The Science Behind Reading Genius - 3-10-06
The Science Behind Reading Genius - 3-10-06
The Science Behind Reading Genius - 3-10-06
INTRODUCTION
The Reading Genius program is about helping you tap into the brain’s
innate and powerful capability to create patterns and forge links of
understanding. Not only will the Reading Genius program help you read
faster while improving recall and comprehension, you’ll also enjoy more of
what you read, because you are more deeply connected to the material on
many levels (physical, emotional, mental and spiritual).
This guide will serve to provide and show that all the principles used
in the Reading Genius system are well founded and substantiated by
independent research and study by prominent people in the appropriate fields.
Between your ears lies the world’s most unique and powerful machine —
as well as life’s greatest mystery. It is the source for man’s highest accomplishments
in science and art. Paradoxically, it is also the cause for tragedy, illness and disease.
How or what causes this thing we call a brain to help us perform the mundane to
survive and live each day, as well as enable us to achieve the incredible and the
marvelous?
We were never given a user's manual for our magnificent brain.
Consider first the brain’s physiological qualities. Peter Russell, psychologist,
author of The Brain Book, and who has done extensive research on the brain,
writes that, “the brain is an intricate web of nerves that constitutes the human
nervous system and weighs only 3.5 pounds.” Psychologist and noted author,
Robert Ornstein writes in his book The Amazing Brain that “there are perhaps
about one hundred billion neurons, or nerve cells, in the brain, and in a single
human brain the number of possible interconnections between these cells is greater
than the number of atoms in the universe.”
How from this small and intricate web of nerves are we able to function,
learn, and create things, from poetry to jet planes, from skyscrapers to love songs?
The following studies are described in The Brain Pack, a compendium of brain
research studies, by Ron Vander Meer and Ad Dudink. Francis Crick, co-
discoverer of DNA, and Christof Koch, suggest that consciousness is created by
the neurons’ neural firings in different parts of the brain. The neural firings create
consciousness, similar to when individual instruments combine to create a symphony.
The work of Dr. Rudolfo Llinas, who has monitored neural firings, suggests
that the firings are highly coordinated and not just random. According to Dr.
Llinas, these firings form the building blocks of consciousness.
Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga believes that there is a part of the brain
that gives meaning to the brain’s processing. According to Gazzaniga, there is a
chemical state of the brain and a psychological state. From this the brain creates
moods or emotions and makes decisions.
The brain and our ability for continuous learning, is dynamic, flexible,
and responsive to the environment. In Making Connections: Teaching And
The Human Brain, professors Renate Nummela Caine and Geoffrey Caine
write that while the brain has genetically established physical development
stages, there is also what is called Brain Plasticity, where a person’s experience
changes the physical structure of the brain. The authors explain that brain
research at UC Berkeley over the last 40 years indicates that “the brain will
grow physiologically if stimulated through interactions with the environment.”
Once knowledge spread through the use of books and education, the
scientific progress of society advanced rapidly.
Your brain, then, is designed for continuous change and life long learning.
You’ll find that the information that you learn and the exercises that you do in the
Reading Genius program will stimulate and help you use the untapped facets of
your brain while you read.
Most notably, Russell writes that, “In terms of its complexity and versatility,
the human brain far surpasses any computer on earth. The most important difference
between the brain and a computer is that the brain not only works in a linear, step-
by-step fashion, but also performs parallel processing, integrating and synthesizing
information and abstracting from its generalities. Whereas the human brain can
recognize a face in less than a second, there is no computer in the world that could
do the same.”
The Reading Genius program is about helping you tap into the brain’s
innate and powerful capability to create patterns and forge links of understanding.
Not only will the Reading Genius program help you read faster, while improving
recall and comprehension, you’ll also enjoy more of what you read because you
are more deeply connected to the material on many levels (physical, emotional,
mental and spiritual).
The music plus colorful high speed exercises featured in the Reading
Genius Software operate on both a physical and mental level. You’re also
taught to use your senses and emotions to create a “mental movie” out of the
book. The result is a multisensory, powerful learning experience. Often
people who have difficulty learning find the Reading Genius system incredibly
effective because it uses a variety of learning styles (which are covered later
in the Guide Book) and because many of the senses are stimulated and used.
Good readers get better because they are now using more of their innate
abilities.
6) Getting Into the Genius State
Closely related to getting into the genius state is centering yourself. Centering,
according to Alexander Everett, author of Inward Bound (a book available in
your e-library), teacher, philosopher and an authority on comparative religions, is
when you still the body, still the emotions, still the mind and know only peace.
When you are centered, you focus only on the present time. It has profound
positive ramifications for the mind, body and spirit.
It’s easy to talk in hyperbole when discussing the brain’s incredible processing
capacity. In The Brain Book, Peter Russell writes that the brain is “sufficient to
One can readily deduce then that also includes everything we read. Russell
also explains that the brain is incredibly fast in processing information. “Consider
that we receive the visual image of a person’s face in a few hundredths of a second;
analyze details in a quarter of a second; and synthesize all the information into a
single whole with specific associations in less than a second.” Thus reading the
way we were trained so grossly under utilizes our vast mental capacity.
Only with a course like Reading Genius do you now have a training system
to tap into this vast ability and apply it to reading. In The Reading Genius System,
you learn to get into this state, where your “6th Sense” is more aware, before
reading in order to glean as much as you can from the book you are reading.
The brain is capable of reading must faster than the average of 250 to
300 words per minute. According to the experience of Dr. James Grass, who
for the last 25 years has taught students and professionals in government and
private industry how to learn and manage information more effectively, if you
believe you can read faster and believe in the reading system you’re using,
you will read faster. The Meninger Center reports that the human mind is
capable of processing over 100,000 words/minute it stands to reason, then
that all of us should be able to read a lot faster.
The Reading Genius exercises and musical compositions have been thoroughly
researched, carefully engineered, and successfully tested in a multitude of
classroom settings worldwide. You will discover how to use more of your
brain thus greatly expanding your ability to learn by applying mental rehearsal
and carefully stimulating your senses and emotions.
The skills and techniques you learn in Reading Genius will help you break
bad reading habits and diminish negative memories that severely limit your reading
ability. The essence of Reading Genius is to help you establish and implement a
new structure of tools and behaviors to help you read faster and with greater
comprehension.
.
Standing up in front of the class and reading out loud has created
a number of setbacks: most notably - the fear of public speaking.
With the exercises and musical compositions found in the Reading Genius
system, you’re able to go faster and retain more because you’re using both sides
of your brain. Another key point: exercises in the Reading Genius system leverage
the mind’s ability to act as a filtering system and its natural tendency to focus on
concepts and ideas. You’re able to read faster because Reading Genius trains
you to scan for key words and ideas, filtering what’s interesting and pertinent to
your purpose and values.
To get the most out of the Reading Genius system to achieve optimum
performance, follow the instructions as given, get highly interested, and do
the exercises with enthusiasm. This will help you build and implement faster
patterns of successful behavior.
Few theories about the brain have captured the attention and fanned
the imagination of both the scientific community and the general public as the
concept of Right- and Left-Brain Thinking. In Making Connections: Teaching
And The Human Brain, professors Renate Nummela Caine and Geoffrey Caine
write that early studies of brain hemispheres at the California Institute of
Technology suggested that each sphere has highly specialized functions.
The Brain Pack reports that the two hemispheres have unique dominant
traits, each with the following thinking skills:
LEFT BRAIN RIGHT BRAIN
Analytical thinking Artistic ability
The Reading Genius program makes extensive use of both the right and
left hemispheres. When active the right hemisphere works 1000 times faster than
the left, according to Dr. Jeannette Vos in The Learning Revolution. The right
hemisphere creates images, feelings and remembers visually. The left hemisphere
is driven to understand concepts, language and deal in logic.
When the two hemispheres work together, the mind becomes very, very
powerful. You’ll find the Reading Genius system acts as a conductor, orchestrat-
ing both sides of your brain to play in unison. Thus, emphasis on preparation
before you read is taught and emphasized.
12) We Differ In Learning Styles
Peter Russell writes in The Brain Book that in science or in art “the com-
bined use of both left and right is a common characteristic of the creative proc-
ess.” Russell explains that Einstein’s ideas came to him as pictures and images,
then into words and mathematical symbols, that Leonardo da Vinci was as much
a scientist as an artist, and that the “notebooks of many other artists similarly
reveal concise analytical thinking linked with deep insight and aesthetic apprecia-
tion.”
When studying the concept of right and left brain thinking, the key
point to understand, explains Russell, is “that there are different styles for
learning and modes for processing information.” Professors Renate Nummela
Caine and Geoffrey Caine further support the importance of difference learn-
ing and thinking styles when they write in Making Connections: Teaching And
The Human Brain: “The ‘two brain’ doctrine is most valuable as a metaphor that
helps educators acknowledge two separate but simultaneous tendencies in the
brain for organizing information. One is to reduce information into parts; the other
is to perceive and work with it as a whole or series of wholes.”
Authors Dr. Jeannette Vos and Gordon Dryden write in The Learning Revo-
lution that when the left- and right-brain hemispheres are stimulated and working
together, you learn more. With the Reading Genius system, you get more than
information; you get powerful exercises to stimulate emotions and turn on your
right-brain hemisphere. The right brain sees entire sections and absorbs whole
patterns. The result: the mind grows very active, takes in increasingly more infor-
mation, retains more, and learning grows easier.
Another reason why the Reading Genius system works is that it incorpo-
rates a variety of learning styles - visual, auditory, and physical, that use both right-
and-left brain modes of thinking. Anyone, therefore, can be helped by one, two,
or all three learning styles.
13) Mental Training
Author Michael Hutchison writes in his book Mega Brain Power how
Neurologist Scott Grafton of the University Of Southern California established a
neurological basis for how the brain builds skill memory. By using advanced
brain-mapping technology, Grafton discovered that “the brain learns a new skill
by fine-tuning the specific neural circuits that are involved in making the motion.
When people are learning a new skill, driving a car, for example, there is
simultaneous activity (scattered) in different areas of the brain. But as a person
become more proficient, the skill becomes grooved, and brain activity becomes
focused on the neural circuits directly involved with the physical activity.” In short,
the brain and the body become more focused and efficient. The power of mental
rehearsal then, is that it enables you to develop skill memory (train your brain) in
advance of the actual performance.
How Different Brain Waves Can Impact Learning, Memory And Creativity
Brain waves are most rapid in the beta wave state (approx.14 cycles
per second or more). The beta wave state is the normal waking state, where
eyes are wide open and focused. The beta wave state is associated with
alertness, arousal, concentration, cognition; and at excessive levels, with
anxiety.
Brain waves become more relaxed in the alpha wave state, slowing down
to 8 to 13 Hz. Alpha waves produce a calm and pleasant sensation. When you
first wake up in the morning or when you are driving a car, your brain is in alpha
state.
In the theta wave state, drowsiness takes over as the mind slows down
to 4 to 8 Hz, a dreamlike state. The theta state offers access to unconscious
material memories, free association, sudden insight, and creative ideas. The
delta wave state is a deep sleep, below 4Hz.
In the alpha wave state, the focus is more on the internal and non-
linear thinking predominates. Alpha waves create a more open mental focus
as the eyes see whole pages and the brain records more of the page. In the
alpha state, the mind moves from the close-up camera shot to a wide-angle
panoramic view. Many of the exercises and musical compositions in Reading
Genius are designed to put you in an alpha wave state, which expands both
the focus of your eyes and your ability to comprehend and retain information.
The result is you see whole pages and your reading speed and level of
comprehension improves.
The theta state is associated with dreaming and creativity and deep retention
memory. Another key point: the dreaming step in Reading Genius is important
because it promotes creativity and memory retention of what you’ve just read.
When you dream, you’re tapping into the unconscious, which can store
much more information than your conscious mind. Dreaming is the link between
the conscious and the unconscious.
Emerson often combined dreaming with reading
17) Music and Learning
It’s been said that music calms the savage beast. Music also does
some miraculous things for humans as well. According to Dr. Jeffrey
Thompson, Founder of Brain-Mind Research and Director of Neuro-Acoustic
Research Center, music enhances brain activities in two ways. One, it opens
the door to deep memory retention through the stimulation of emotions.
Emotional ties through music creates deep learning. Two, music activates
alpha brain waves, widening the mind’s focus and ability to see patterns and
make connections. This effect has been traced to the actual sequence of beat
patterns, the harmonic beats, that changes the state of consciousness. Dr.
Mark Tramo of Harvard Medical School, a neurobiologist, has reported that
precise musical structures seem to excite specialized brain circuits essential
for decoding complex ideas.
Can music physically change the brain and the entire body for that
matter?
Sheila Ostrander, Lynn Schroeder, and Nancy Ostrander are the authors
of many books, including the international best-seller Superlearning 2000. The
authors writes that, “The revolutionary discovery that music is one key to the kind
of fast, stress-free learning so needed today was originally made by scientists in
the former Soviet block. Researchers found it’s the slow tempo section in Baroque
concertos, about 55 to 60 beats a minute, that brings the amped-up learning effect.”
In addition, the authors of Superlearning 2000 write that, “In studying the
effects of this music on people, researchers found the following physical effects:
blood pressure relaxes and lowers and your heartbeat slows to a healthy rhythm.
Stress factors in your blood drop. At the same time EEG monitors reveal that
your brain waves change. Your fast, beta waves eventually decrease and the
alpha brain waves of relaxation increase by an average of 6 percent. The right and
left hemispheres of your brain become synchronized. The music has induced a
powerful form of alert relaxation in you, relaxed body, alert mind, an ideal state
for optimal accomplishment.”
18) Music of Reading Genius
The Reading Genius music is engineered to produce effects that far exceed
the documented results of classical music. Proven successful in countless seminars
worldwide, the music promotes alpha and theta waves, thus opening the mind and
getting you into a highly focused state while reading. This you are ready to recieve/
learn from the material your read far more effectively than if you were not in this
highly specialized state.
Dr. Wenger also writes that, “Your breath is, in effect, a pacemaker for your
attention. If you take short breaths, you will tend to have short bursts of
attention...Deep, full breaths will enable you to speak in longer, more complex
sentences and to form deeper thoughts.”
Reading Genius teaches you to quiet the mind by taking full, deep breaths
and listening to your heartbeat. Only a quiet mind is totally focused and reading at
optimum performance. According to Reading Genius inventor Ed Strachar:
“People who bypass the breath and heartbeat exercises often fail to reach their full
potential in absorbing information. We have observed the power and the positive
impact of deep breathing on busy executives as well as on children with learning
disabilities. Deep breathing calms the person, relaxes the body, focuses the mind,
and accelerates the mind’s ability to grasp information. Ironically, we first need to
slow down in order to go faster.”
20) Focus
Learn to get fully focused , like a magnet, towards the book and
reading becomes a whole new experience.
“The goal,” explains Altorfer, “is to get your unconscious attitudes, patterns
of behavior, in line with your desired goals. When your conscious decisions and
unconsciousness attitudes are in sync, you’re in business.”
Boosting the Power of Affirmations
“That is why I tell you, as to whatever you pray and make request for,
believe that you have received it, it shall be yours”
Mark 11:24
22) Mind Mapping
Mind mapping is a note-taking process that helps people take notes more
effectively and improves thinking. Mind mapping utilizes both text and visual cues.
Tony Buzan, psychologist, educator, author of many books on the brain and its
functions, originated mind mapping. In his book, Use Both Sides Of Your Brain,
Buzan explains why mind mapping works. “The brain does not deal with information
in a linear, list-making fashion. The mind juggles whole networks of words and
ideas, putting in context to what is being said and heard. People make associations
to information and create meaning. It is the network inside the mind, and not the
simple order of word presentation, which is more important to understanding of
the way we relate to words.”
A mind map reflects both detail and the big picture. In your mind map
you’ll readily see patterns which provide insight and help improve memory. Mind
mapping combines right- and left-brain thinking. Lesson 8 in the lesson plan
teaches you to create your own mind maps. Also recommended is to see the mind
map published in this guidebook.
23) Reading Genius and Mind Mapping
The brain works best when it works fast. With regards to mind
mapping, the Reading Genius system stresses speed in writing key points
down and getting the context of meaning as quickly as possible. The trick is
to go fast writing whatever comes to mind quickly in abbreviated form so as
to flow with your line of thought/memory. Otherwise one will sit there trying
to remember/think and thus gets impeded.
Impala
TurboC
Chevy Rims Tires
Porsche
Ford Wheels
coffee
College Cars
Trucks Engines
Mack
18
Wheeler
Movie
MUSIC
Dr. Mark Tramo of Harvard Medical School
(REFERENCE)
Mozart and Spatial Reasoning - Report on research by Frances Rauscher,
Gordon Shaw and Katherine Ky, Nature, 1993