Slowing Down a Read

[Jon Morss]

Bob,

How are things with you?

I was wondering if I could bug you once again, this time regarding some tips on slowing down a read. For some odd reason, I have a bad habit of wanting to read way too fast which in some cases causes me to read a :60 sec in about :50 of :52 sec. The funny thing is that when I do try to slow down I still hit the :50ish make consistently. So, I was wondering if you had any tips or tricks in your bag goodies that you might suggest would help me get in the right frame of mind to slow down my read. If not, I understand.

Thanks.

[Bob Bergen]

You bet!

Now, this will sound odd..but try it. Bend your elbows and place your hands in front of you. Now point your index fingers so they are facing each other. Rotate your hands in a slow circular motion. Very slowly. Now read the copy at the pace your are slowly rotating your fingers. This will help you slow down your read. (fyi-if you have a problem reading faster, do the opposite and speed up the pace of your fingers)

Let me know if this helps.

;-)

[Jon Morss]

Bob ,

Awesome. This is a cool trick. I tried this a bit and it really seems to work. I'll have to work with it a bit more to get a good feel for it. I'm sure this gets some funny looks when you do this in the booth.

Great man. I'll let you know how it helps.

[shenecke]

Wow, I just tried that and it works!! Black magic!

[Bob Bergen]

Well, not really. ;-)

But what it does is force you to relax, control your breathing, etc.

When someone tries to slow down while reading, often they are so self conscious about trying to slow down they take pauses between sentences or stumble/choke on the words. They are in their head.

Glad it worked for ya!!!!!!

;-)

[NightTrain]

This is great. I'll try it on my next audiobook read. One of the sound engineers said I was way too fast sometimes, resulting in errors and having to reread (I have a tendency to try to speak as fast as I can read).