 THE WORLD’S FASTEST READER IS NOW DEAN OF ARELLANO UNIVERSITY’S GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATIONMaria Teresa F. Calderon, Ph.D. ON JULY 17, 1968, Professor Florence Schale, Director for Rapid Reading Program of Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, told the whole world that her prize pupil established a score of 50,000 words per minute for the record books with one hundred percent comprehension in her final exams. Prof. Schale's prize pupil was the "petite, smiling, warm and unassuming" 15-year old Maria Teresa Fabros Calderon from the Philippines. In subsequent tests given by the University of Minnesota, the University of Illinois, the Purdue University and Northwestern University, Maritess reset the record books with her reading speed of 80,000 words per minute with 100 percent comprehension. Newspapers across the world bannered her name, paid tribute to her exceptional ability, and gave her an honorific title: "World's Fastest Reader." Phenomenal "EXPERTS SAY, we ordinarily read at about 250 words a minute with 70- percent comprehension," declares The Asia Magazine in an article about Maritess Calderon in its Dec.14, 1969 issue. "Anything over 350 words a minute borders on the phenomenal." Maria Teresa Calderon is the fastest speed reader in the world, the Guinness Book of World Records also declares. Today, the world's fastest reader, who has been featured in the Encyclopedia Britannica (Vol. 19, 1971) and in numerous other newspapers, magazines and academic journals all over the world since she established her world record, prefers to go by her new title as Dean Graduate School of Education at Arellano University's Florentino Cayco Memorial School for Graduate Studies in Manila. Gifted "HOW CAN one learn to read as fast as you do?" an avid fan once asked Maritess. "Oh, but it's a gift," she quickly replied. "Most university students read as fast as they speak," Hilarion M. Henares Jr. wrote in his column for the Philippine Daily Inquirer in 1988, "about 250 words per minute with 60-percent comprehension. Trained in speed reading these students can read 2,000 words per minute with 70-percent comprehension. 'Gifted' are those who can read over 20,000 words per minute at more than 70-percent comprehension." Who are these gifted people? In the list are famous names: John Kennedy (6,000 words per minute), Ferdinand E. Marcos (reportedly 8,000 words per minute), John Stuart Mill, 19th century economist, (timed at 37,000 words per minute), and Theodore Roosevelt (who, historians say, "astonished his constituents by glancing at a page, and speaking accurately of its contents"). Maritess Calderon's 80,000 words per minute with 100-percent comprehension remains the world record to beat until today. The second highest recorded speed in reading is 54,825 words per minute with 90-percent comprehension. Turning Around AU Graduate School ON REGULAR SCHOOL days she is in her graduate school office at the Paulino F. Cayco Hall on the main campus of Arellano University on Legarda street in Sampaloc, Manila. Here, she goes about steering graduate studies with her trademark good-naturedness, candidness, hard work and passion for excellence, which has turned around Arellano University's Graduate School of Education into a world class program. At the Arellano University's Graduate School of Education, which offers the degrees Master of Arts in Education and Doctor of Education, she took steps to introduce new programs and promote as well quality research. For starters, she instituted a rule that before a graduate student starts working on his or her thesis or dissertation, he or she should submit the proposed study to the scrutiny of specialists in a colloquium. Here, three to five faculty specialists go over the student's proposal to make sure that the research topic is timely and relevant, the problem is stated clearly, adequate related literature are reviewed, the research design and instruments are well chosen, and the methods or research are sequenced accordingly. If these conditions are met, only then can the student proceed with her research study. This school year (2008-2009), Dean Calderon has lined up graduate studies enhancement programs. Together with Dr. Remedios L. Fernandez, Dean of the Graduate School of Nursing at Arellano University, they insist on excellent communication skills and are set to instill in the minds of every student the need to continuously improve in this. Students who are enrolled in the masteral thesis writing are required to undergo the Writing Dynamics Program, specifically to enhance their written communication skills in English, focusing on grammatical skills. The educator in Dean Calderon has not lost her self-defined life-long mission. She continues to carry out programs that complement classroom lessons to help students read right and comprehend well. "Reading is the key to greater learning and a progressive and mature citizenry," she says. Some reading teachers assert that most students to whom English is a second language read rather slowly. Other students even find it hard to master silent reading. She says: "Slow reading and poor comprehension are usually due to bad reading habits. Vocalizing and verbatim reading—or word by word reading—doesn't help increase one's reading speed nor improve comprehension." Dean Calderon places enormous faith in education. Her programs for improving English proficiency for both the faculty and students of Arellano University are getting desired results. Her belief that correct reading habits result in better comprehension, if followed by the students, should lead to greater learning which, undoubtedly, is the competitive advantage every student can enjoy in any global setting or marketplace. How to Succeed in Nursing Courses DEAN CALDERON revealed that in an English vocabulary and comprehension assessment study she conducted recently on nursing students of Arellano University who failed their Course Audit subjects showed very significant results. Almost all of those who failed to pass Course Audit had English vocabulary and comprehension stanine scores equivalent to lower grade school. Thus, it is next to impossible to expect these students to answer test questions in English correctly because they do not understand the questions, in the first place. It is even worse to expect them to understand and comprehend their nursing textbooks which are mostly published in the United States. "To be successful in nursing courses, students must be able to read and comprehend a large volume of information," says Dean Calderon. "This requires different types of reading and study skills from other courses to which they have been exposed. The formal teaching of these skills in a nursing course takes second place to the teaching of required nursing skills." What about their teachers? "Because nursing teachers are not academically prepared to teach reading and the related skills, they have no knowledge of what to do or how to do what is needed," she explains. English Intervention Program: Improving College Students' Reading Skills "MOST HIGH SCHOOL and college students have learned that for every hour spent in class, they are expected to spend three hours on preparation for the class. This includes reading assignments. A chapter in an average college textbook is approximately 50 pages or more in length. Many college instructors assign two or more chapters of reading per week. This means a student taking three academic courses must read more than 300 pages per week. This is a tremendous load for students who have inadequate reading and study skills. According to Dean Calderon, reading instruction in most schools often ends in the fifth or sixth grade. Thus, "the reading skills that were adequate for junior and senior high school classes will not suffice for the amount and level of reading and studying required at the college level. A significant number of first-year college students commence their studies with less than adequate reading comprehension strategies." To address this problem, Dean Calderon initiated an English intervention program for the same batch of nursing students at Arellano University. After the program, a significant number of these students passed their Course Audit. Thus, her English intervention program is now an integral part of the Arellano University Nursing curriculum. Since school year 2007-2008, she has been giving diagnostic tests at the beginning of each semester to all college freshmen of Arellano University to determine their reading proficiency, math proficiency and learning styles. All incoming students are taught more effective study skills to compliment their learning styles. The results of the diagnostics for reading and math proficiency determine the type of teaching strategy to be applied. Says the dean: "The challenge for every teacher is to apply the Marva Collins maxim, the good teacher makes the poor student good, the good student superior." Reading as a Fundamental Learning Skill AN ADVOCATE for reading as a fundamental learning skill not only among schoolchildren, high school and college students and teachers, but even among top corporate and government managers, Dean Calderon has relentlessly conducted reading workshops since 1969. She also extends consulting services in education and communication skills to multinational businesses, government organizations, and educational institutions not just here in the Philippines but also in Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong and the United States. Her stature as an educator won her affiliations with three prestigious professional associations in the United States, such as the National Honors Society, International Reading Association, and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. In 2004, she initiated a program called DEAR, for "Drop Everything and Read" at the First Asia Institute of Technology and Humanities in Tanauan, Batangas to inculcate the habit of reading among teachers and students on that campus. Complementary to DEAR, which encouraged uninterrupted reading time at a certain period during the day, was her vocabulary building program where new words are flashed on screen when students and faculty switch on their computers. Her program for training primary grades teachers to enhance their effectiveness in teaching reading was pilot-tested in Cebu City Division of Public Schools in 2005. She trained 350 public school teachers of Grade I in that division and in school year 2005-2006 her reading program for Grade I was launched to 19,000 pupils. Dean Calderon has also written three Phonics workbooks. "These books are guaranteed to make every child a reader," she says. Driven by zeal and purpose to further improve education, she tirelessly conducts seminars, workshops, and training programs to improve teachers' methodologies in teaching reading and enhance as well schoolchildren's reading capacities. "Learning begins with reading," she points out. "Good reading comprehension leads to better education." Differentiated Instruction SHE HAS ALSO designed a program called Enriched English Curriculum. This school year, Arellano University is launching the adoption of the program in the elementary level. All pupils in the grade schools of the University will be subjected to diagnostic tests at the start of classes and based on the results of the tests differentiated instruction will be applied in their English subjects. It is a teaching strategy which Dean Calderon has used for over 30 years since she has started teaching students from different levels across different cultures. "Differentiated instruction is about using teaching strategies that connect with individual student's learning strategies," says Dean Calderon, "of which ultimate goal is to provide a learning environment that will maximize the potential for student's success." She points out that in differentiated instruction it is important for the teacher to remember to hold on to the effective teaching strategies that lead students to positive learning outcomes and to make adjustments when necessary. "It's about being flexible and open to change. It's also about taking risks and trying teaching and learning strategies that you would have otherwise ignored. It's about managing instructional time in a way that meets the standards and also provides motivating, challenging, and meaningful experiences for school-age children who are socialized to receive and process information in ways that require differentiation of experience." She concludes: "These are very exciting times for the teaching profession. We are faced with a generation of learners who are challenging us to think about new ways on how to deliver instruction." Family of Achievers MARIA TERESA F. CALDERON belongs to a family of achievers. She is the fifth in the brood of seven of Jose Calderon of Candon, Ilocos Sur and Betty Fabros Calderon of Batangas. Her father served under President Diosdado Macapagal as the Chairman of the National Marketing Corporation (NAMARCO), then ran and won in the election for delegates to the 1971 Constitutional Convention. After the EDSA Revolution, he was appointed a member of the 1981 Constitutional Commission. Her mother, Betty Fabros Calderon made history in the Manila Stock Exchange as the first and only woman member from 1967 to 1983. She taught at the Arellano High School in the 1940's. After EDSA I, she was appointed as OIC governor of Nueva Vizcaya. During her stint, she donated her salary to support her scholars. She organized activities for the voluntary and charitable organizations she headed, including the Settlement House Foundation, Assosacion de las Damas de Filipinas, YWCA, PWU Alumni Association, Zonta Club, National Red Cross of Nueva Vizcaya, and the Order of the Eastern Star, Sampaguita Chapter. Her eldest sister, Lilia Calderon-Clemente is chairperson of Clemente Capital, Inc., a New York money manager and specialist in emerging markets. She is described by the U.S. media as the "Wonder Woman of Wall Street." Ms. Clemente has managed multi-billion-dollar funds in New York for many years, and is now a Beijing-based investor in China. Another sister, Dr. Norma Calderon-Panahon, is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the APA, a Diplomate in Psychiatry, and the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. She is the Medical Director of the Outpatient Services Department of Buffalo Psychiatric Center, Buffalo, New York. She is also a clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry of the State University of New York at Buffalo and a recipient of the prestigious George Tarjan Award given by the American Psychiatric Association as the Most Outstanding International Medical Graduate in 2004, for implementing the integration of IMGs into American Psychiatry. Dr. Panahon, a recent visitor at Arellano University's College of Nursing, received from the College of Medicine, University of the Philippines in Manila the "2007 Most Distinguished Alumnus Overseas Award." Her youngest sister, Maria Victoria F. Calderon, is the Director of the Child Development Center at Erie County Community College. She recently received double prestigious awards as one of the top five best professors at the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Gillette-Brouser Community Award for the empowerment of women and as a role model in the community. Dean Calderon holds an A.B. in Political Science (1974), M.A. in Education (1976), and Ph.D. in Education (1984), all from the University of the Philippines in Diliman. Before sitting as Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Arellano University, she was the Vice President for Academic Affairs at the First Asia Institute of Technology and Humanities in Tanauan, Batangas. She still continues to run the Calderon Reading Workshop, Inc. which she established in 1969 and indefatigably carries on her lifelong mission of making a difference in the life of all her students across cultures.  The World's Fastest Reader, Dr. Maria Teresa F. Calderon, chats with Arellano University Chairman & CEO Francisco Paulino Cayco (left) and Vice President for International Affairs Mario F. Sales (center) during a book launching at AU recently.  Dean Calderon with students and faculty attend the blessing of her new office at the AU Graduate School of Education during the celebration of the 60th foundation day of Florentino Cayco Memorial School of Graduate Studies. |
Thursday 8 March 2012
World's fastest reader at a speed of 80,000 wpm with 100 % comprehension - Prof. Schale
Touch typing record at 400 words per minute
Typing master set on world record
By Resmi Jaimon
By Resmi Jaimon
Bangalore based Arun Kumar, renowned propagator of good typing techniques and a multiple Limca Book Record holder, is now attempting to enter the Guinness Book of World Record for sitting behind the computer screen and typing at a speed of 400 words per minute. Arun is a master of typing, and has worked out techniques that require only four hours of time to learn the basics.
Techgoss spoke to this typing master who has started the Computer Injury Awareness and Prevention Society aimed at promoting proper posture and preventive tips for computer users.
Techgoss (TG): Tell us about your educational and professional background.
Arun Kumar (AK): I have done B.Sc., in microbiology, and I also did a course in computers P.G.D.C.A. Later, I learnt graphic designing and became a graphic designer and was doing designing job for printers and publishers.
Currently, I am doing research in safe typing techniques and computer related injuries and trying to get a doctorate in this.
TG: Share with us how your journey of mastering typing skill techniques.
AK: I found many people struggling to work on computers as many had not learnt touch typing skills and were typing with just one or two fingers. They were taking a lot of time to type and were losing interest to learn computers too. I attended typewriting course after my 10th standard and it took me one year to learn.
People do not have patience to learn typing for a long time to help make their jobs easier. In the long term, they also tend to lose interest and eventually, don’t learn the art.
This got me thinking of a place where people can learn typing in a week’s time. I began researching the technique with my wife. Within two weeks, she was able to type a paragraph. I then tried to teach my graphic design students to type quickly.
Slowly, I reduced the duration from two weeks to four hours, as people began to ask if they could learn in a day’s time. Accordingly, I worked and made the world’s shortest and instant touch typing course to master the complete art of typing. I have had students from places like Mysore, Davangere, Tumkur, Chennai, Hyderabad and other places.
In the year 2000, I was awarded my first “Limca Book of Records” record for training the art of typing in 4 hours for normal and blind people. After my interview came in televisions and in newspapers, several top government officials like Judges, Commissioners, Police Officers, Scientists, Doctors called me and were very happy to know that one can learn the art of typing just in 4 hours of time and came to me to learn.
At this time I thought of concentrating on only typing training and help users in mastering this special art of typing and so closed my graphic designing training.
I also altered the computer table and chair as I was experiencing little discomfort while working on PC. I made a cushion bar to rest the hands, took out the revolving chair and tried using a fixed chair and so on.
I also have designed different methods for training hearing impaired and visually impaired, and for those who have lost one finger or two fingers in accident. Even these people can learn the art of touch typing and work efficiently.
TG: Could you tell us about the awards / recognitions / World records you have in your name?
AK: The first Limca Book of Record was awarded in the year 2000 for teaching typing just in 4 hours for normal, and the blind.
The second record was in 2002 for teaching Kannada and Hindi typing, again just in 4 hours.
The third record was awarded in 2008 for typing in a cross-hand style at a speed of 250 to 300 characters per minute and in a free-hand style typing at a speed of 600 characters per minute.
The fourth record I am trying for is typing by sitting behind the screen at a speed of 400 characters per minute. This I am trying for a Guinness World Record.
I was honoured by Air-India and Deccan Herald for my achievement too.
All the above are recognized by the Limca Book of Records. Unfortunately there is no record for teaching in Guinness Book of World Records, I am still trying to get it, as there is nobody in the world to train the art of typing just in 4 hours and to type in various styles too.
I am also happy to say that I am the only one in the world to type at various styles, usually every finger is assigned to type just three letters e.g. Left hand little finger will be typing just a, q and z, and the index finger types 6 letters i.e. f, r, v, t, g, and b.
When I start to type by cross-hand style, my fingers will be typing different characters and it adds up to six letters in every finger, and when I change the keyboard in a reverse order, my fingers will now do an additional three letters, thus adding up to nine letters in every finger. Thus, my hand has ‘memorized’ around nine letters in every finger.
TG: Do you have passion for typing? Is it because of this keen interest or other reasons that prompted you to attempt at making world records related to typing?
AK: Yes, I love typing, I enjoy typing. I see my students happy after learning typing. I like to show the world that people need not get injured and complain that working on computers is a stressful job. It is not “Long working hours on computers is injurious to health”, it should be changed to “Wrong way of working on computers is injurious to health”.
It is the easiest work on earth like driving. If one knows the proper way of driving they need not get into accident. If one knows swimming, one need not drown.
TG: How did the idea of making such attempts occur to you? How long did it then to make the feat possible?
AK: The first record in framing the teaching techniques was because of my wife as she did not know typing. This gave me a chance to train her in just in a week’s time.
I happened to visit a blind school “Sri Ramanashree school for the Blind” in J.P. Nagar and found out how those children work on computers and saw them typing through the counting method. Then, I trained them also in typing in just four hours.
Once I got a hearing-impaired student to learn typing, I got an idea of training them by using rubber band technique, as I cannot speak to them. The rubber band tied to their fingers will guide them.
Also, when I have students who have lost one or two fingers in an accident, I change methods accordingly and see that they learn the art of typing.
I picked up the style of cross-hand from an orchestra drummer who used to shift his hands while playing on drums. This way of cross hand typing took me nearly two years.
The reverse idea style was given to me by my children. Once when they were in my office for typing, they left my office by changing the keyboard in reverse position.
When I sat to practice typing, I was shocked by this style and immediately without any delay tried to master that style too. This style took me around one and a half years to master.
TG: Tell us about the support of your family, friends and others in achieving this feat?
AK: I have not had much support from my family. It is all because of our students, who gave positive feedback on their performance in their companies and their hike in the salary. Moreover, they don’t feel it is a stressful job.
Even computer-injured people started to come for the training and began to work without any pains and aches.
TG: Our readers would like to hear about Computer Injury Awareness and Prevention Society as well as how you spread awareness on the ill-effects of wrong postures while working on a computer?
AK: Computer Injury Awareness and Prevention Society., was started in 2010, after I happened to listen to a radio interview on AIDS by the Karnataka AIDS Prevention Society. Like KAPS, there are many societies to raise awareness for other diseases like cancer. Since I am a record holder in computers, I thought I should do something to raise awareness about preventive techniques. This is done via the media and conducting seminars at schools and companies. My students are the main medium through which we are spreading awareness.
I have given safety guidelines on Doordarshan, TV9, Amrita TV, and in schools as well. Still there is lack of computer injury awareness. Many don’t take it seriously. Prevention is better than cure. In U.S and U.K, there are several organizations that hold meetups every month
February 28th is marked as International RSI Day. On this day, people worldwide bring in their research and meet together and share their experiences on injury and prevention.
My main motive is to reduce computer injuries drastically and show the right way of working on them. Now, I am looking for international collaboration with some organization wherein they can take my research work on computer touch typing and my unique furniture designs.
World's fastest Reader
Coming back on the train from Hull today, where I attended the launch of our Lightship Anthology yesterday, I sat next to the fastest reader I have ever met in my life. We left Doncaster at around 11:00am. I noticed that the woman was reading a book by Michael Connelly – I don't know which one because the publisher doesn't use running headers. I saw she was on Chapter 5 when I sat next to her. Ten minutes later I happen to glance over my shoulder and saw she was at the beginning of Chapter 11. "That can't be right," I thought. So I tried to time her reading and realized that she could read 2 pages in 25 seconds, and 4 pages in 50 seconds. Obviously she was quicker when there was dialogue – and they were fairly normal pages of around 250 words each. When we reached Kings Cross she was on page 300 or something, only around 150 pages to go – about half an hour. I am green with envy, having managed to get through only about 50 manuscript pages in the same time.
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Bookshelves and desk lamps brought serenity to Howard Berg. Not much else could growing up in the Brooklyn projects.
"I found the safest place in the neighborhood was the library," he said. "To this day, I don't think anyone's ever felt threatened by gangs in a library."
Gangs of bookworms, however, might feel intimidated by Berg's uncanny ability to peruse a book. The McKinney resident is the world's fastest reader.
Courtesy of Howard Berg
He is listed in the 1990 Guinness Book of World Records for reading more than 25,000 words a minute. The average person reads 200 words a minute.
Berg's learning ability is also anything but average, and has been since his early days in New York.
"I made some good choices," he said. "I read at a college level in the sixth grade because I basically hung out in the library. It was the only place to play. I was surrounded by a lot of high-level books so I was reading at a pretty high level early."
By high level, he means analyzing the relativity theory at age 9. He means processing 3,000 words a minute by the time he got to college at the State University of New York, Binghamton.
Coincidentally, Berg gained an interest in college in the brain and how it works. He switched his major during his junior year from biology to psycho-biology, eager to learn the physiology of the nervous system and the brain's role in learning.
Berg completed a four-year psychology program in one year, a feat not even the school dean said was possible. Reading, analyzing and test-acing his doubters down, Berg had a revelation.
"It hit me that they don't teach you how to learn in school," he said. "They tell you what to learn and why to learn. They don't explain why you can remember the words to, 'I Shot the Sheriff,' or why you'd even want to.
"But when you read something you actually want to know, the next day you don't know who wrote the book and who was in it. So, I started learning about learning."
Berg moved to McKinney 14 years ago. He first came to the area when he appeared on "Good Morning Texas" as part of a national tour focused on his rare mental abilities.
New York --- his home --- had not appreciated, or perhaps understood those abilities. Berg worked in the city for 10 years, set on spreading his knowledge to kids who suffered through a push-them-along education system, that is, to those kids who even stayed in the system.
One school had a 2 percent graduation rate. The rest of the students either flunked or dropped out of the system. Berg volunteered to teach what he knew to the students who did stay in school, but the principal wouldn't have it.
"Kids in biology couldn't do the homework because they didn't know how to find the answers, so I was teaching them how using their bio book in their bio class," he said. "The principal said they weren't paying me to do that and wrote down that I wasn't doing my job because I was teaching kids how to do their homework and how to learn."
Berg said he couldn't help those unwilling to be helped.
"So I quit my job as a teacher to become an educator," he said. "I wasn't going to spend my life making kids dumber."
Berg has stayed true to his promise since the 1980s, when he began educating anyone who would listen. School and business success depended on their listening, he said.
"There's more printed in one week in the New York Times than a person in the 18th century learned their whole life," he said. "When you're trying to do well in school, you need to read faster than two hundred words a minute."
Berg had taken graduate courses in how to teach reading, and more importantly, he figured out what he did to reach insane speed reading milestones.
"I observed myself reading," he said. "I took a part of my mind that wasn't reading, and I observed myself, asking what I was doing now that's different than what someone else would be doing while reading this."
Some might find that a daunting task, but Berg came to a fairly simple, yet complex conclusion. He compared reading to cruising down a North Texas highway. Drivers read the road in four directions --- front, back, left and right --- while eyeing the speedometer and gas gauge, switching the radio and playing Words With Friends on their iPhone. Berg said their brains should explode, but multitasking comes easier.
People read a book 200 words a minute in one direction and barely remember what they read an hour later. Berg realized the disconnect.
"In a car, we see everything," he said. "In a book, it appears there's a little person in the back of our heads looking at a book through our eyes, and this little person reads one word at a time aloud. So, we're using our eyes to hear a book instead of to see a book."
Seeing the words as a visual process, instead of an auditory one. So knowing what to look for during that process, particularly when studying a textbook, will increase one's reading speed, Berg said.
"If you want to hit a target, you have to know what you're aiming at," Berg said. "Most people are clueless when they're given a book. They need to stop reading and start analyzing."
Teaching people how to analyze, and do it quickly, became Berg's mission. He organized his methods into a system, a program that even the youngest kids could use.
One student who used the program finished a four-year degree at Thomas Edison in six months. Another graduated with a 4.0 grade point average in economics from the University of Texas-Arlington. He was only 16.
"He taught math as a graduate student when he was 18," Berg said. "His biggest challenge was that he couldn't date students who were younger."
Berg's 9-year-old grandchild took his program and can read 750 words a minute.
Of course, others took notice, many doubting his seemingly unreal speed-reading madness. Dr. Kuni Beasley, founder of the former NEW American School and Gateway Preparatory School, saw about an infomercial about Berg's mega speed reading product. A speed reader himself, Beasley didn't believe Berg's claims.
"I found the safest place in the neighborhood was the library," he said. "To this day, I don't think anyone's ever felt threatened by gangs in a library."
Gangs of bookworms, however, might feel intimidated by Berg's uncanny ability to peruse a book. The McKinney resident is the world's fastest reader.
Courtesy of Howard Berg
He is listed in the 1990 Guinness Book of World Records for reading more than 25,000 words a minute. The average person reads 200 words a minute.
Berg's learning ability is also anything but average, and has been since his early days in New York.
"I made some good choices," he said. "I read at a college level in the sixth grade because I basically hung out in the library. It was the only place to play. I was surrounded by a lot of high-level books so I was reading at a pretty high level early."
By high level, he means analyzing the relativity theory at age 9. He means processing 3,000 words a minute by the time he got to college at the State University of New York, Binghamton.
Coincidentally, Berg gained an interest in college in the brain and how it works. He switched his major during his junior year from biology to psycho-biology, eager to learn the physiology of the nervous system and the brain's role in learning.
Berg completed a four-year psychology program in one year, a feat not even the school dean said was possible. Reading, analyzing and test-acing his doubters down, Berg had a revelation.
"It hit me that they don't teach you how to learn in school," he said. "They tell you what to learn and why to learn. They don't explain why you can remember the words to, 'I Shot the Sheriff,' or why you'd even want to.
"But when you read something you actually want to know, the next day you don't know who wrote the book and who was in it. So, I started learning about learning."
Berg moved to McKinney 14 years ago. He first came to the area when he appeared on "Good Morning Texas" as part of a national tour focused on his rare mental abilities.
New York --- his home --- had not appreciated, or perhaps understood those abilities. Berg worked in the city for 10 years, set on spreading his knowledge to kids who suffered through a push-them-along education system, that is, to those kids who even stayed in the system.
One school had a 2 percent graduation rate. The rest of the students either flunked or dropped out of the system. Berg volunteered to teach what he knew to the students who did stay in school, but the principal wouldn't have it.
"Kids in biology couldn't do the homework because they didn't know how to find the answers, so I was teaching them how using their bio book in their bio class," he said. "The principal said they weren't paying me to do that and wrote down that I wasn't doing my job because I was teaching kids how to do their homework and how to learn."
Berg said he couldn't help those unwilling to be helped.
"So I quit my job as a teacher to become an educator," he said. "I wasn't going to spend my life making kids dumber."
Berg has stayed true to his promise since the 1980s, when he began educating anyone who would listen. School and business success depended on their listening, he said.
"There's more printed in one week in the New York Times than a person in the 18th century learned their whole life," he said. "When you're trying to do well in school, you need to read faster than two hundred words a minute."
Berg had taken graduate courses in how to teach reading, and more importantly, he figured out what he did to reach insane speed reading milestones.
"I observed myself reading," he said. "I took a part of my mind that wasn't reading, and I observed myself, asking what I was doing now that's different than what someone else would be doing while reading this."
Some might find that a daunting task, but Berg came to a fairly simple, yet complex conclusion. He compared reading to cruising down a North Texas highway. Drivers read the road in four directions --- front, back, left and right --- while eyeing the speedometer and gas gauge, switching the radio and playing Words With Friends on their iPhone. Berg said their brains should explode, but multitasking comes easier.
People read a book 200 words a minute in one direction and barely remember what they read an hour later. Berg realized the disconnect.
"In a car, we see everything," he said. "In a book, it appears there's a little person in the back of our heads looking at a book through our eyes, and this little person reads one word at a time aloud. So, we're using our eyes to hear a book instead of to see a book."
Seeing the words as a visual process, instead of an auditory one. So knowing what to look for during that process, particularly when studying a textbook, will increase one's reading speed, Berg said.
"If you want to hit a target, you have to know what you're aiming at," Berg said. "Most people are clueless when they're given a book. They need to stop reading and start analyzing."
Teaching people how to analyze, and do it quickly, became Berg's mission. He organized his methods into a system, a program that even the youngest kids could use.
One student who used the program finished a four-year degree at Thomas Edison in six months. Another graduated with a 4.0 grade point average in economics from the University of Texas-Arlington. He was only 16.
"He taught math as a graduate student when he was 18," Berg said. "His biggest challenge was that he couldn't date students who were younger."
Berg's 9-year-old grandchild took his program and can read 750 words a minute.
Of course, others took notice, many doubting his seemingly unreal speed-reading madness. Dr. Kuni Beasley, founder of the former NEW American School and Gateway Preparatory School, saw about an infomercial about Berg's mega speed reading product. A speed reader himself, Beasley didn't believe Berg's claims.