The Influence of Evelyn Wood

Evelyn Wood, the most influential exponent ofhow they were doing it, and how they had
speed reading since the mid-20th century, beganlearned to do it. In these studies, she soon found
doing research on speed reading while employedout what they were doing, but not yet how they
as a remedial reading teacher at a junior highhad learned to do it.Her next step was to try to
school near Salt Lake City, Utah.I was an earlyteach herself to read fast.She used to practice
associate of Mrs. Wood, who wanted totrying to read faster during summers while she
determine why some people could read fasterand her husband were at their cabin up in one of
than others. More specifically, she wanted tothe canyons outside of Salt Lake City.Once, while
define learning theories that could account forpracticing in the book Green Mansions, she
how individuals were able to read more than 400became so angry at her inability to read fast that
words per minute.One of her earliest examplesshe threw the book across a little creek. After
was Dr. Lowell Lees, a friend and teacher at thepicking the book up and dusting the dirt off its
University of Utah. Her tests showed that hepages, she suddenly realized that the movement
could read more than 6,000 words per minuteof her hand was causing her to see and read
with excellent comprehension.Eventually, Mrs.more than one word at a time.Thus, she
Wood identified more than 100 individuals whodiscovered the use of the hand as a pacer for
could read more than 1,500 words perher reading.And the rest, as is often repeated, is
minute.Using that rate as a minimum, she studiedhistory.Mrs.
these people to determine what they were doing,