3 types of articulation

Many authors who write about speed reading are very short on articulation. Usually they give advice “try to avoid it” and that is there their competence ends. Even in the most popular books I haven’t found satisfactory explaining on this subject. So I want to explain this process more. There are three types of articulation.

Direct articulation is when you read out laud. It was necessary when you were learning to read. Small kids read out load as they need to hear that they read. After they hear it they can understand. Later on they develop inner articulation and continue reading with inner dialogue.

Indirect articulation is when you don’t talk laud, but while reading your lips or tongue moves. This stage is almost always is left without explanation.  Indirect articulation is a relic of direct articulation. Some people have quite strong indirect articulation. Even if they try to block inner articulation indirect articulation pulls them back. Only Russians figured out how to deal with it. They suggest biting a pencil with your tooth and hold it while reading. It might be a bit uncomfortable practice proved that it works.

Inner articulation is when you talk only in your mind. Inner articulation is that type of articulation that every author refers. That is your inner dialog with yourself or with the text you read. For blocking inner dialog I submit 6 ways to do it.

1) Try to do it consciously. Try to read faster and jump between words skipping easy ones and not articulating them. It is possible not to articulate about 3-5% words for the first or second try. While watching yourself you might improve to 5-15% words in the text that you don’t articulate. But it might be difficult to do only whit conscious effort.

2) Try to replace articulation into meaningless phrase. It is very difficult for us not to think about something. Minds are twisting inside as the most fasted tornado. And it is very difficult to stop this mind flow. So we can give some work for brains. If they repeat continuously “bla – bla – bla…” they have something to do. During this time you might try to go through pages and try to absorb information only using visual channel. After you got a feeling of that it is to read without articulation you should try to shorten usage of meaningless phrase. Humming instead of meaningless phrase also applies. While you already articulate something the words you read can not interrupt meaningless phrase. You won’t say “Bla – bla – the sky – bla – bla – is – bla – bla – blue – bla – bla”. That is the tricky way that helps for most people.

3) Breathing helps redirect attention from articulation to breathing. While reading just concentrate on how you inhale and exhale. Keep your focus on this and watch how it works for you. For some time it might be difficult to read as only visual channel is activated for gathering the information. But practice makes perfect.

4) Music is also a good tool to work with. Music should be without lyrics unless it is in the language you don’t understand. If it has lyrics you unconsciously try to sing them. That means articulation. Some people study more easily while listening to loud music. Somehow it helps them to concentrate. It happens because one strong stimulus represses all small noises: cars in the street, your family at home, TV in the other room, barking dog etc. All those small noises might be very disturbing. So as you turn on the music with maximum volume it shuts all small noises and your articulation as well so they are not disturbing you anymore.

5) Knocking or metronome. Might be that you already have found a feature in speed reading software called metronome. How it works and that is the benefit? Firstly it helps to redirect attention same as Breathing or Music without lyrics. Secondly it has rhythm. Rhythm pushes your speed naturally. Breathing also has some rhythm, but it is slow and it is controllable. Metronome is outside your control. It goes tick – tack independently. One of the main components in Pacing reading also is rhyme. When ticking gets faster and reading gets faster. Knocking is when you create a rhyme for yourself. Take a pen turn it upside down and knock it to the table in waltz rhythm. It might be disturbing for the first few tries. Knocking should be loud enough to block all outside noises and your articulation as well.

6) “Green Dot” exercise. This exercise is designed to improve your concentration. Good concentration helps to block all outside minds. Less unwanted minds mean less articulation. Doing this exercise we also redirect our attention. Reading itself doesn’t play important role in this case and we have limited text size. While doing other exercises we should read fast. In this case we should stay relaxed and learn to keep our consciousness without any mind at all. No mind - no articulation.

Hope it was helpful. If you know something that I didn’t mentioned please let me know.