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Evelyn Wood (1909–1995) is the pioneer of speed reading. She coined the phrase “speed reading” around the 1960s — although similar terms appeared much earlier, such as “rapid reading” — and she started Reading Dynamics, an influential speed reading system.

Evelyn Wood observed the reading speed of her professor, C Lowell Lees, who read Wood’s graduation thesis of 80 pages in less than 10 minutes. The Professor had an astonishing reading speed of about 2500 words per minute.

Wood then formulated a theory: people who had basically the same reading skills could make big improvements in reading speeds.

After analyzing the habits of fast readers, Evelyn Wood discovered that fast readers read more than one word at a time, they saw patterns in the way words appear, and had different eye movements from average readers.

Usually, a fast reader moves their eyes smoothly across the page and not in the zigzagged movement most of us use.

Evelyn Wood also found that fast readers use different reading speeds for different kinds of reading material.

Also, fast readers know instinctively where the main ideas of the text are; and a fast reader will focus on the main ideas to get the gist of the text.

Evelyn Wood began changing her reading techniques according to her observations and found her reading speed improved markedly. Wood achieved a reading speed of several thousand words per minute.

Based on her observations and experience, Wood developed a speed reading teaching system, Reading Dynamics, to improve people's reading speed (famous adherents include the former President of the United States, John F Kennedy). Reading Dynamics was tested and proven at the University of Utah in 1959.

The results that Reading Dynamics is reported to have achieved are impressive. People who have followed Evelyn Wood’s course have apparently recorded an increase in their reading speed of 3 to 10 times their initial average reading speed. The average increase in reading speed is about 6 times faster, with an increase in comprehension of 5% to 15% and even an increase of 40% in some cases.

The method of speed reading discovered and commercialized by Evelyn Wood has influenced many speed reading books, speed reading courses, and speed reading software, since the 1960s.