Course Information
The science behind SpeedyReedy
At our core, the SpeedyReedy team has identified and addressed three fundamental issues that get in the way of reading faster. First, readers need to understand how their eyes work to pass information to their brain. Second, we need to understand how our brains extract meaning from words. Lastly, we need to understand the role attention plays in our ability to understand ideas. We dug into all the nitty gritty to give you a training program that works with your eyes and your brain so that speed reading becomes second-nature. Our goal is that by the end of all 21 lessons, you will have trained your brain so that you can speed read without the help of software and that all you'll need is a little maintenance to keep your skills sharp.
Alright, here's a breakdown of the all science that we have researched in order to make the best possible program for you.
What Speed Reading Actually Is (and What It Isn’t)
Most people think reading is about recognizing words faster. That’s understandable. Words are what we see on the page that give us meaning, right? But cognitively, that’s not what reading really is. Reading is the process of building meaning. Words are just the raw material. What your brain actually cares about are ideas.
When you read naturally, you don’t store isolated definitions in your head. You group words together into phrases, connect those phrases into ideas, and integrate those ideas into a mental model of what’s happening. Speed reading, when done correctly, doesn’t fight this process — it leans into it. That’s the foundation of SpeedyReedy: we train your brain to recognize meaning more efficiently, not to rush text faster than you can understand it.
How Your Eyes and Brain Really Read
Your eyes don’t glide smoothly across a page. They jump. These jumps are called saccades, and the brief pauses between them are called fixations. You only clearly see a small area at the center of each fixation, but your brain also picks up useful information from your peripheral vision at the same time.
Traditional reading habits tend to waste these fixations. Many readers fixate on single words, even though the brain is perfectly capable of extracting meaning from groups of words at once. The result is more fixations than necessary, slower reading, and increased mental fatigue. SpeedyReedy trains you to make better use of each fixation — extracting more meaning per glance instead of trying to force your eyes to move faster.
Why Subvocalization Slows You Down
Most adults still read by silently “saying” words in their head. This is called subvocalization, and it ties reading speed to the speed of spoken language. That’s fine for casual reading, but it creates a hard ceiling: you can’t read much faster than you can talk.
The goal isn’t to eliminate subvocalization completely — that’s neither realistic nor necessary. Instead, SpeedyReedy helps you shift from sound-based processing to meaning-based processing, where phrases are recognized visually and understood directly. As this happens, subvocalization naturally quiets down without being forcibly suppressed.
Reading in Phrases, Not Words
Here’s the single most important idea behind the course: Your brain understands phrases, not words. Words like “the,” “of,” or “and” don’t carry meaning on their own. Meaning emerges when words are grouped into syntactic and semantic units — phrases that represent a single idea. When you train yourself to read phrase-by-phrase, reading becomes faster and clearer, because you’re aligning with how comprehension actually works.
SpeedyReedy focuses heavily on chunking — grouping words into natural units of meaning. While we measure progress in words per minute, we emphasize something more important: ideas per minute. Reading faster only matters if understanding keeps pace.
Attention Matters More Than Speed
One of the biggest myths about speed reading is that it’s about rushing. In reality, most reading problems come from unstable attention, not slow eyes. Mind-wandering, regressions (re-reading), and mental fatigue all destroy comprehension and kill speed. In fact, studies have shown that reading too slow actually decreases reading comprehension because the brain isn't sufficiently stimulated and is prone to wander.1
Visualization and Meaning Construction
When comprehension is strong, reading feels vivid. You’re not just seeing words — you’re building scenes, relationships, and ideas in your mind. This is called mental representation, and it’s a core part of deep reading.
Many of the course exercises deliberately encourage visualization and active meaning construction. This isn’t fluff — it’s a way of ensuring that faster reading is accompanied by deeper processing, not shallower skimming.
Why Practice Actually Works
Speed reading is a skill, not a trick. Like any skill, it improves through gradual, structured practice. As you train, your brain becomes more efficient at recognizing patterns, grouping words, and allocating attention. This process — known as perceptual learning and automaticity — is why reading can feel effortless at higher speeds once the underlying habits change. However, studies suggest that speed reading isn't a magic skill that can automatically double or triple your reading speed with the same level of comprehension.2
How the Course Progresses
SpeedyReedy’s lesson progression is intentionally designed to increase difficulty in small steps through five phases. You will start with Word Flash mode, or what others may call Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP). This is the simplest way to introduce speed reading as it requires the least effort for your brain. Each phase after that walks you closer and closer to how we want you to read paper texts without the help of software: larger phrase chunks, less visual guidance, higher pacing, and more reliance on internal focus. This allows your brain to adapt without overload.
Good luck, and happy reading!