Spritz is a new smartphone application in development that could dramatically increase your reading speed in as little as a few minutes. Instead of teaching you to silence your inner voice (which is a skill needed for effective traditional speed reading and is a common bottleneck), it presents the words to you in a completely novel format: flashing them one after the other at a preset speed. In this fashion, you don’t have to scroll your eyes from side to side; you just look at the same spot and the words come to you. Eventually, your inner voice ends up disappearing, and you simply understand the words without vocalizing them. It’s counter intuitive but extremely effective, boosting reading speeds up to 500 words per minute very quickly. Some people are even able to blaze at up to 1,000 wpm, allowing them to read an 80,000 word novel in less than 2 hours.
You can try it yourself at the link below. It’s really fun. And it’s a little different from other applications (like Spreeder) in its implementation. For instance Spritz “places each word at the “Optimal Recognition Point (ORP),” which is the placement in front of our eyes that’s best for reading comprehension of each individual word (multisyllabic words are read differently monosyllabic ones).” And it flashes a blank screen at the end of each sentence, preserving the essential rhythm of ideas.
It’s a great little program, but it’s not ready for primetime. The plan is to launch on Android first, although the company is working on iOS, web, and Microsoft phone SDKs. We’re not clear on the timeline, but keep an eye out: this one’s pretty awesome.
[ Try Spritz ] VIA [ DVice ]
