What is this? Cognitive skills are the skills that we have learned which we use to understand information that is constantly bombarding us day after day. What are some of these skills?
Reading
Digesting information
Retaining information
Recalling that information
Using this information to better our lives
Number (1) Reading is a skill we acquire from the age of about 3 years and are taught to supposed perfection by the time we leave kindergarten. Then we are expected to carry this skill with us for the rest of our lives using this same level of perfection save for what we have further gained by constant practice over many years ranging from on-the-job training to University levels of study. Most of us can read at 250 words per minute (wpm) and no faster because of the way we were taught to read - which is by sounding out the words as we read them. The human larynx (voice box) being capable of a maximum throughput of around 250 words per minute means that we are limited to reading at this speed because this is the fastest speed we could attain while speaking.
Doubt that you are speaking out the words as you read? Try this little experiment. Place your index finger and thumb of your right hand on each side of your throat and silently read some text...do you feel small movements in your throat as you read. This is you SAYING out the words albeit silently as you read. This together with problems such as back-skipping and regression are holding you back in your reading speed. Can you read faster than this? YOU BET. Will you be able to understand what you are reading. YOU BET! Hundreds have gone before you and proved that they can so why not you? We have had just over 700 students of which 697 have proved this with massive improvements in reading speed so why should you be any different.
Digesting information - at faster speeds you digest information much better. Couple this with a 'layered approach' that we teach and the KMaps and you achieve near 100% recall of the information you choose to remember. This covers the retaining part in number (3) and the recalling part in (4) above. Using this information to better our lives? We will show you how this is done but it should be obvious...
What could with the time saved if you could read 4 to 10 times faster than you can now?
How would it impact your life if you could read the newspaper in 10 minutes from front page to back each day?
How would your life change if you could get through your reports and dailing reading in 10 minutes instead of the 2 hours it might be taking you now?
How would your life change if you could read a technical book in half an hour AND deliver a lecture in it in another half hour WITHOUT referring to any papers at all?
These are just some of the benefits...our students can tell you hundreds if not thousands of ways their lives have been impacted by this technology.
Now on to the courses themselves...