About Speed Your Read

Speed Your Read was founded in 2005 by Karen and Kris Stark.  We are dedicated to providing a great product, with fantastic customer service at an affordable price.

Karen handles the customer service, marketing, shipping, and just about everything but tech support.  She has a B.S. in Psychology from the State University of New York College at Cortland.  She is a native of Watkins Glen, NY (hence the focus on all things fast).   

Kris is our IT Manager.  He's responsible for some tech support, and all of the geeky stuff that has to be done. He has a B.S. in Video Production with a minor in Computer Science from Ithaca College.  He is a native of Helsinki, Finland

Linda Gould is the head of our education department.  She brings over 30 years of elementary school teaching experience with her.  She has a B.A. in Elementary Education, and an M.A. in Education from Elmira College.

Our chief coder, and head of technical support is Dhaval Trivedi.  He's the one who actually makes Speed Your Read.  He also handles tech support.  He graduated the top in his class from Christ College.

How Speed Your Read was born:

I liked it so much I started the company!  I got tired of my life..it wasn't bad, but it wasn't what I wanted.  I had an okay job, but I wanted more.  I decided to take some classes, maybe read some books, check into some things.  Something, anything that would help us live rather than just survive.

If you work for a living you know how it goes...day in and day out punching the clock just hoping that your car doesn't break down, or the furnace stays on and that you have enough money for fuel.   It's a grind and it takes a lot out of you.

I took a few classes, and started reading some books.  It was slow going.  I just didn't have the time to make the progress I felt I needed to make.  I was busy.  I had a life, a job, a family...

I'm originally from Watkins Glen.  It's a town built around motor-racing.  I like to do things quickly..I like to be efficient (like we really have a choice...there are so many things to do that you really have to make the most of your day just to survive). 

I decided to look into speed reading.  I read the books, I tried the audio series, I tried the hypnosis tapes.  Then I started on the different software packages.  I tried them all.  Rocket Reader, EyeQ, Ace Reade, Visiontrain...the list goes on and on.  I spent hundreds of dollars hoping that I would get some results.

They were okay, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I could read faster.  500 words a minute is pretty fast, but that's the best I could do with the other pieces of software.  They were also pretty boring, and made me read stuff that I just wasn't interested in.  I have ADD.  I needed something that would hold my attention, and one that was fun.

My husband is a hard-core computer geek.  He found Speed Your Read, and brought it home to me.  It was a revelation.  I went from about 400 words a minute to about 600 words a minute the first day.  I was elated.  Two weeks later I was reading about 1000 words a minute. 

I knew that there were a lot of people out there like me.  People who wanted to get ahead, people who were motivated to do better but for one reason or another just couldn't catch a break.  The other pieces of software were just sooooo expensive, and I decided to figure out a way to make a piece of speed reading software that was affordable.  We made the necessary arrangements and started the company. 

 I enlisted the help of my mother and my sister.  They're both teachers, and they knew the roadblocks students have when they learn to read.  Armed with their education experience, and my Psychology degree I went to work.  We worked for months to put together an effective piece of software and hired an incredably talented coder to make it all work.  The result is Speed Your Read volume 1.1.  I hope that you enjoy your learning experience as much as I did.  There are a lot of years of experience, and thousands of hours of work in Speed Your Read.  It's been a labor of love, and something that I would do all over again in a second.