Education: Winged Victory

The U.S. Air Force, which likes to think it is supreme in the air, scored a major victory on the ground last week. It taught 120 of its officers, all of whom man desks in the Pentagon, to read faster.

Tests had shown that the officers averaged only 292 words a minute and understood only 83.2% of what they read at that speed. After a six weeks’ course at the Pentagon’s Reading Improvement Laboratory, their speed winged upward, though their comprehension dipped a bit to 79-3%- One lieutenant colonel had boosted his score from 225 words a minute to 516; a captain had jumped from 584 to 1,034, practically a page at a glance. Average progress: 292 to 488 w.p.m.