"Follow-the-Bouncing-Ball!"

“Follow-The-Bouncing-Ball!”
• 1. “Pop, in plain English, tell me why using a Pacer or pointer to underline or overline the words of each sentence is worth the bother?”

• 2. “Fifty years of reading research show that students from 5th grade through high school, college & grad school,
and all adults, including executives.”

• 3. “They lose their place on each page of text they read, not once or twice, but five to six times – continuously.”

• 4. “How come I never notice I lose my place?”

• 5. “Do you notice your “heart-beats 60-100 times per minute? How about your eyes blinking 15 to 30 times per minute? Wait. Ever notice you take 12-20 breaths per minute?”

• 6. They’re all on “auto-pilot”, and below the level of consciousness recognition. Same with “losing your place” while reading a page of text.”

• 7. “But what’s so bad about it, Pop?”

• 8. “Remember this: after each place loss, you have find your place you were reading. It distracts you, takes time, and you forget the idea you were reading.”

• 9. “It makes reading boring, annoying & slow-as-molasses. And you don’t know why you dislike reading because you don’t even notice you keep losing your place on each page.”

• 10. “And the SpeedReading answer is to use a pacer/ pointer like a laser-beam RasterMaster, or a Pen or the Cursor on the computer to under or over-line, right?”

• 11. “Right, because those tools force you lengthen your Attention-Span, and focus your attention. Use them and
you never lose your place, and you triple reading speed, & double your long-term memory.”

• 12. “But what’s that got to do with, “Follow-the-bouncing-ball”?”

• 13. “Everything has its rhythm and when we keep a rhythm like a hit song we hear, our brain uses that vibrational frequency to make reading FUN and entertaining. Rhythm improves our speed, memory, &
Concentration.”

• 14. “Example: “where attention goes, energy flows!” - has a rhyming rhythm. Once you say it, you visualize it and remember the idea. Ex. “the cells that fire together, wire together.” You create a mental-movie that is unforgettable if you repeat three-times.”

• 15. “I get it, the same as remembering the words of a hit song, it sticks in your mind, right?”

• 16. “Sure, do you remember a Bugs Bunny cartoon, or a ‘Beatles’ movie where the words to the song were on the screen, and you “sang-along” by following the bouncing-ball?”

• 17. “Sure, Pop, it was fun because the audience got into “Old McDonald Had a Farm” or “Little Brown Jug”.

• 18. “Get this Son, when you use the Pointer or Pacer to underline or overline the wordAAs you scroll down the page, make-believe you are following a bouncing-ball.

• 19. “Get a ‘rhythm’ (flow) to your eye-movements. How? You create your rhythm by how your hand moves the Pacer/Pointer. It’s like dance steps or a familiar tune.”

• 20. “It makes reading text more fun, and you speed up, concentrate, and remember better.”

• 21. “And I stop losing my place on the page a bunch of times, right?”

• 22. “Right. Credit for “Follow the Bouncing-Ball” in movies goes to Max Fleisher, in 1924, in Hollywood. The audience loved the “sing-along”, where the lyrics (words) were displayed as onscreen subtitles. It’s still fun.”

• 23. SpeedReading101 uses the principle of “Follow-the-bouncing-ball” to improve your eye-movements. Ask yourself this question: how can I read three (3) articles, reports, and books in print & online, instead of only one?”

• 24. “Answer: use a pacer/point while under or overlining while scrolling down the page, and creating a Rhythm
of following the bouncing-ball.”

• 25. For Brainiacs: how does the brain work? What makes the “eye-movements” SpeedRead?”

• 26. “Superior Colliculus” is located in midbrain, and specifically managed by your Brainstem. The secret is a reflex where the “Eye-Follows-A-Moving-Object”.

• 27. When you Overline or Underline, there is movement in your Field-of-Vision. The ‘Superior Colliculus’ causes your eyes to speed up to “track” the tracings you make.

• 28. Another fancy name for this reflex is OPTOKINETIC Reflex. Like I said, this is for Brainiacs. Just follow the bouncing ball and use a Pacer-Pointer to read.

• Endwords: “The faster you LEARN, the Faster you EARN!”
Oh yeah. “Tap-in, Turn-on, and Tune-in!”

Copyright © 2013, Bernard Wechsler
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