Speed Reader X: Speed Reading Made Easy

I bought this program back in April and wanted to give it a good overview before posting a review on it. I figured it'd take a while to grasp the concept of speed reading. It does.I've been really excited about speed reading ever since seeing the commercials for  Eye Q . But doing further research found the product to be WAY overpriced, as well as similar speed reading software. It offers similar features with the higher-priced software without many of the bells and whistles (flashy colors and graphics). It just cuts to the core of what speed reading is all about.What I liked:- PRICE, of course. Can't beat it compared to any other software out there, especially with what you get.- EASE, of use. It installs simply without problem on XP and Vista. Follow along with the lessons and you're on your way. Simple to keep track of your progress, as well as adding unlimited number of users, and installing the software on any number of computers.- The LESSONS are suggested to be learned on a weekly basis, practicing each lesson for a week before moving on. After each lesson the next one is unlocked. Though it may be tempting to continue on, they suggest (as do I) that you wait at least a week. The basic idea is to read a group of words at a glance, similar to how you'd read a bunch of letters put together as a word, thus your eye moving across a line much quicker (lessons start out with words in groups of 3, then progress to entire lines of text).- COMPREHENSION does improve with practice, but comes much later. The idea is to work on speed in order to get your eyes used to moving at a rapid pace, then slightly slowing down to allow your brain to grab what your eyes see.- PRACTICE lessons allow you to add your own text to work with, following along with highlighted text at whatever pace you choose. You can also take as many tests as you like, while keeping track of progress. IT IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED TO PRACTICE DAILY.I found my reading speed doubling within the first 2 weeks, and tripling 2 weeks after that. But I got lazy a few days and didn't practice at all, and read material at my normal, slower rate. This lowered all the progress I had made and I had to start from the beginning.What I don't like:- they only teach you 1 particular method of speed reading; if it doesn't work for you or you can't keep up with it, you're screwed.- this is just a personal gripe I've got, and has nothing in particular to do with the software. I've been under the assumption that a "speed reader" can read ANYTHING at a quicker pace. You're supposed to slow down for certain things you need to focus more on (technical material) and speed up for other reading (just to get the overall gist of something). Because of this, I wasn't that satisfied...but that's just me.Bottom line: I did a side-by-side comparison of 8 other software brands out there, and for the price, Speed Reader X can't be beat. Don't believe the people who tell you that you can triple your reading speed in weeks. It just isn't possible without sacrificing comprehension. And if you do that, what's the point of reading in the first place?

It was a bit of a rough start... UPS lost our order. Amazon replaced it, though it took a while (was during the holiday rush).I've studied speed reading for several years and overall I'll agree with the good reviews that SpeedReaderX has. THe manual is super-condenced with all the fluff taken out. All of the key concepts seem to in in there. THe software is a bit primative. Not many options. A power-user will be able to access the Program Files folder and thus change the font-size of the reading windows as well as putting in custom .txt files to read. It would be nice if it were possible to change the size of the reading window, but this does not seem to be possible. Other annoyances are that, when doing reading tests, one must scroll down by keeping the mouse on the scroll-bar-down-arrow and clicking. Having to keep the mouse alligned with the little down-arrow requires you to occasionally look down at it, which disrupts the flow of reading. THe last downside is, when graphing results of the reading tests, if you have one erroneous score, you can't delete it. You can only delete ALL of your test scores, or none of them.... argh! Despite these bad points though, the software (and overall system) does deliver and has made a huge difference in my reading speed. It's better than more expensive programs I've trial/tested. If Romania inc. fixes these software annoyances with a downloadable upgrade this will be a five star product for sure.Concerning the free DVD full of ebooks... This has gotten rave reviews. I don't see what the big deal as this info is available on line anyway. I guess it is nice to have a "hard" copy of the ebooks, but new stuff is being added to Progect Gutenberg all the time--so just go there instead. My prefered reading is to copy whole Encarta articles as text and use SRx as a "pacer" to speed read the articles--it works GREAT for this. As noted above though, you have to go to C/program files/speedreaderx/text, paste in the .txt file and rename it, then get rid of the original, to put custom reading in--which will be a hassle for some folks....All in all, a good program. I'm glad I bought it, and I'm glad I bought it through Amazon :o)

This software is fine if all you want to do is read lots of text at a predetermined minimum speed. My young kids could not even read at the minimum 300 wpm speed. You cannot change some parts of the practice speed. Most of the text is something that cannot hold my kid's interest. There was another CD that came with the set but it was too bothersome to try to figure out how to import those other books, which were the most boring for my kids.It has a reading test to determine your speed but there are free programs all over the net that are probably better. It does have a progress chart but is very hard to read unless you are progressing to over 600 wpm - not helpful for my kids.It does have a few interesting eye excercises and we were looking for more of these bu tonly found a few. They were very short and lost my kid's attention.The forced window size became a problem and we always wanted to change it to full screen but could not. The program also has some menu items that are off the right size of the window that you cannot even see. We do not always want to change our screen resolution to use this program.So, not really a product I'd recommend for kids from ages 8 to 16. I had read other reviews but did not really hear things that told me what to expect for younger kids.We are looking for a better and more relevant program for kids.