Read through the review, or click to jump directly to a section:
What is AceReader?
How does it work? How quickly did you "get it"? What does speed reading feel like?
What are the "tests, drills and games for all ages and reading levels"?
If you know the "secret" of speed reading, do you really need the program?
Does AceReader double your reading speed? Does it improve reading comprehension?
What is AceReader?
AceReader can be simply described as "speed reading software". But this is a glossy, marketing description that really doesn't do the program justice. The main goal of the program is to increase your "reading proficiency". That means it will increase not only the speed at which you read, but also your comprehension of the text.
Indeed, on the front of the box, we see the following promises and features:
"Double your reading speed"
"Improve reading comprehension"
"Tests, drills and games for all ages and reading levels"
This review will verify that 1) AceReader performs well in the three above areas, and 2) describe the process, simplicity or difficulty in doing so.
This article is a review of AceReader Pro Deluxe Version which retails for $80, though educational and quantity discounts are available.
For more information or to purchase, visit AceReader.com.
How does it work? How quickly did you "get it"? What does speed reading feel like?
Reading at increased speeds is an interesting feeling. I hadn't experienced it before testing AceReader.
Usually when I read, I process text at a speed I could comfortably speak aloud. The AceReader folks have a name for this: Subvocalization. You've got to stop subvocalization before you can read faster.
Using AceReader, I gradually learned to stop subvocalization. When I do this, I can then turbo-read at high speeds.
Speed reading is not just reading words quickly. You also must comprehend what you read! And that's the hurdle for me (and I would assume others). It's one thing to train your eye to move quickly and hit word after word. It's more difficult to train your brain to process faster.
I can now read and comprehend much faster than before, thanks to AceReader. I need practice, though, because I can only keep up the effort for a limited amount of time. When I increase my reading speed, I make a conscious effort to use what AceReader taught me. When I do, it's like my brain turns on an afterburner: Instead of reading word after word, my eyes scan left to right very fast, and I'm no longer reading words, but "chunks" of sentences. It's an odd feeling, a physical feeling, like I just took a caffeine hit.
My current ability allows me to read quickly like this for limited periods of time, usually in spurts of a couple minutes on, then a couple off. The process doesn't come naturally, but that's to be expected when I'm trying to modify a few decades of reading practice!
And speaking of that magic word, "practice": That's the one thing you need here. If you're willing to commit and practice these techniques, the AceReader training should work for you.
What are the "tests, drills and games for all ages and reading levels"?
The software opens in a wizard menu, allowing you to pick and choose what test and functions you'd like to perform. Among your choices are the following.
Comprehension Tests and Reports:
These consist of self-paced and forced-paced tests to measure your reading speed and comprehension, as well as an archive of past scores. Use these to monitor your progress as well as to establish a baseline for the games and training. There are 260 built-in tests at varying levels of complexity. More than enough to test yourself at speed and comprehension. You can easily add your own or edit what's there. Many of the tools below use these results to test you at and above your established reading speed.
The built-in tests are extensive, and if that's not enough you can create your own or purchase additions. Bernie Marasco (AceReader's company president) gives more detail:
"We hired writers to create the material. In the early days of our product, we started out with very old public domain text. We have since either modified that material or created new material. Creating content for our product has been a very expensive and time consuming job. We finally have our content in shape enough that we never hear from any teachers about any mistakes or typos. It's been a long road over the years getting our content into it's current shape.
Our reading comprehension test editor and our drill text editor include a readability statistics function. If you press the readability button, it will give you common readability statistics on the text to help you determine the grade level and complexity of the text. We passed all our material through those readability statistics to help us level the material.
Also note, we created two additional reading comprehension test sets that can be purchased separate from the program and can be imported into the program. We offer an American History test set and also an Earth & Space Science test set. The idea with those additional test set offerings is to allow students the opportunity to learn interesting educational material while learning how to become a more proficient reader. We have plans to continue building up that library of optional test set add-ons."
Drills:
Consider the drills as very elaborate flash cards. At the more basic levels, you literally flash one word after another on the screen. Read as quickly as you can, as AceReader gradually speeds up the display. At more advanced levels, the drills train your eyes to move and your brain to get used to the movement.
Particular problem I had here, and which is an impediment to increasing reading speed beyond a certain point, is I was pronouncing each word in my brain as I read it. This "sound it out internally while you read it" approach is fairly common, but it limits your reading speed to the rate at which you can speak! These tests also train you on breaking that habit - you'll eventually be able to process text faster than you can say it.
Eye-Span Game:
Look at a group of words, and tell if those words are the same or not. Sounds easy, right? Try it when the words are farther apart than usual, and you have a fraction of a second to respond! This game trains you in quickly scanning text and finding what's there. The focus is not on comprehension, but on refocusing and repositioning your eyes quickly.
Eye-Span Comprehension Game:
The object is to look at a group of words, and tell if those words are related in meaning. You might see "earthquake", "flood" and "thunderstorm" on the screen. Yes, these are all natural events. And you might see a grouping of "man", "boy" and "five". While "man" and "boy", related in meaning, "five" isn't. In this way, we're forced to read and process what we read to improve comprehension while quickly scanning text.
Tachistoscope Flash and Recall Game:
This interestingly-named test is another of the flash-card variety, only you're tested on memory recall of what's flashed. Scan text, and then be able to tell what you just saw. It's tricky - you'll need to be able to pick a single word apart from very similar other words, as well as remembering non-alpha sequences like "@@@!!!@@@!!!" This test improves eye movement as well as trains you to read and recall text in short bursts.
Flash Card Game:
You are presented with a statement or phrase that disappears after a fraction of a second, then with a question asking you about it. While similar in intent to to Tachistoscope game, this tool can also be used as a memorization quiz for remembering lists of items. Anything from state capitols to foreign language memorization can be implemented here, thanks to AceReader's excellent customization capabilities.
Search / Scan Game:
You are presented with a list or paragraph or two of text, and a word you must find. Scan and scroll through the text, and click on the word when you find it. After several mistakes due to overeagerness in clicking my mouse, I got the feel of this. You'll find yourself quickly able to skim through text at high-speed.
Online Reader and Expert Mode:
This is the real meat of the program. This mode allows full access to the tools mentioned above, but also has many other features. Start the tool and you'll see a screen like this:
Note the text "Read this as fast as you can." This is something I created and loaded in to AceReader. This function of AceReader is a highly evolved reading tool, allowing you to pick and choose your reading speed (specified manually in words per minute or automatically calculated based on previous tests), and how to display the text you're reading. You can choose to display text as flash cards, flashing screenfulls of information, or by individual words. The text can appear wherever you choose on the screen, in order to best tune eye movement, reading speed and comprehension. The results of each session are detailed in the lower-right of the Expert Mode window:
In addition, most of the above functions, tests and games allow the user to read from predefined or separately-purchased text. But, if you have specialized material you'd like to work with, AceReader allows you to import that too. Bernie Marasco comments:
"Our program is designed so that if you create your own content for the tests, drills and games, you can import and export the content. That way, the AceReader community can share this content. For example, one school in a district might have a teacher interested in creating their own tests and if they do that, they can go through the export/import process to share that content with another school in district that owns AceReader and who wants to use the same content."
There is also a text-to-speech add-on (separately purchased) for AceReader Pro, allowing the program to translate text to speech in a natural (human-sounding!) voice.
If you know the "secret" of speed reading, do you really need the program?
Perhaps not. But AceReader offers more than a quick "how to speed read" tutorial. It also gives you the tools to train and build your skill, as well as ways of measuring improvement. Think of a marathon runner: Sure, you can eat less, jog all the time, and become a pretty good runner on your own. But if you want to reach higher levels of development, you need a personal trainer. The trainer will put you on a specialized diet, give you instruments and tools to measure and improve your performance. AceReader is that next level of development: Learning the basics to improve reading efficiency is one thing. Having advanced tools and instruction is not something you can easily discover on your own, and with practice, these give tremendous improvement.
Does AceReader double your reading speed? Does it improve reading comprehension?
Does AceReader work? Before performing any training, I needed to know where I currently stood, and took three tests to determine my current reading speed. Averaging the results, my reading speed measured 359 words per minute, with an average comprehension score of 92%.
After learning and practicing with the program, I took three more tests to see how I had improved. Averaging the results, my reading speed measured 676 words per minute, with an average comprehension score of 83%.
All statistics are tracked. If you want, AceReader will graph the information for you. Here's what mine looked like after I took the reading speed and comprehension tests, detailing my reading improvement:
Note that I didn't improve in comprehension, but that's because we're not comparing apples-to-apples. If I were to rate my reading comprehension score properly, I would've taken tests before learning with AceReader, then taken additional tests at the same reading speed after training. However, since I can't easily do both, I had to pick one area to focus on statistically. My comprehension still rates well, and will get better over time.
You'll notice that I came close to doubling my reading speed. I'm just 62 words per minute away. This is because the standards used on a software review do not usually lend themselves to long term practice situations. However, now that I understand the process and the tool, I'm confident these scores will continue to improve. The process is not easy and requires practice, but no problem: AceReader is a very comprehensive piece of software, it follows through on its promises, is flexible enough for a variety of situations. And perhaps most important, it's an excellent teacher.
