Iris Reading

Paul was very patient and very accommodating to each student in the class. He really does believe that speed reading is a skill that can be successfully learned by anyone who puts in the time and effort to practice. His instruction gave me the confidence and understanding of what actually needed to be done to develop the habits to read and comprehend faster. Thank you Paul and IRIS.

Good class, and helpful. I have taken two other speed reading classes in the past and this one had the most impact. I also learned a memory technique that has helped me perfectly retain information from the class since I took it two weeks ago.
The instructor, Paul Nowak, was clear, thorough and obviously cared about meeting the expectations of the group. Additionally, we received access to some useful tools after taking the class; these will make speed reading practice easier and more inviting.
I recommend trying this class if you would like to learn more about speed reading, memory techniques and get started as a speed reader.

I’ve read bad reviews of other schools on Groupon with «no substance and only motivational you-​can-​do-​it» instructors, but, have no fear, this one is a legitimate speed reading class.
Warning! Have a good night sleep before taking this class. Do not show up hung over. This is a 5 hour class on Saturday morning, from 9:30 am to 3:30 pm, with a 45 min lunch break in between to collect your eyeballs.
The reason I say collect your eyeballs is because this class WILL push your eyes to a whole new level. You will move them faster than you have ever known. As another reviewer mentioned, you will be timed and continuously tested to «read» faster and faster until your sub-​vocalization (that inner reading voice in your head) is turned to a minimum. This means your eyes move so fast, you won’t have time to «say» it internally. This allows you to read faster than you speak.
The instructor was Chris. He was successful at energizing the class on a Saturday morning and had quite a few interesting anecdotes to share about his past teaching experiences. He delivered the curriculum flawlessly and encouraged us to continue to practice.
Certainly, you can learn this class online or read a book to try different drills on your own. But if you are as competitive as me, having classmates around who read faster than you enables you to be even better — you’ll want to race them on every speed reading drill!
My only complaint is the noise level around the Manhattan Financial District area. The instructor was interrupted at least 6 times due to a police car or an ambulance or construction.

In my native language, I’m a speed reader, however, when it comes to English, my speed drops by 40%. This slow reading made me less and less motivated to read in English, and to make matter worse my job required a lot of reading in order to pass at least 2 certifications a year. I felt like I was failing on examinations’ deadlines just from not being able to read and comprehend as fast as I would do in Russian. Desperate, I have reached out to Iris for help.
Iris instructor Katya Seberson first gave me a private class, and then I joined her group class to strengthen my skills. Her teaching techniques helped me a lot to boost my reading and comprehension. Katya was professional, well prepared, knowledgeable and driven. She was able to point out specific to me bad reading habits and provided practical ways to overcome them. Using her advice, I significantly improved my results and a group class gave me more ability to practice.
P. S. I got my learners permit today!!! I used speed reading and comprehension techniques to prepare for it in the shortest time possible and it worked like magic :))))

I came into the class expecting how to comprehend better, not necessarily read faster so I may have came into the class with a different objective, but nevertheless i’m not sure if this class actually helps you in the long run.
We went through an initial excercise to see where our baseline speed + comprehension was at. Then, you’ll go through a bunch of speed excercises to «train» your brain not to vocalize it in your head, regress (repeat lines you read over), and fixate on certain words. After the excercises, my speed went up but reading comprehension went down (using the text I brought in). The results were better on the text they provide (comp and speed both went up), but I almost felt gimmicked because you test yourself after these crazy drills, which yes, for those few minutes your brain is on overdrive so of course it’s a great time to evaluate yourself. But how does this help in the long run?
If you’re reading through analytical text for most of your day, this course isn’t much use– you’ll have to regress and re read areas that didn’t make sense. The course teaches you to skip over details you didn’t understand.
To be fair, perhaps this wasn’t the point of the course and it’s probably more usefull to those looking to improve casual reading, and not readings like text books where you have to stop and think. Also, I’d add the instructor was great.

I just took the Iris Speed Reading workshop in NYC, having been referred to it through some browsing online, and my experience was quite positive.
The 5-​hour class (10:00am-3:00pm) was structured in this basic way:
1. Background on speed reading: what exactly does Iris mean by «Speed Reading»? What are the 3 dimensions of reading and how can we improve on each?
2. Evaluations: what is your current reading speed when reading material of average «range» (material of average complexity)?
3. Drills: a variety of drills that help to increase reading speed primarily by helping us unlearn the 3 Bad Habits of reading.
4. Mind Mapping and Multiple Reading Process (MRP): how to use mind mapping to improve your understanding of a given text, and how to use MRP for any structured, non-​fiction text to maximize gains.
Our facilitator, Todd L., was friendly, fun, and knowledgeable, keeping us engaged us in the material. Our class of 12 (including myself and excluding our instructor) included people from a variety of industries and locations, but our common theme was that each of us had sought out Iris Reading because we believed reading faster would be of great benefit to our careers and lives in general.
My takeaways in terms of what is necessary to continue improving reading speed are: to spend around 15 minutes every other day doing 2 of the drills we were taught, and to put these speed reading concepts into practice as often as possible.
I’ve provided 5 stars for this review because I believe what we’ve been taught is very valuable – but I feel compelled to add a reminder: that speed reading is a skill that must be practiced. I believe this class will benefit people who are interested in improving how they read, and who are willing to invest the time outside of this class to improve or maintain their reading skills.

Enjoyed the memory class quite a bit more than the speed reading class. You really get your money’s worth. Paul was a very good instructor– patient, and excited about what he was teaching. Not sure if what they teach is at all unique, but it was great to have someone synthesize some really good techniques into a class. Highly recommended.

I attended a class in March and came a little late, so I couldn’t record my «intake» speed (so I do recommend to come on time). Even though I don’t know what my starting speed was, I guarantee you it improved. May not 3, buy two times for sure. There were a lot of people, but you look at it as a networking opportunity, because they do have long breaks!
Certainly go of you want to read faster and learn to remember things you read. They teach you how to read periodicals, so of you are a finance guy who reads a lot of news in the morning, go for it.

The boyfriend was deeply interested in learning how to increase his reading speed, so when we saw a groupon for Iris Reading, we snatched it up and scheduled ourselves for the next available class.
I should’ve known I was in trouble when the instructor’s first and feeble words were, «Um, so, um, we are going to, um lounch (did she say lunch? lounge? Oh… launch) this session to, um, make you read faster.» If I had a penny for every time she inserted a conversation halter into her lecture, I could’ve won back all the money I paid for this session and spent it on something better.
If it sounds harsh, let me continue. She wielded the class with all the authority of a good substitute teacher at best, often trying to incorporate analogies that only confused us more. As one of (too) many examples, she was trying to expound the importance of improvement through practice, and her brilliant comparison was (and I’m quoting verbatim because I actually took this down in my notes, it was so incredulous): «When you play basketball, for instance, to get good, you have to first learn to… um…what’s that called???»
«Dribble?» a helpful voice supplied from the audience.
«No, not that,» she replies thoughtfully.
«Put the ball in the basket?» suggests my bemused boyfriend, the basketball player.
«Nono,» she says with confirmation in her eyes. «When you want to get good, you have to learn to play… is it called defense? Or is it OH-​fence? You have to learn to do that.»
(awkward silence ensues, looks of befuddlement exchanged around the room)
Later in the session, when we finished a drill and she asked us to calculate our speed in words per MINUTE, one of my classmates confusedly asked, «Wait, shouldn’t we divide our speed by 2 since this was a 2-​minute drill?» Her response was a resounding but utterly perplexing, ‘No! Because the number of lines is the same! And then you divide the lines by the number of words. Or, no, multiply, I think.” She then proceeded to have a gentle argument with him about why he was wrong when the light must’ve suddenly gone off in her head. She sheepishly agreed with him and chuckled awkwardly while admitting, «Math isn’t my strongest point. I went to law school!» What was she trying to say? That common sense isn’t a prerequisite for law students?
There might have been a few people who applied their best efforts for the full duration of the five hour class, but they are those with either superhuman interest in speed reading (to the point where they could overlook our instructor’s lack of knowledge about basketball, and math, and… speed reading) or a love for bumbling, rambling adjuncts. The rest of our class became increasingly inattentive as the session progressed, especially after she fended off most questions by referring to some nebulous «later on in the session» moment, when everything would come together and make sense for us. Yeah, we’re still waiting for that.
In spite of it all, I gave the class two stars because by the end of it, many of us were surprised to find that the applied strategies did actually improve our reading speed (albeit at the precious cost of comprehension, which is an impossible sacrifice in my opinion), and there were pockets of time throughout the session when we learned something of actual interest.
Ultimately, I was dismayed to find such discrepancy between my experience and those of other Unilocalers, and could only chalk it up to the fact that everyone else seemed to have taken the class with Paul Nowak, the brains behind the program, while I took it with one of his (seemingly) C-​students. I would’ve loved to have taken the class with Paul instead, but there’s unfortunately no way of knowing who will be assigned to teach the class. It’s like a game of roulette, and I had a bad spin.
The content itself is sound, and the strategies work, but the vehicle through which that knowledge was conferred needed some serious improvement (maybe she needs to work on her… um…defense? OH-​fence?).

Total benefit for book lovers.
Great technique to learn in order to learn faster.
After recommending to my fellow students, who shared that reading homework is a lot easier and twice, three times as fast, I brought my father…
He stated that it was the best investment of the year, which made me really happy!
The class for any time and all ages. Recommend it!

I took the speed reading class a few months ago and I am still very excited to tell about its benefits to friends and people I meet whenever I get a chance. Paul is a great instructor; he is an engaging speaker, yet he is succinct and direct.
I decided to take this course in order to increase my reading speed and comprehension in order to handle the high volume of reading my heavy college course load demanded. Thanks to Iris Reading, I am now able to keep up with all of my assignments and actually have extra time to read for leisure as well for a change!

This class was a pleasant surprise for me. My friend recommended I try it after she took the 5 hour course to prepare for her GRE exam, and I decided to try it.
To start off, the instructor was very personable and despite the fact that there were about 60 of us there he made certain to hear what everybody had to say at all times. Following brief introductions he gave us a test to see what our reading speed is. Honestly, i thought I was faster than my results showed me to be. He then explained that most people read at a speed of around 150 words per minute, but that in 5 hours he’d teach us to double or triple that. Like most of the other people in the room i thought that was a loaded statement.
At the end of the class, we tested our reading once more and I found my speed to be almost double. Yes, at the time my comprehension wasn’t very much improved so the speed sacrificed that, but the class taught me how to improve my speed and gave guidelines as to how to practice correctly so that my comprehension would catch up. That class was 2 months ago, and I think I can safely say that at this point my comprehension and reading is about 2.5 times faster and better then it was before. I still practice daily, but that is just because love to read, and to be honest, after the class I learned to appreciate a good book even more.
Overall, the class was organized quite well. I liked the fact that they didn’t weigh us down with too much information too quickly (there were a couple of lengthy breaks) and that the instructor was actually funny and not BORING like a lot of my college professors were.
I would recommend this class, especially to people who are in med school/​law school (like I soon will be) or even generally for anybody who needs to learn to read and understand a lot of information very often.

dyslexia training!
I hate to say this but this class will prove to be a waste of time for many. I took this class mainly because I’m studying for a graduate school aptitude test and I thought it would help me with the reading component.
This is a 4 hour class, after the instructor gives an introduction, he has you read an essay to gauge your base reading speed. Then he runs you through speed drills giving you less time with as you go along. By the end of it all you are reading like the disclaimer guy on used car sales company radio ads.
I was skeptical about what this class purports to do going in, and my doubts were confirmed. If your aim is purely to read faster, you may gain something from this class BUT (and this is a major BUT), you make the obvious tradeoff — REDUCED COMPREHENSION! What is the point reading faster if you are not getting the gist and finer points of what you are reading?
I will say, Paul does give insight into practices you know about and overlooked that could improve your productivity but none of them are really groundbreaking — and my skepticism about his outfit was reinforced when he never replied to my email. I’m glad I got this class through groupon because I would be livid if I paid full price.