The Science Behind Reading Genius- 3-10-06

By Ed Strachar

INTRODUCTION Welcome to the Science behind Reading Genius . You’ll find many key concepts, powerful tools, and prominent scientific studies being mentioned here to further support what you learn in the Reading Genius 2.0 Video, Audio Lessons, and the Computer Training tools.

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.

©InGenius Inc. and Ed Strachar 2006, All rights reserved.

TABLE OF CONTENTS THE SCIENCE BEHIND READING GENIUS by Ed Strachar 1) How The Brain Works 2) Why The Brain Never Stops Learning 3) How Your Brain Surpasses the World’s Most Powerful Computers 4) You Have All The Software To Succeed Within You 5) You’ve Been Writing Software Programs All Your Life 6) Getting Into the Genius State 7) Centering Yourself 8) How We Learned To Read 9) It’s Not About How Smart You Are... It’s About How You Are Smart 10) How Memory Works 11) Right- and Left-Brain Thinking 12) We Differ In Learning Styles 13) Mental Training 14) Building Skill Memory 15) Brain Waves 16) Energizing The Brain To See And Understand More 17) Music and Learning 18) Music of Reading Genius 19) Breath 20) Focus 21) Affirmations 22) Mind Mapping 23) Reading Genius and Mind Mapping

These days.. books have a lot of competition with other forms of media.

1) How The Brain Works The World’s Most Powerful Computer comes without a User’s Guide

Man’s Brain - Once inspired, is without limits to what he can discover and explore. 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, codiscoverer 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.

2) Why The Brain Never Stops Learning 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.

3) How Your Brain Surpasses the World’s Most Powerful Computers 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, stepby-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 Human Brain is more powerful than any man-made machine. In short, our brain is phenomenal in recognizing patterns and creating understanding out of little or fragmented information. Edward de Bono, author of over 30 books on thinking, and who has held faculty appointments at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London, and Harvard, argues that the brain in its very

essence, “is a pattern making system and through the patterns that the mind makes is how we make sense of the world.” A key point de Bono stresses, and which greatly impacts our capacity to learn, is that the brain “never stops making connections and creating patterns of understanding and comprehension.” 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).

4) You Have All The Software To Succeed Within You Brain research in the area of Neuro-Linguistic Programming has yielded insight into how we can effectively control and change our behavior, use our entire body to learn more, tap more of our positive internal resources and eliminate bad habits and negative memories. Authors Robert B. Dilts, a developer, author, trainer, and consultant in the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and Todd A. Epstein also a developer, trainer, and author in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, write in Dynamic Learning that learning becomes powerful and deep when you use and stimulate more of your mind and your senses: sight, sound, feeling, smell or taste. Learning then, is more than passively soaking up data. Robust learning happens when you actively engage many of your senses, and create exciting images, by implementing techniques to build your imagination and curiosity while reading.

5) You’ve Been Writing Software Programs All Your Life Another core tenet of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and closely related to learning, is that you can regulate your behavior with your mind by changing the internal programs, images, that you run. Richard Bandler, mathematician, cocreator of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and author of numerous books, including Reframing: Neuro-Linguistic Programming And The Transformation Of Meaning, explains that “there is a link between mental imagery and behavior.” Behavior changes when both the mental processes and the images we have in our heads change. Bandler explains that a problem or issue becomes less threatening if you form a mental picture of the problem and then picture it shrinking, becoming less and less intimidating.

In essence, when you form mental images, you are writing software instructions for your brain which ultimately controls your total behavior. So by creating the right mental images, you can program yourself to use more of your positive internal resources, eliminate bad habits and diminish negative memories. In Reading Genius, you’ll do exercises that neutralize bad reading patterns and to incorporate more of the senses to create productive reading and understanding. 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 In the Reading Genius program, you’ll learn, through a series of exercises, how you to get into the genius state, the first step in learning to read faster and with greater comprehension. In the genius state, you’re entire body is relaxed and your mind is focused and quiet. You learn this in Lesson 1 and practice it in subsequent lessons. A more advanced lesson is in the Brain Building Exercises titled “Building Self-Confidence”.

You can access your Genius State anywhere, usually in a matter of seconds.

7) Centering Yourself 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 Wisdom Comes To Us In Many Ways The Hubble telescope, which required over 20 years to complete at a cost of billions of dollars, has recently estimated the age of our universe to be 15 billion years old. Interestingly enough, from deciphering the ancient writings of the Mayan people 2500 years ago, we learned that they already knew that! Also well documented was the fact that Buddha postulated that the composition of matter consists of tiny positive, negative and neutral particles. He gleaned this through meditation! It took scientists thousands of years more to actually prove this. In The Reading Genius system, you learn to get into this state, where your “6th Sense” is awakened, before reading allowing you to glean as much as you can from the book. It’s important to note that comprehension can come through any/all our senses and faculties, not just the eyes.

record a thousand new bits of information every second from birth to old age, and still have room to spare.” It is speculated that we have the ability to remember everything that has happened to us. 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. Because of your brain’s incredible pattern-making capabilities and it’s plasticity in responding to changes in the environment, the Reading Genius system will help you increase your reading speed by 200% and more, expand your ability to comprehend more of what you read, and hone your learning skills. Many have improved well over 1000%. Yet it is often counter productive to make these claims as the higher the statement, albeit factual, the higher the expectation and/or skepticism by the reader and these both are almost always counter-productive to better results. 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.

8) How We Learned To Read Early on we experienced reading as a chore instead of a joy, learned habits that slowed our reading and constrained our memory. In school, the reading patterns and structures that we were initially taught, while useful, were never enhanced, thus leading to restricted reading speed and comprehension. We learned to associate reading with the fear of public speaking. Our brain was not fully developed when we first learned to read. We were taught to read with our tongue, which meant that we couldn’t read faster than we could speak. Reading was taught entirely as a left-brain, linear, and emotionless activity. The strengths of the right hemisphere were totally ignored, despite the fact that, according to the authors of The Learning Revolution, the right brain can read 1,000 times faster than the left brain!!

. 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. “Many students are simply warehoused and don’t learn a thing. Even at most colleges and universities, most learning levels are shockingly low.” Michael Kay Evans of Northwestern University, speaking in the December ’96 issue of GQ magazine. 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.

9) It’s Not About How Smart You Are... It’s About How You Are Smart In his book, Frames of Mind, Harvard University Professor Howard Gardner, disputes the idea that there is only one type of intelligence based solely on logic and linear thinking. He argues that there are multiple types of intelligence: linguistic, musical, spatial, bodilykinesthetic, in addition to logical-mathematical intelligence, for example. Why the Reading Genius program often works better than other learning systems is that it appeals to and utilizes a variety of types of intelligence. In the Reading Genius program, you’ll learn to get excited and really get into what

When our mind is on other things, Reading is rarely enjoyable or effective .

you’re reading, improving both your speed and recall. Anyone with the desire to improve their reading speed and comprehension can benefit from the Reading Genius system. A woman, 81 years of age, blind in one eye, and who claimed “her memory was shot,” was able to substantially improve her reading by learning to activate her imagination and emotion when reading. These results were not isolated cases. People’s results depend on how well they integrate the principles, and how clear, open and receptive they are, thus results may vary.

When we integrate what excites us with what we study, reading becomes far more interesting.

10) How Memory Works Building a powerful memory begins with feelings and images. To understand how your memory works, imagine two warehouses, one small and one very large. Your conscious memory is the small warehouse. It holds only short-term images and ideas. The unconscious memory is the big warehouse. It has the potential to hold enormous amounts of images and information. The link between the two is dreaming. Memory works when images are tied to emotions. That’s why we can better remember movies that we saw years ago than what we recently studied in school or read at work the day before. Ask yourself, what do you remember better: a school football game, your prom, or your studies in school? Reading Genius teaches you to learn to create movies from books and to build emotions into what you’re reading ie. to literally feel what you read. By building emotion into what you

11) Right- and Left-Brain Thinking Fact? Fiction? Does It Matter ? 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. According to the authors, this work lead scientists, psychologists, and educators to believe “that mental and personality characteristics would dominate in an individual depending which hemisphere appeared to be dominant.” Society was introduced to a new form of classification: Are you a left- or right-brain person? More importantly, what did it really mean? The Brain Pack reports that the two hemispheres have unique dominant traits, each with the following thinking skills: LEFT BRAIN Analytical thinking

RIGHT BRAIN Artistic ability

Digital computation

Holistic thinking

Rational thinking Sequential ordering Temporal thinking

Intuition Simultaneous thinking Synthetic reasoning

Verbal skills

Visual and spatial ability

Logic

Feeling and imagination

The latest research, however, as reported in both Making Connections: Teaching And The Human Brain, and The Brain Book strongly indicates that the division between the two spheres is not as clearly defined as first thought. It is

now commonly believed that the left and right brain processes are enriched and supported by the other. 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, orchestrating 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 combined use of both left and right is a common characteristic of the creative process.” 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 appreciation.” 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 learning 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 Revolution 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 information, retains more, and learning grows easier. Another reason why the Reading Genius system works is that it incorporates a variety of learning styles - visual, auditory, and physical, that use both rightand-left brain modes of thinking. Anyone, therefore, can be helped by one, two, or all three learning styles.

13) Mental Training Creating optimum performance in advance Mental training, also known as mental rehearsal or visualization, is the creation of mental images for a specific activity. According to Dr. Charles Garfield, author of many books including Peak Performance and Peak Performers, and an Associate Clinical Professor at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco, the core value of mental rehearsal is that it prepares you mentally for your activity and paves the way for optimum performance. The images that your mind creates and repeats over and over form a neural map or representation of the physical act. Creating a mental map in advance speeds learning and proper execution of the activity until it becomes automatic. That is why mental rehearsal is such a powerful tool in helping you learn faster with better results.

Forming the right mental image is the key to advancing at a fast rate of improvement.

In Peak Performance, Dr. Garfield further explains the value of mental rehearsal: “Focusing exclusively on words on paper, you use only the rationale capacities of your brain and thus limit your potential for growth and development.” Dr. Garfield cites sports psychologist Evelyn G. Hall in Peak Performance: “a single correct image is worth more than tons of verbiage, which overloads and restricts the performer’s mind.” In the book Mega Brain Power, author Michael Hutchison, refers to the work of Psychologist Richard Suinn, who has done extensive work with mental imagery, including coaching various collegiate and Olympic skiing teams. Why is mental rehearsal effective? Why has it worked for many top athletic performers? Says Suinn: “What visualization does is program the muscles. Every time you do it, you’re setting up a kind of computer program. When you get to the competition, all you have to do is press the start button and your body takes over...you’re along for the ride.” In the Reading Genius system, you’ll learn how to incorporate mental rehearsal, impressing upon the brain what exactly it needs to do to excel, and how to specifically integrate it into the learning process.

14) Building Skill Memory 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. All the Reading Genius exercises including photocopying, reading books upside-down/right-side-up, activating your imagination , curiosity, dreaming, mindmapping etc. help build skill memory. The payoff is accelerated learning and faster results as well as expanded ability.

A simple Key Word can access a vast storehouse of information from our long term memory.

15) Brain Waves How Different Brain Waves Can Impact Learning, Memory And Creativity Since the 1920’s, writes Michael Hutchinson in Mega Brain Power, scientists have found that the brain produces brain waves of four distinct varieties: beta, alpha, theta, delta. Each wave state directly influences our ability to think, learn, and problem solve. 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.

When in the right state, with the heart clear and open, the mind is able to recieve ideas/information from many sources.

16) Energizing The Brain To See And Understand More Which brain wave state you’re in will have a significant impact on your ability to read faster and comprehend more, learn and build memory, be creative, as well as enjoy a restful sleep. Dr. Jeffrey Thompson, Founder of Brain-Mind Research and Director of Neuro-Acoustic Research Center, is a world class pioneer in the positive effects of music, learning, and brain states. Dr. Thompson has worked extensively with Reading Genius inventor Ed Strachar in creating music specially designed for the Reading Genius system. His work on music, brain waves, and learning has enjoyed national and international acclaim. According to Dr. Thompson, when the brain is in beta state, linear thinking predominates, the eyes and mind have a narrower focus, “where the individual can’t see the forest from the trees.” In the alpha wave state, the focus is more on the internal and nonlinear 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. Dreaming has a phenomenal effect on recall. Recall grows tremendously after performing the one to two minute dream exercises in Reading Genius. Why? 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 Music: It’s Not Just For Entertainment 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. The essence of the Reading Genius music is that, using a variety of instruments and tempos, it stimulates both left-right brain activity and engages both the mind and body to promote harmony and balance. This facilitates the optimal learning environment to both absorb, comprehend and retain the information. Both in the audio section as well as the software training tools, a variety of classical and modern music is available to aid the student in both personalizing and facilitating their reading experience.

The Mozart Effect. Referred to as the Mozart Effect, a study conducted by Gordon Shaw at the University of California at Irvine found that college students who listened to a Mozart piano sonata scored at least eight points higher in standard IQ spatial reasoning tests than those who did not experience music before the test.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

19) Breath It is something we hardly think about doing, yet it has profound impact on our ability to think and to perform at our best. In The Einstein Factor, author Win Wenger, Ph.D., who conducts seminars and courses at major universities and corporations, writes: “Few major bodily functions fail to respond sharply to changes in the depth or speed of our breathing. The ebb and flow of oxygen through our lungs truly defines the rhythm of our being. With over 40 percent of the body’s energy being burned in the brain, that organ is affected more than any other by the flow of oxygen, the principle fuel for the body’s metabolism. Expanding or impeding the flow to your brain gives you incredible leverage over brain function.” 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.” Authors Sheila Ostrander, Lynn Schroeder, and Nancy Ostrander of Superlearning 2000 add that, “rhythmic breathing also synchronizes brain hemispheres fueling creativity and originality. In addition, slow, rhythmic breathing helps slow mind-body rhythms to the optimal state for learning.” In Peak Performance, Charles Garfield writes that proper breathing is vital to specific mental activities: “Mental concentration is increased and the ability to create mental imagery is greatly enhanced. Blood flow increases, energizing the brain’s visual cortex, where mental imagery occurs.” “Learning to breathe deeply,” says Garfield, “...is an integral part of mastering deep relaxation techniques. Since larger volumes of air are moved as you breath deeply, breathing rhythms become slower and more steady.” “As we free our breath,” writes Gay Hendricks, author of The Centered Athlete, “we relax our emotions and let go of our body tensions.” 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 “The mind leads the body”, Koichi Tohei, aikido master Few activities are as important to master and yield as abundant results as the activity of focus. In his landmark book, Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a University of Chicago psychologist and leader in study of optimum states of mind, explains that, “top performers control their consciousness, optimize their performance through the act of focusing: the ability to shut off all mental processes but the relevant ones.”

The biggest problem people have is that they are thinking of 5-10 other things while they read.

“When it’s working well,” says Csikszentmihalyi, “when we have shut off all mental processes but the relevant ones... it’s as if the brain shifts into a higher gear and functions far more powerfully and efficiently, using less power.” Charles Garfield in Peak Performance echoes a similar thought about the power of focusing: “When you focus and quiet your mind, you turn all your attention towards your athletic performance and away from the events of the day. As concentration and focus increases, your mind will become calm, active only where your upcoming activity is concerned. As your focus improves, marked by the disappearance of thoughts and feelings not directly associated with your sport. When focused, your computer mind is operating and you have only to get out of the way and allow your mind and body to come together as one and function at optimal levels.”

Learn to get fully focused , like a magnet, towards the book and reading becomes a whole new experience. Writing in the Warrior Athlete, Dan Millman, world champion gymnast, national coach and college professor, and author of a number of books on the mind and spirit, most notably, Way Of The Peaceful Warrior, says that, “In athletics and in daily life, the source of our discontent is this primitive habit of allowing our attention to drift to reactive thoughts. The natural athlete has learned to focus his attention on the matter at hand, in the present moment. Thoughts may come and go, but his attention is not bound by inward distractions of any kind.”

21) Affirmations American inventor/artist Walter Russell: “Genius is self-bestowed, mediocrity is self-imposed.” The American Heritage Dictionary defines an affirmation as a positive statement or judgment. Why do affirmations work? While the right brain sees images and visions, the left brain works with words. In The Learning Revolution, authors Dr. Jeannette Vos and Gordon Dryden explain that the left hemisphere discounts what the right hemisphere thinks without proof. Affirmations work because they operate on the subconscious; specifically, affirmations appeal to the left brain. The authors in Superlearning 2000 also support the concept that affirmations work on the subconscious. They refer to the work by Dr. Otto Altorfer, a management consultant specializing in implementing change in business and author of “Mobilizing Reserve Energy At Work: A composite of Common Learning Elements,” SALT Journal. According to Dr. Altorfer, “Every one of us is loaded with automatic operating programs. These programs keep us from reinventing the wheel in a host of everyday situations: How do I drive the car? What do I say to a new customer?” These are unconscious patterns and habits. In order to change, you need to get at your subconscious and reprogram your behavior. Affirmations change your programming and thus change your behavior. “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 In Superlearning 2000, the authors offer a number of techniques for boosting the power of affirmations. First, use many senses, speak it; write it down repeatedly for kinetic effect; do a physical activity while repeating an affirmation; put up posters to dramatically communicate your affirmation. Second, say the affirmation in the positive: Not learning isn’t hard, but learning is easier and easier for me. I feel good when I learn. I reserve this praise. Third, affirm in the present tense. The unconscious doesn’t distinguish between past, present or future. It knows only now. So engage its strength by telling it what you are now. I am a great speaker versus I will be a great speaker.

“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 Taking Notes The Way Your Mind Thinks 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.” Klas Mellander, an international management consultant who specializes in processes for the implementation of major changes in business and organizations, writes in his book, The Power of Learning, that mind mapping “works the way we naturally think.” When we think we typically let our associations flow in all directions. Mind mapping notes reflect this. The result of mind mapping is a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the material. In addition, Mellander explains that “mind mapping will help you relive the learning experience and deepen your learning, and thereby enable you to take better advantage of opportunities for acquiring permanent knowledge.”

The Mind Map 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. In addition, Reading Genius employs music and teaches you to use your emotions when mind mapping. This helps promote theta waves which increases memory. The book Superlearning 2000 documents how Bulgarian MD Georgi Lozanov, after long and intense research and study, found that music dramatically increases memory retention. After the initial mind map recall, however, you’re welcomed to go back and flesh out your mind map.

Impala

TurboC Chevy

Porsche

Rims Wheels

Ford

coffee

Cars

College

Tires

Trucks

Engines

Mack 18 Wheeler Movie Example of a Mind Map as taught in the Reading Genius System

Bibliography Altorfer, Dr. Otto, Mobilizing Reserve Energy At Work, PDF document, 1985 Bandler, Richard and Grinder, John, Reframing, Real People Press, 1981 Caine, Renate Nummela and Caine, Geoffrey Making Connections, Caine and Caine 1994 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, Flow, Perennial; Rep edition, 1991 Dilts, R. & Epstein, T. Dynamic Learning. Capitola, CA: Meta Publications. 1995 Everett, Alexander Inward Bound, Book Partners Inc., 1998 Gardner, Howard, The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Basic Books, 1993 Garfield, Charles A. and Hal Zina Bennett, Peak Performance, Warner Books, 1989 Hendricks, Gay and Jon Carlson, The Centered Athlete, Prentice Hall, 1982 Hutchinson, Michael, Mega Brain Power, Hyperion Books, 1984 Millman, Dan, The Warrior Athelete and The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, H.J. Kramer. 2000, 1991 Robert Ornstein, Richard Thompson, The Amazing Brain, Houghton Mifflin, 1991 Ostrander, Shiela, Lynn Schroeder, and Nancy Ostrander, Superlearning 2000, Souvenir Press Ltd, 1996 Russell, Paul, The Brain Book. London: Routledge & Kegan,. 1979 Van Der Meer, Ron, Ad Dudink, A. C. M. Dudink, Pamela Clifford, The Brain Pack, Running Press, 1996 Voss, Jeanette and Gordon Dryden, The Learning Revolution, Network Educational Press Ltd, 2001 Win Wenger, Ph.D, The Einstein Factor, Gramercy Books, 2004 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