Relating the Reading Dynamics techniques to the research statistics endorsed by reading authorities is a dangerous game because the latter do not admit that the Evelyn Wood Technique is reading. Briefly, assuming three fixations for every three lines on a page of 30 lines, total fixation time is 7.5 seconds per page. At ten words a line, the rate for step three would compute as 2400 words per minute.

The success at Delaware converted one fort of academia, increased the stature of Mrs. Wood as a reading instructor, and added legitimacy to the concept of Reading Dynamics. But it had little effect on the majority of reading scholars. Some, however, recognized a real potential at least for some scholars. One nationally-known scholar formerly of the traditional school of reading recently remarked, "I have a growing suspicion that this is a different way of reading. It is devolving a capacity to use multiple as well as sequential channel functions. It is a creative process, something like the dream process, rather than a strictly linear development".

Still, the traditionalists demand scientific, rather than deductive, proof. And, in fact, there is a dearth of such experimentation on the Reading Dynamics techniques. Evelyn and her partisans claim that nobody has been able to invent a machine with enough range to test the super-reader. The college reading teachers say that nobody has asked them to build one. Neither side appears anxious to obtain indisputable truth. There is too much to lose. At this point, each has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

Concerning the validity of the Wood method, the only explanation of the increased speed is the greatly increased area of visual perception during fixation. On this point the traditionalists do not have to invent new tests. They can waive the results of scientific research which have proved the retina can bring only one inch of a printed line into clear focus.

To these critics, Reading Dynamics convert Stauffer has an answer: "They are always demanding we show them how it is possible it can be done. But none of them has ever shown us that it can't be done".

After all, 300,000 people couldn't have been wrong.

NEXT WEEK: The Commercialization of an Idea