are no excuses “I can’t concentrate, I can’t decode text properly, I can’t read fast”, stop the self-hypnosis. You can improve all of those with techniques like this app! We live in an age where disabilities gain less and less hold over us, but we have to choose the workarounds!
“But this is not silencing the inner voice”
Isn’t the speaking of text by AI contradicting the idea of silencing the inner voice? I would say, yes and no. Yes if you only listen and not read along, yes if you read along with the inner voice, no if you do not do those things. Let the AI speaks and the voice of your mind be quiet. Try to detach your mind from decoding the material into mental words. Try streaming the content into your brain so to say. It is similar to listening to other people where you also do not convert their words into your own words on the fly. Most of our interactions with others occur without translation into our own words.
“But I can already read more than 500 WPS”
If you can easily read more than 500 words per minute, you can still use this technique. The speech might slow you down as you read along, but you can still turn off the volume and use only the sentence highlighter to stay focused. This way you can read up to 1000 WPS at a steady phase with nice highlighting of your current sentence. It can be a fun test/exercise. Especially since 1000 WPS does not directly imply 1000 WPS at a steady pace. And even if you can read that fast you are not always able to read the text but may have many moments to listen to your books at a fast pace to the extent you are used to. But of course no obligation! You are already at the top prestige level :).
Conclusion
Give this app a try! Use it slowly and gradually to increase your WPS by 3x and listen to your books, articles, and papers, while walking the dog, cooking, driving, relaxing, chilling, etc… Become more productive and acquire more knowledge. Once you feel comfortable with high speeds and want to advance even further, turn off the audio and just use the sentence selection feature. This can be an interesting practice to test if you truly are at a certain WPS. You will and can become an excellent fast reader!
