For many people today, reading is no longer relaxation. To keep up their work they must read letters, reports, trade publications, interoffice communications, not to mention newspapers and magazines: a never-ending flood of words. In ______ a job or advancing in one, the ability to read and comprehend ______ can mean the difference between success and failure. Yet the unfortunate fact is that most of us are ______ readers. Most of us develop poor reading ______ at an early age, and never get over them. The main deficiency ______ in the actual stuff of language itself-words. Taken individually, words have ______ meaning until they are strung together into phrased, sentences and paragraphs. ______ however, the untrained reader does not read groups of words. He laboriously reads one word at a time, often regressing to reread words or passages. Regression, the tendency to look back over ______ you have just read, is a common bad habit in reading. Another habit which ______ down the speed of reading is vocalization—sounding each word either orally or mentally as one reads.

To overcome these bad habits, some reading clinics use a device called an ______ , which moves a bar(or curtain)down the page at a predetermined speed. The bar is set at a slightly faster rate ______ the reader finds comfortable in order to “stretch” him. The accelerator forces the reader to read fast, ______ word-by-word reading, regression and vocalization practically impossible. At first ______ is sacrificed for speed. But when you learn to read ideas and concepts, you will not only read faster, but your comprehension will improve. Many people have found their reading skill drastically improved after some training. ______ Charlce Au. a business manager, for instance, his reading rate was a reasonably good 172 words a minute ______ the training, now it is an excellent 1,378 words a minute. He is delighted that how he can get through a lot more reading material in a short period of time.