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PRETORIA - Yvette Engelbrecht & George Stancliffe Speed Reading Institute South Africa are under investigation on charges of theft, fraud, copyright infringement & fraudulent misrepresentation. The case is under investigation by the commercial branch of the South African Police Services. "During her employment with the Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics Institute (South Africa) in 2006, Yvette Engelbrecht allegedly made a duplicate office-key and then stole quantities of our training material and copies of our copyrighted course material. After setting up her own company, George Stancliffe Speed Reading Institute South Africa, Engelbrecht allegedly commenced copying our material and then allegedly proceeded to sell franchises to gullible victims for amounts believed to be R250,000 per franchise" according to Dr Bruce W Stewart, President of Speed Reading International, Inc & Chairman of Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics South Africa. "Much of the material that Yvette Engelbrecht is fraudulently touting as her own work was unlawfully removed from our offices and we have had little difficulty in recognizing both the stolen material and the copyright infringements - firstly, I personally developed the material and am thus the copyright owner and secondly, in some instances, Yvette Engelbrecht did not even bother to remove my copyright annotation. And in the case of the stolen material, I personally customized many of the books specifically for usage in our training ..... read more
“Literary reading in America is not only declining rapidly among all groups, but the rate of decline has accelerated, especially among the young. The decline in reading parallels a larger retreat from participation in civic and cultural life. As more Americans lose this capability, our nation becomes less informed, (less) active and (less) independent-minded. These are not qualities that a free, innovative or productive society can afford to lose.” – Dana Gioia, Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts. (Extract from Reading at Risk – A Survey of Literary Reading in America – Research Division Report #46). “Literature reading is fading as a meaningful activity, especially among younger people. If one believes that active and engaged readers lead richer intellectual lives than non-readers and that a well-read citizenry is essential to a vibrant democracy, the decline of literary reading calls for serious action.” “The accelerating declines in literary reading among all demographic groups of American adults indicate an imminent cultural crisis. The trends among younger adults warrant special concern, suggesting that, unless some effective solution is found, literary culture, and literacy in general, will continue to worsen. Indeed, at the current rate of loss, literary reading as a leisure activity will virtually disappear in half a century.” The Reading at Risk survey, conducted by the Census Bureau in 2002, polled 17,000 individuals who were asked if, during the ..... read more
A Midrand woman has become the world's fastest speed reader by reading 150 000 words per minute. Johannesburg - A Midrand woman has become the world's fastest speed reader by reading 150 000 words per minute at a speed reading course. Louise Howell, 42, a mother of twins and member of IT giant CS Holdings marketing team, earlier read a 30 000 word book about Albert Einstein in 12 seconds. Following that, she wrote a comprehension test and scored 95%. Elmarie Bekker of Dr Bruce Stewart's Speed Reading International / Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics Institute* (in South Africa) says Howell's achievement is remarkable. Speed reading centres worldwide consider it the fastest ever. Bekker says the record is not just about the speed with which something is read, but the comprehension as well. The book used for the test is not available in the trade. Howell is not one to brag about the record. "If you now ask me to do it, I won't be able to!" She normally tries to read about 20 000 words per minute. She says she followed the (SuperReading) course because she started studying for a degree in marketing communication and didn't have enough time to keep up. "I couldn't believe the limit you could push your brain. At one stage during the course I thought I just couldn't carry on. It's as if you have to cross a barrier. Your eyes have to get used to it." Howell says everyone will benefit and is prompting her twin matric daughters to follow the course. "It doesn't ..... read more
Are you drowning in “unwanted” / “unsolicited” email? Or are you comfortable now behind the bulwark of your “spam-blocking” software? Is spam a real threat to our society, or no more than mass hysteria designed to promote software sales and force us into having our email censored? Some bright spark defined spam as “unsolicited” electronic mail. Lesser mortals took this literally – “if I don’t know you and I didn’t ask for it, then it’s unsolicited and I don’t want it.” All too often, the defining criteria of spam is the unsolicited nature of the communication, rather than the content. Whether we like it or not, we are continually learning new information. And this information emanates from a multitude of sources – press, radio, TV, co-workers, friends and even snail-mail and email. Other than when we actually register for a training course in order to “solicit” learning, 90 percent of new information is going to be “unsolicited”, some of which we don’t want or need, some of which we will use for one purpose or another. And here’s the nub. Will spam-blocking software EVER be able to distinguish “unsolicited and unwanted” email from “unsolicited yet wanted” email? Latest estimates are that 1 out of every 4 important email messages will not reach the intended recipient. An additional 2 out of every 4 email messages will be blocked by “spam-blocking” software, irrespective of whether the intended recipient could gain intellectual benefit from such mail. For example. ..... read more
By Dr Bruce W Stewart, Charlotte-based educator and international information-management consultant. (Use a stopwatch or your wrist-watch to note how much time it takes you to read this article.) “Counting sheep is a great way to go to sleep. Reading slowly comes a close second,” says Dr Stewart. “But try counting sheep alternately by two’s and three’s and see how long sleep eludes you. Or try the Fibonacci Sequence mentally and see how it focuses your attention.” The point here is that slow and careful can often be boring, and if your mind gets bored, it will start thinking about something else. And this is exactly what happens with reading, especially reading that is too slow, too careful and without purpose. Concentration is the ability to focus on one thought or idea, to the exclusion of all other thoughts and ideas, and concentration spans and strengths vary from individual to individual. One fact is however quite certain – if you don’t stimulate your mind, if you don’t give it reason to concentrate on one thought, it will move on to more interesting opportunities. Asking a NASCAR driver in a 400hp race-car to drive slowly and carefully is a recipe for disaster. If the driver doesn’t fall asleep first, the car will most certainly choke itself to death. It’s the same with the human mind – it needs to be active. 100 years ago, life was slower and more sedate than life today. Now we have a deluge of ..... read more
By Dr Bruce W Stewart, Charlotte-based educator and international information-management consultant (Use a stopwatch or your wrist-watch to note how much time it takes you to read this article.) “Adults and students today read with the skills of an 8 year old, and this skill has not advanced in over 100 years.” Harsh but true - think about your own reading skills. Have you learned anything about the actual skill of reading since the 3rd grade? And do you read any differently from the way your parents and grand-parents read? The teaching of reading skills, worldwide, hasn’t changed in 100 years or more. We are taught to read one word at a time, we are taught to read with our finger on the page and we are taught to read out aloud. Then in the 3rd and 4th grade, we’re told to stop reading with our finger on the page and we’re told to stop reading out aloud and to read “quietly to ourselves”. We have just given birth to the three bad habits of reading. Firstly, we regress. Because we stopped using our finger to control the direction and movement of our eyes along the line of print, our eyes tend to wander. We find ourselves re-reading words and phrases, we jump forward, down the page and then have to go back up the page. This disrupts concentration, confuses understanding and promotes distractions and mind-wandering and so we regress even more in a futile attempt to concentrate and comprehend. And if you thought this ..... read more
By Dr Bruce W Stewart, Charlotte-based educator and international information-management consultant (Use a stopwatch or your wrist-watch to note how much time it takes you to read this article.) “It’s that which we don’t know that we don’t know, which we should be most concerned about.” While this might sound contradictory, knowledge never hurt anybody. It’s ignorance which does the most damage. Simply put, there are three types of information impacting on our lives and our futures – 1. that which we know, 2. that which we know we don’t know and 3. that which we don’t know we don’t know (i.e. being ignorant about our ignorance). Americans in general, and students in particular, are increasingly at risk from this affliction, according to Dr Stewart. The National Endowment for the Arts’ “Reading at Risk Survey” cautions that literary reading in the USA has declined by 10% over the past 20 years, from 56% of the adult population in 1982 to 46% in 2002, with the greatest decline (17%) in the 18-24 age-group, solid evidence of the declining importance of literature to our populace. “If one believes that active and engaged readers lead richer intellectual lives than non-readers and that a well-read citizenry is essential to a vibrant democracy, the decline of literary reading calls for serious action” says Dana Gioia, Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts. The Manhattan Institute’s Education Working Paper “Public High School ..... read more
As another school year opens, students at schools are again faced with the ‘Too much to read, too little time’ phenomenon. With new tests mandated by the 2002 No Child law and the long-term implications of SAT and ACT test scores, parents, teachers and students are searching for solutions to improve inadequate reading skills. “The bottom line is that declining reading skills, especially among the young, call for serious action,” according to Dr Bruce W Stewart, international reading skills coach for more than 28 years. “The No Child law is having repercussions which were surely not envisaged by the legislators” says Stewart. “Test results are used to judge schools’ progress and, in some schools, influence teacher and administrator pay. As a result, there has been a spate of cheating by teachers -- Business Week (July 5, 2004) reports that some teachers are changing answers or filling in unanswered questions, coaching students during the No Child tests, handing out tests in advance and excluding weaker students’ scores from school returns. “The school problem is just the tip of the ice-berg. Children today invariably reflect the attitudes of their parents, and will in turn influence the attitudes and priorities of their children. According to a survey of literary reading in America, the percentage of adult Americans reading literature has dropped over the past 20 years, from 56.9% in 1982 to 46.7% in 2002. It’s essentially cause-and-effect - because parents don’t read, ..... read more
“The reading component of the ACT test is loaded against students, and schools are doing little to nothing to change the situation” says Dr Bruce W Stewart, president of Speed Reading International and an international reading skills coach for more than 30 years. “Students are achieving lower scores, not because of lack of knowledge, but because the ACT presupposes a reading rate which is both higher than that of most students and certainly higher than what schools are teaching. As a result, many students simply cannot complete the test in the time allocated. This applies to both English-speaking students and even more so to foreign-language students.” In a recent survey of ACT reading tests and 600 student reading rates, these were the findings and conclusions : 1. The ACT reading component comprises 4 sections of text and 40 multiple-choice questions, all of which has to be completed in 35 minutes. A total of almost 5000 words to be read – 3000 words of text and 2000 words in the questions. 2. The average high school student reads no faster than 250 words a minute, with an average reading rate of less than 200 words a minute. 3. Simple arithmetic thus shows that a student, reading at 200 words a minute, requires 15 minutes just to read the text, once only, leaving only 20 minutes to read, consider and answer 40 questions. Similarly, of the time available to take the test, half will be used in reading the questions. 4. Schools teach reading skills. Yet they do not ..... read more
