Anyone hereabout a speedreader

I detest the very idea of speed-reading. I'm a relatively slow reader because I savor every word. Somebody bothered to write it, I should at least have the courtesy to read all of it. How much time do I want to save?

Yes Andy I understand but one needs just a glance at what's happening in the world, and the day is after all just so long

True, but I have no intention of trying to read all of, say, Ulysses in one day.

I was thinking more in terms of the Victorville, Ca Daily Press

i heard about a speed dealer

got 40 years

Yeah, the cops set up those speed traps . . .

I took a speedreading course a long time ago. We then used machines with an automatic cover that descended over each page at a fixed rate - a device to help the students developed the scanning technique. To my surprise, we all found that with concentration we could nearly double our normal reading speed without any measurable loss of comprehension - as measured in tests of short-term recollection. Whether this translates to long-term retention of complex ideas that may be in the test is another question.

We also found that without conscious effort and practice, we reverted back to our normal speeds, though some claimed to have experienced a steady improvement imn reading speed.

Thanks Geo but by chance did you encounter the phenom I query

No: at least I am not familiar with the term.

I do remember well the book I used in the course. It was an historical novel, called "A Crossbowman's Story" : a fictiona account of the real journey of a Spoanish soldier, Francisco Orellana across the Andes in Peru in an early expedition led by Ferdinand Pizzaro's brother Gonsalves, and a subsequent journey down from the headwaters of the Amazon to the Atlantic after Orellana and a group of about 15 other soldiers became separated from the main force after a battle. When, after a couple of months on the river they got to the mouth of the Amazon and realized they were in salt water, they went ashore; built a larger boat with sails, and navigated up around the coast to the SApanish settlement in Trinidad. Tough guys !

The story has stayed with me for many years. Perhaps it was all the concentration, trying to stay ahead of ther screen.

Forgive, Geo, the phenomenon as misunderstanding a phrase by overleap of, say, a single word, and my query to find a technique that might overcome such a tendency, that is without significantly slowing

Evidently you were eminently successful so I presume you didn't experience the difficulty

In the course we were encouraged to try to read and grasp whole phrases, sentences, and paragraphs, instead of focusing on each individual word. Indeed as the speed was ramped up it became necessary just to keep up. At the high end of this as one's proficiency grtew, it was possible to miss the whole point by something like what you suggested.

Yea Geo, the very prob

I gather we don't harbor many other speedreaders

You're a relatively young man, MA ... Dale doesn't have as much time as you do.

Thanks Tico but being old, retired, I probably waste much more time than Andy

I took a speed-reading course about 40 years ago. You run your finger down the centre of the page and follow it with your eyes. It's surprising how much our peripheral vision can absorb.

I wouldn't read a novel that way, but it was extremely useful in university when reading material for essay topics; you got the gist of the material and if what you read was pertinent, you'd go back and read it more thoroughly.

One of the many aspects of technique, Mame. Employing the technique you describe, given the typical newspaper column I find I can't take in an entire line with each jump unless alternate between slightly left of center and slightly right, I suppose one might call jogging

The expert, as I mentioned, scans in a kind of descending circumgyration (for immediate want of a better term). As long as we're slightly OT however, how about other techniques. Some concentrate on the noun though I've always thought the verb more enlightening