# Howard Berg

He Read a 1,500-Page Bill on Live TV in 50 Minutes — Then Trained Special Forces to Think Faster

Canonical: https://mornings.network/shows/center-stage/guests/howard-berg

## Biography

Howard Berg holds the Guinness World Record as the world's fastest reader, capable of reading 25,000 words per minute—approximately a page and a half per second. Growing up in the violent housing projects of East New York, Berg found refuge in libraries, where books became his shelter from gang violence and ultimately transformed his life. By age 11, he tested at a 12th-grade reading level, and his extraordinary abilities caught national attention when he famously read Howard Stern's memoir in six minutes and provided a complete synopsis on live television.

Berg's journey from the projects to becoming a learning expert began in college when a dean told him he wasn't smart enough to complete a four-year psychology program in one year while finishing his biology degree. Determined to prove him wrong, Berg developed his revolutionary speed learning methodology by studying how the brain works and applying those principles to learning. He successfully completed the four-year psychology program in one year and scored in the 99th percentile on the graduate record exam after reading 48 biology books in three nights.

As an educator and learning expert, Berg founded a school where his methods transformed average C students into extraordinary achievers. His 11-year-old students completed college courses in one week, wrote graduate-level research papers in four hours, and some went on to graduate college at 15, earn law degrees, and pass the bar exam by age 18-19. Berg's approach goes beyond speed reading to encompass what he calls 'speed learning'—teaching people how their brains actually work so they can unlock their natural learning abilities.

Now 76 and based in central Florida, Berg continues to teach his methods through live online courses, helping thousands of people double or quadruple their reading speed while improving comprehension. His revolutionary approach transforms learning from a slow, frustrating experience into a visual, movie-like process that taps into the brain's natural capacity for rapid information processing.

## Links



## Transcript

A famous guy named Howard spent five
years writing his memoir. One man read
the whole book in six minutes and gave a
full synopsis on live television.
Stern's response was, "It took me 5
years to write that book.
You read it in 6 minutes, you fat
bastard." We've got the fastest reader
in the world here today. He grew up in
the housing projects of East New York,
and he hid in the library to stay safe
from the gangs outside. Books were
shelter first, then they became
something else entirely. By age 11, he
tested at a 12th grade reading level.
His seventh grade teacher caught him
finishing Call of the Wild in 90 seconds
and didn't believe it. The Guinness Book
of World Records did. 25,000 words per
minute, 80 pages per minute. He read a
1,500page congressional bill live on Fox
Business in 50 minutes, then explained
the contents. Today he has a complete
learning system covering reading,
writing, memory, and creativity.
>> Howard, what a life. Welcome to the big
show. Let's have some fun today.
>> Johnny apparent.
>> Did I hear 2500 words a minute?
>> And did I also hear that Howard Stern
said, "You read my bit my you read my
book in six minutes, you fat bastard."
So Sophia Grant calling out our guest.
Let's bring him up. Howard Steven Berg,
good morning.
>> Hi. It was 25,000 words a minute.
>> Okay. So perfect. So let here's the
question then, brother. How the [ __ ] do
you turn the pages that fact?
>> That's the first lesson.
>> I was gonna say, I mean, literally, you
must just be like [ __ ] doing this.
>> Pretty much. It's a page and a half a
second,
>> dude. Are you [ __ ] kidding me?
Does there so in the books I read
there's lots of pictures. I'm assuming
there are no pictures in your video in
your books
>> but depends on the subject books that
have pictures but I could give you some
strategies on how to do it today and so
it's not just a mystery but something
you could begin putting to practical use
in your own life.
>> I'm brother I'm very very you're so
advanced on this. It's for someone not
to listen to what you have to say would
just be ridiculous. Yeah.
>> I wanted to just say something on your
other topic. I'm 76. So a hot night is
you forgot to put the air conditioning
on.
>> How what did you how old are you? I
missed it.
>> He's 76.
>> Are you really? Good for you, brother.
>> Well, it's better than not. You know,
I have a lot of friends who are and
they're not doing so well.
>> He says Yeah, that's that's true.
Howard, where where are you joining us
from this morning?
>> I'm in central Florida. I'm between
Okala and the Villages.
>> Okay. Okay. We pride ourselves on
finding interesting people. Keith and
John love to find interesting people
that, you know, if you took a group of
10, there'd be one person who's
extremely interesting. and you struck me
as an interesting person because of your
story. You Let's get into Let's get into
the 1500page bill on live TV. Let's get
real quick before we get
going right for the [ __ ] We gota You
got to listen.
>> Take me to a [ __ ] movie or dinner
before you go to the room on this one,
you know? It's like
>> Yeah, that's fair. Okay. So, going back
to the 25,000 words per minute. Excuse
me. A page in a second and a half,
right?
>> A page and a half a second.
>> Page and a half a second. Jesus Christ.
Okay. So, God, that makes it even So,
explain how you look at a whole page of
text
>> and in less than a second you've
gathered that. I mean, do you literally
go line by line or do you have some
[ __ ] weird just extraction thing that
the rest of us don't have?
>> Actually, you do have it. I'll explain
how. When you're in a car and you're
driving, see, 70 miles an hour, you're
reading the road front, back, left, and
right, and you're bored. You turn on the
radio, you're on your phone, you're
talking to people in the car, and then
you read a book. The average speed's
about 200 words a minute. So why can you
read in four directions at 70 miles an
hour in a car and only read about 200
words a minute in a book and retain
about 10%. The difference is in a car
it's a movie. You're seeing all that
information visually and making
decisions. In a book it's like someone
is in your head talking one word at
time. Most people read as fast as they
can talk. I'm seeing a movie. So, if you
look at all the books behind me, you see
them all. These are real. That's not a
backs stop. You see all the books. But
if I had to read the title on the spine
of every single book, one at a time,
we'd be here all day just reading the
names on the titles of the book. So,
vision is analog. It takes everything in
instantly.
And hearing is digital, one bite at a
time. Most people are reading digitally
and I teach them how to read anal
analytically. So they're taking in
larger chunks more visually. You end up
seeing two I see a half a page to a page
but a normal person could see two or
three four lines simultaneously
and take it in visually and they begin
to see the information instead of
listening to it and that's what makes it
easier to go quicker. Wow.
>> I'm I'm like the one or two words guy,
not the one or two lines guy.
>> You could be president.
>> Where where do you What What's the
What's the first tip? Where do you start
with going from the average guy one or
two lines to old [ __ ] page?
>> I actually just gave you the first tip,
but I'll give you the second one now.
>> Well, okay. Well, if you gave me the
first tip, forgive me.
>> Be more visual, see it more
analytically. What I'll show you now is
a practical way for doing that instead
of telling you what it is you need to
do, how it could be done. So when the
show is over, pick a book that you
understand. Want to make sure the only
thing that can confuse you is the speed,
not because you're reading quantum
physics and don't know anything about
it.
>> Gotcha.
>> Then everything's confusing. So you read
at your normal rate with a timer. When
the timer goes off, put a little line in
the margin. That's how far you go. Now,
now the magic. Go back. Take your hand
and go from the left to the right
margin. And your eye is following your
hand as fast as you could comprehend.
So, as long as you know what you're
reading, go quicker and quicker and
quicker until you reach a point where
it's too fast, you don't know what
you're reading. That's where you hit
your cut off point. Go down just a
little in your speed so you're at the
peak speed that you could still
understand. And for five minutes, one
line at a time, eyes following your
hand. Now go back to the first page
where you tested yourself for a minute.
This time, time yourself for a minute
using the hand to move your eye and
you'll go 20 to 40% further just with
that one step. And you could see it.
It's something you can experience.
>> It's just a practice thing. You just
keep practicing and it just gets faster
and faster.
There's more to it. We'll go over that
because comprehension is more important
than speed. And most people, the reason
speed reading doesn't work is reading
doesn't work. You could read a calculus
book slowly, memorize all the formula
and get an F because you don't know how
to use them. You have no idea how to
solve a problem, which is not a reading
problem. You read all the information.
So what I do is I also teach
comprehension and understanding which I
could explain on the air and I think
it's more important than speed.
>> Yeah.
>> So Howard, how do So
how do I I guess so you mentioned
comprehension. I'm I'm trying to trying
to I'm trying to gather my question for
you here. I guess what I'm trying to say
is you see a page of words. How do Keith
and John know that you've read the page
and you understand the comprehension and
you can explain it to us? Like how do
you know like how do you know the
results? I guess that's what I'm trying
to say. It's like okay,
>> very good. Good. That's a great
question. I appreciate that. I'll give
you two answers. One, I did a when I was
in college, my last year of college, I
was majoring in biology and I decided I
wanted to be a psychobiologist, not a
psychotic biologist. That's
Frankenstein. Psychobiology is the
biology of behavior.
>> Okay. So, I had no psyches and the dean
said, "You have to do a four-year psych
program in one year. All of it." Ed
finished the bio program at the same
time and I had three jobs. I was working
18 hours a week. He said, "You're not
smart enough." And that's when I learned
to do this. And I did the four-year
psych program in one year. And I took
the graduate record exam in biology and
I read 48 books in three nights like
biochemistry, cell physiology, genetics.
I got three questions wrong. I was in
the 99th percentile in the world. So
that's one way you could tell. Of
course.
>> So real quick, real quick. When you
said, "Okay, [ __ ] this Dean. I'm gonna
do this." Right.
>> I didn't actually say that, but that was
the context of
>> that was the Yeah, that was the idea
behind it, you know? That was the
driver. So So I guess the question is,
did you have somebody teach you how to
do this or did you figure out how to do
this on your own? He's taking all these
great courses on how the brain works.
I'm like, why don't they use any of this
to learn?
>> So, you actually very smart rats and
monkeys and
>> this is your methodology that you
created this.
>> Yeah. I looked at that makes it even put
it together. It works.
>> That makes it like a thousand times
better. You've you actually engineered
this method which
>> the man who owned
>> the man who owned Evelyn Woods hired me
to train his son and said you've gone
past speed readading the speed learning
and he actually wanted to buy my rights.
I didn't sell them to him but he owned
Evelyn Woods. He was the CEO. So that
gives you an idea. Another thing you
asked me how could you tell? There's a
test called the Nelson Denny. It's a
standardized test for speed and for
comprehension. And they took a hundred
random people. 50 of them did the A and
then the B. And 50 did the B and then
the A to see if what happened after they
took the program. Everyone in the 100
person group doubled to quadrupled. Most
doubled and they had the same or better
comprehension. So that's a standardized
exam that's proving that the results are
valid. Not just for me, me doing it,
it's like a a a sideeshow. You doing it,
that's a breakthrough that could help a
lot of people succeed in an
informationrich world. And we proved
that that's what happens.
>> Okay. So, here's the million-dollar
question, brother. Right. You can read.
You said 25,000 words a minute. Is that
right? At
>> peak. Yeah.
>> Okay.
Can you actually do this
when you're speaking out loud? No, I I'm
knew the answer to that. There's no
possibility, but it's
>> No, it sound like a fax machine. I was
gonna say yes.
I don't Your mouse can't follow your
brain on that one.
>> No, I actually met the world's fastest
reader. I did the 4G launch in Australia
for their phone company and they had me
and the world's fastest speaker and the
fastest rapper and the fastest texter.
And he's very fast. He did like the
silic from Hamlet in like six seconds
which is quite remarkable but you
couldn't understand anything if you
slowed it down with a tape you could
hear it but
>> no [ __ ]
>> you couldn't hear the words because he
was going so fast but he was saying them
>> Howard Steven Berg hanging out with
Keith and John this morning Johnny I'm
just I'm just taking this all in man I'm
really trying to wrap my head around
>> because this whole when it comes down
this whole bill thing that's like the
headline great people want to know
what's behind it. Yeah. Well, and let's
get further behind it, Johnny. So, get
this. The library saved Howard Steven.
And you said literally, you said the
library in the Brooklyn projects was the
safest place in your neighborhood.
Howard, walk us back. What was that
version of Howard Berg's life when you
were running from what you from when you
went to read? You were running. You're
running. It sounds like maybe you had
some challenges growing up, but the
library was your was your place of
comfort. Talk about that, Howard. I'll
give you a little context. We moved when
they raped an 88-y old man. That was the
neighborhood. But I was mund
>> the gangs to keep in the neighborhood.
>> Jesus Murphy.
>> Yeah. I was in high school. I was a home
monitor. I asked for a pass, pulled a
knife out with a blade like this, put it
against my throat. I said, "This is my
pass. What are you going to do about
it?" I said, "I'm going to hold the door
and you can go anywhere you want. I
think this is a very good pass." And I'm
fine with that. Was high school. It was
a very violent neighborhood. There were
a lot of kids killed. There were gangs
that had 1500 kids in them. And I don't
know if you could tell, but I'm not much
of a gang kid. And
when I got out of high school at 17, I
had two choices. I could go to Brooklyn
College and get a new car, or
Bingington, which is a top college where
it's minus 40 windchill, but no car. And
I went to Bingington because I wanted
out of Brooklyn. I wanted bad enough
that I was willing to not have a car at
17
>> to get out of that environment. My dad
was pistol whipped. My sister was
attacked. It was just part
when you're going to be [ __ ] scared
for your [ __ ] life every day.
>> Yeah.
>> And they'll steal it anyway. So what's
the point?
>> Yeah. No [ __ ] How long am I going to
have it?
>> Yeah. So, I was more interested in
changing my life, which I did. And I'm
really pleased that I did. It was a good
school. I got a good education. But now,
my my focus is on other people. I had a
school. If you ask me, how do I know it
works? I owned a school. My 11 year olds
were doing college classes in one week
and passing them on KIPP exams. They
wrote 28 page MLA cited reports at 11 at
the graduate school level in four hours.
And that's what excited me. Having 15,
16 year olds graduating college with
4.0's,
law degrees, and passing the bar at 18,
19 years old going to medical school.
>> You were surrounded by like [ __ ]
genius minds.
>> No, I taught them. They were C students.
>> Oh, you
>> started off as C stu this kid 11 year
old
>> 11 year old C student. He finished high
school at 15. He had a high school,
two-year degree at 17, bachelor's at 19,
masters at 21, English professor at 22.
He was a C student at 11. What changed?
He learned how to learn. We don't teach
learning in school.
>> No, you're right.
>> Tell him to learn. You don't learn, it's
your fault. You go back and do the same
thing harder and you still don't learn.
So, you give up and you drop out. I'm
teaching how to brain work so you can
actually learn. And this is for normal
people. people who aren't geniuses, it
changes how their mind works so they can
become geniuses.
>> Howard Berg, the speed reader with
myself and John Anderson this morning on
Mornings and Live with Keith John and
friends. Coming up in the second hour,
Dr. John Petelli, the [ __ ]
professor. And Howard Petro's got a
question for you and I want to put it on
here. He says, "At a page and a half a
second, that's 90 pages a minute. Most
300page books are in the range of 9,000
to 11,000 words. How do you calculate
25,000 words? approximately two books a
minute.
>> It's more about this the number of words
that it takes me a page and a a page and
a half a second. So if there's more
words, I read faster. There's less. It's
the turning the page that slows me down.
Can can I tell people if they want to
take the course live online with me, you
go to how are you reading.live
how are you reading.live live. I do a
live class every month and in four hours
they will at least double where I don't
charge them. They will at least double
their reading speed with good
comprehension. How
>> Howard, I'll tell you man, our brother
John Petella here who hangs out every
Friday. He'll be in here in a few
minutes. He actually only reads half of
his books. So I'm
>> put put that in context, dude. Jesus
Christ.
>> Let me finish. Let me finish. So maybe
you could help him read all of them,
man. He he buys books. He's a pet. He's
and and he's if it's interesting, he'll
read the whole thing. If it's not
interesting, he'll he'll cut it off
halfway through. But he's not wrong. One
of the things
>> I was going to say, our man here is
going to [ __ ] totally agree with Pro.
>> I tell him to speedread the book in five
minutes to see if it's worth learning.
>> Just like you said, a lot of it's wasted
information. If it's not, go to another
book. But if it is, then I teach them
the strategy for learning, not just
reading faster. And that like I did a
graduate course in educational
psychology, not a fivemonth course. I
did it in seven hours and then I took
the AP test which was six hours and 50
minutes and got a B+. I only needed a C
minus for what I was doing. So I still I
didn't do it in five minutes, but I did
five months of graduate study in seven
hours. So I still feel it was a good a
good use. I as you sit here and listen
to you talk, I realize in your position
like when I when I sit here and think
about books I want to read, it's because
I've heard so many people talk like
people that I literally literally value
their opinions and their I respect them
about a book that I need to read. Your
your position is there's all these
[ __ ] books. How do I find one that's
worth my [ __ ] five minutes? Because
you know it's it's like now you're he's
such the opposite side of this. It's a
totally different my okay I got all this
list of books I want to [ __ ] read but
they take me a month a piece if I
[ __ ] sometimes more than that
>> you know you're like okay how do I dig
through this sea of [ __ ] to find the
ones that I should actually invest my
time in
>> that's your first step
>> because a lot of books don't give you
what you thought they would give you and
you don't that for hours or weeks later
I know in five minutes this book isn't
going to satisfy my needs needs. I need
a different book and I'm not wasting my
time on a book that doesn't provide me
with information I could actually use.
>> Well, you know, brother, crazy enough,
like I find I read books multiple times.
And I swear to God, every time I read
it, it's like I [ __ ] learned so much
more. I mean, I I I have yet to read a a
good book like an additional time and
think, "Okay, I'm done reading that."
I'm like, "Fuck, I learned so much more
this time than I did the last time."
>> Johnny,
>> give me a strategy to to get more out of
it on the first read. Would that help
you?
>> [ __ ] yeah. Are you kidding me?
>> There's only five things you need to
learn. The new words, which is the
vocabulary, that's about 80% of a topic
you don't know anything about. The
names, who's in the book, and what did
they do? Third, any number, date,
statistical formula, something
numerical.
four the five big concepts or takeaways
in each section. What's the big thing
here? What am I getting that I didn't
know before? Five of them. You don't
want to do less than five. You could do
more, but five is the the cut off. And
lastly, are there any questions and can
I answer them? So if you know every word
and what it means, every person what
they did, every number and how it's
used, the main ideas in every part of
the book and you understand them and can
answer any questions the book is asking
you, you're done.
And that's that's what I was teaching
these youngsters to do to get their
college courses in a week.
>> I'm speechless. John, how many books you
guys think he's read in his whole
lifetime? just he's read more books in a
[ __ ] weekend than I've read my whole
life.
>> You and me both. Just [ __ ] numbers.
>> I've got I got a literally just so a
heads up, brother. So, I I got a degree
from University of Portland, small
Catholic school up in the Northwest, and
I got a major in theology. I'm one one
credit shy of a minor philosophy. Didn't
read a single book.
See, my my I my comprehension was so low
that I was like, I'm I'm never going to
be able to keep up with this. So, I went
to each professor. I because I was I was
challenged learning, I was forced to
kind of develop other ways of getting
by. I became a very good problem solver.
That was really one of my biggest
blessings. And so, I went to each
professor and I was like, "Okay, which
you know, small school you can actually
go knock on their [ __ ] door and see
them. Big school you can't even get near
these guys." But I said, "Hey, look, I
how does the how does the the the you
know the midterm and the final break
down in percentage of information? What
percentage is the lecture? What's in the
book?" And if they told me 20% or less
in the book, I didn't [ __ ] worry
about it. I just went to the lectures,
made sure I stayed awake, and took good
[ __ ] notes. And that got me by most
of the classes. Some of them they're
like 6040 which meant I had to find
somebody that knew what was in the book
and I had to have conversations with
them to get that information out. So me
being not been able to read worth a [ __ ]
really turned me get created my problem
solving skill set which then allowed me
to become a good entrepreneur.
>> You raised a very important point. Good
grades don't necessarily mean you're
intelligent. It means you're good at
taking tests and reading books. See
you're on a show. You have talent.
You're funny. You're you're
conversational. What people should be
asking is what makes me smart. Maybe I'm
good at art. Maybe I'm a good musician
like Paul McCartney. He's not a quantum
physicist. It isn't about being good at
everything. It's being good at
something. And if people spent more time
looking at their core competency, Yeah.
and what they do well
>> instead of worry about all the things
they can't do
>> but excel at something as you have and
you could be a success in life. What
happens with many people is because they
don't do some things well they feel it
reflects poorly on everything and it
demeanes them in their own mind and then
they don't achieve anything because they
don't believe they're capable of it.
where if they just focused on that thing
that makes them special and developed it
as far as they could take it, they'd
have a more productive life.
>> I you said something in there that hooks
up what one of my favorite sayings is I
all the time, brother, I say, look, and
I say this and I really own this so that
it will help other people. I was just
dumb enough to believe I could do it.
And what I love and what and what I love
as a host is when when a segue happens
when you don't even see it or know it's
coming because Howard, you're talking
about John's skills and where John's
really good at and what he's
exceptionally good at. Jimmy, let's run
this committed. Howard, I like to I like
to put something on the screen here
often where John teaches me something
and I got I got something. So John's a
strong man, professional strong man. And
this this guy's an expert in this. So
John I I love watching John break these
things down because he can teach me
stuff. So you talk about committed,
right? So Johnny, this guy's picking the
stones. He's he's picking up like
yesterday. Like look how like talk to us
about this. What's he doing here?
>> Well, he's very very small set of stones
in the beginning. Now he's starting to
lap them. So he's got to pull them up to
his lap. The big Well, the big one is
where we'll see if he's
>> Oh yeah.
>> So now he's getting challenged here. So
he's going to lap it. He should be
probably putting his hands over the top
to change his leverage points.
>> Oh yeah.
>> Didn't do too much, but he did a little
bit. Oh, here we go. There's another
one. So the bigger it gets, the more
he's got to use leverage. So, he's going
to lap it. Then what he should do is
regrip it, meaning grabbing over the top
of the stone, which will change his
leverage points. Then up.
>> When you say lap it, what do you mean by
John? Lap it. Look. What?
>> See how he's stopping in his lap?
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
>> Yeah. The little ones, he went straight
up. Wasn't even touching his body.
>> Now he's got to use his body. He's got
to get his hips out of this. You can't
really see from from this angle, but
when he regrip, there's the lap. Get it
in there, baby. Now, he regrips it. He
he regripped it. Now he's changing his
leverage point so he can actually put
his hips under it.
>> Is that timed, Johnny? Is that is that a
timed event?
>> 100%.
>> Oh, I see. I see.
>> See those little ones or like those are
the chickstones. Normally they don't
make the dudes do those.
>> I put that up there, Howard, because in
many ways what you guys both do is
extremely relatable. Like like Howard,
John walks up to that situation and he
can see it in his mind and he can solve
it. You walk up to a book with a
thousand words and you guys are actually
the same thing. You you follow my
analogy Howard?
>> That's what I was saying. Find what
you're good at.
>> Yeah.
>> He doesn't have to be the world's
fastest reader to be great at something
that he does. Yes. He does well. This
guy probably does a reode. I could be
honest. I don't think I could lift that
big stone. I know you're probably
shocked. Even if I put it in my lap and
I used my hips really really well, I I
don't think I could have gotten it on
top of the barrel. Johnny, we might have
a show coming up with John teaching
Howard to lift, Howard teaching John to
read. There could be a segment there for
us to do on the show.
>> Hey, I want I actually have a little bit
of a I'm I'm kind of I have this thing
to where
with my really really lack of reading
skills and comprehension is probably
more of what the lack is. I can read out
loud and with most books if the words
are normal. I just have no [ __ ] clue
what I'm reading. You want the the
secret to comprehension? I could give it
to you quickly.
>> Okay.
>> There's a concept in psychology called
schema. Rather than go into technical,
I'll I'll demonstrate it. I'm going to
read a passage with no schema and watch
how confusing this is. This is an easy
thing to do. If possible, you could do
it at home, but you could always go
someplace else if it's necessary. Beware
of overdoing it. This is a major
mistake. It may cost you quite a bit of
money. I haven't given you any context,
so it doesn't mean anything. I'm going
to read it second time with a title that
has schema and watch how instantly it
makes sense. Laundry. Laundry. This is
an easy thing to do. If possible, you
could do it at home, but you could
always go someplace else if it's
necessary. Beware of overdoing it. This
is a major mistake and may cost you
quite a bit of money. I'm training
people on where these clues are. So even
though they're going very quickly, these
clues unlock the meaning of the bigger
chunk of text.
>> So even though it was confusing before,
you don't have the key
>> and I'm showing you where the keys are
and how to unlock the confusion using
those keys. So even though you're going
quicker, the comprehension's quite good.
So, it's almost like giving yourself
framing the information before you start
sucking it down.
>> Yeah,
>> that's I haven't heard it described that
way, but yes, suck it down.
I need