Speed reading?

Ok, I just looked around on Wikipedia. The article there claims that speed-reading is a whole lot of phooey and that reading faster than 350 wpm will cause your comprehension rate to plummet below 75%. They may not have any objectives like people marketing the speed-reading courses, but they could be wrong. How do I go about looking for the true answer?

manticore- Welcome to A2K!

Why would you even want to read at a so-called "speedreading" rate? If you are reading a novel, part of the pleasure is relishing the little details, that bring the story alive. In speedreading, you may comprehend the story line, but you won't really enjoy what the author of the book is trying to say.

If you are studying in a textbook, your brain needs to be able to absorb the different facts. In any subject, expecially a complex one, your brain needs time to incorporate each idea.

If you are a slow reader, it might pay for you to attempt techniques to learn how to read a bit faster. But speedreading? I can do a bit of that. I will sometimes, when a novel gets a bit on the draggy side, speed read through, so I know the ending without wading through all the details. But no one can tell me that you can get the same enjoyment, amount and precision of detail through speedreading.

I took a speedreading course, and afterwards I read the whole of "War And Peace" in ten minutes!. It's about Russia I think.

Nah, I'm reading nonfiction and I'm only concerned with the factual details. It's not necessairly riddled with facts, but rather riddled with explanations. However, my original intent was to be able to read faster all across the board, novels, textbooks, essays, everything.. I have this feeling that I could read faster, but something's holding me back and it's not comprehension speed. So I looked around for faster ways of reading, instead I was greeted with all these speedreading courses claiming they can get you to read at 25k wpm. I, personally, was looking for more around 700 wpm with high comprehension. Is that an unrealistic goal?

I do not know about speed reading, but I would recommend

How to Read a Book
by Charles Van Doren, Mortimer J. Adler

This will show you how the get the most from what you read.

Here's an interesting article, which includes some speedreading techniques............and it's for free!

http://english.glendale.cc.ca.us/speed1.html

Meh, I don't know what to think now... Could someone refer me to credible studies by independent sources on the subject of speed-reading?

Hey,

I use to be in the same boat as you, I was able to read comfortably at about 350 words per minute.
Which was fine because the average person can read roughly 250 words per minute, so I was above average.

Anyway, one day I got this crazy idea in my head where I wanted to learn how to speed read. I decided I better do some research and decide which would be the best way to go about accomplishing such a feat.

And through my research I found out the main problem holding people back from reading faster, is that 99% of us subvocalize while we read (saying the words in our head). Which we are taught to do in elementary school. The average person speaks at 250 WPM, which is why the majority of people read at 250 WPM as well. The thing is, this is a bad habit that is hard to break for the accomplished reader, that they don't teach you how to break when you're older.

If you want to become a "visual" reader rather than an "auditory" reader, the best thing you can do is train your eyes to do so. Visual reading commences at no less than 600 WPM, and subvocalization is very minimal.

To answer your question, yes, reading at 700WPM with high comprehension is a very realistic goal. With the right training, people usually double their reading speed in about a week, with 10-20 of practice a day.

Also an interesting point: Usually the higher reading speed, the higher the level of comprehension.

They're a number of great software programs that you can get, that will train your eyes to read visually. Such as: EyeQ or AceReader Pro. Both are highly recommended. And they honestly do work if you put in the effort.

I've been using AceReader Pro for about 4-5 months, and I can read at 1500 WPM, which is over 4x faster than I did when I first started.

The program focuses on eye fixation, which trains your eye to focus on and comprehend on multiple words, sentences or even paragraphs at once.
It Also focuses on things such as eye movement speed, which trains your eyes to quickly move horizontally across the page, something our eyes aren't use to doing.

25000 wpm is for Photographic Memory
Hi All..........

There is certainly a possibility for a person
to read 25000wpm and thats why people
who are able to read a page at a single flip.

That is for the minority. For most of us
to attain 1000wpm is definitely attainable.
Average reader read about 150-250 wpm.

With 1000wpm, this mean you would have
save yourself 4x the time to complete a
book.

Well 25000wpm is attainable if you are persistence
enough to practice, practice and practice. Novels
are definitely more easier to speed read compared
to Nonfiction and other heavy textbooks.

Franklin Roosevelt , John F kennedy practiced speed
reading. Both started with 150-200wpm...and ended
up 1000wpm and more. With their hectic schedule
both forced themselve to the extreme and aimed to
complete one book per day..that is 365 books per year..

So lets aim for 1000wpm and then perhaps we can start
thinking about 5000wpm...10000wpm....

Cheers
Speed Whiz
EDIT: MODERATOR: LINK REMOVED

Surprised? I was suprised

My usual method of self-created (?) speed reading is to skim over the most annoying areas. Many books have filler spaces which have little to nothing to do with the main story line. The problem of course is that I can end up missing some detail which would have been useful to know at a later point in a book.

Another method of speed reading is the one I used to employ in school. Read the first few pages skip a few (30 to 50) pages, read a few more, then skip to the end of the book and read the last 30 to 40 pages. Don't laugh, by using that method and reading any dust jacket blurbs I earned high grades on my book reports...and had quite a bit of free time as well.

.

But how does one stop subvocalizing?

I'm looked for techniques that would aid me in achieving this goal but I can't seem to get to the point where I can read visually.

I purchased eyeQ and found that the program worked well for what it was designed (and what they claimed) but their only solution to stop subvocalizing is to "practice, practice, and practice". There are no specific techniques that are intended to facilitate the process of moving from subvocalizing to visualizing.

Can anyone offer me some hints? Some tools I may use to facilitate this process?

Remember that old Cheech & Chong bit?

I...have taken the evelyn woodhead sped redding corse an it has improved my compren....tion 100 hunnert per.....cent.

One must wonder how this helps with my issue...

The only thing of value that I've seen on this post is to simply look at the words as you would look at a picture. This makes sense, but... What does one do if their comprehension significantly diminishes while reading like this? In my case, when I read visually, I don't remember anything I read--it's as though I didn't read anything at all. This is at the heart of my problem. Perhaps I just need more practice; perhaps there's something else I could be doing to overcome this plateau--and therein lies the point of my question.

Suggestions like "skimming" or "skipping 30 to 50 pages" aren't reasonable solutions to me. I used to have the Evelyn Wood speed reading program but didn't particularly care for it--a lot of their techniques revolved around using the hand (or fingers) to pace the eyes and thus force oneself to read faster. This seems to unnatural to me when compared to techniques like those described in eyeQ.

I think it depends on the person and the material that you are reading. People who tend to think wholistically tend to find it more useful than people who are strongly detail oriented.


I'm dyslexic but very skilled at comprehending and using abstract concepts. I tend to get lost when there is a lot of detail. Something similar ( but not the same) as speed reading well works for me hwen i am studying complex academic material (books on advanced maths, neuroscience, etc).


What i do is read for ideas rather than words. While the words swim around meaninglessly, i can understand charts, and the short summaries which all the pointless, rambling text is meant to be leading up to and random extracts from the text ( glossing over it ) . Once I've done this, i can usually answer all the questionsin the end of chapter review accurately, and this is enough for me.

Text book writers assume that you need things told you to repeatedly, in different ways, to understand. This doesn't work for me because i end up lost, tired and angry. YOu don't need to read every word to get the point.

I have a very weird sort of brain which works well, but works very differently to most other people. There are a lot of people who need a lot of details before the can get the "big picture" . This is useful in a lot of situations, but if you are one of these people, speed reading is likely to be less useful than for a person who needs to think in concepts and struggles with all the tiny details.

I think it depends on the person and the material that you are reading. People who tend to think wholistically tend to find it more useful than people who are strongly detail oriented.


I'm dyslexic but very skilled at comprehending and using abstract concepts. I tend to get lost when there is a lot of detail. Something similar ( but not the same) as speed reading well works for me hwen i am studying complex academic material (books on advanced maths, neuroscience, etc).


What i do is read for ideas rather than words. While the words swim around meaninglessly, i can understand charts, and the short summaries which all the pointless, rambling text is meant to be leading up to and random extracts from the text ( glossing over it ) . Once I've done this, i can usually answer all the questionsin the end of chapter review accurately, and this is enough for me.

Text book writers assume that you need things told you to repeatedly, in different ways, to understand. This doesn't work for me because i end up lost, tired and angry. YOu don't need to read every word to get the point.

I have a very weird sort of brain which works well, but works very differently to most other people. There are a lot of people who need a lot of details before the can get the "big picture" . This is useful in a lot of situations, but if you are one of these people, speed reading is likely to be less useful than for a person who needs to think in concepts and struggles with all the tiny details.

speeds like 10.000 words per minute are definitely fake if you ask me, but it is still possible to increase your reading speed while maintaining a good comprehension level. 600 words per minute is quite easy to reach and with some experience you'll reach speeds even higher.
here's a great article on speed reading

5 Quick Steps to Increase Your Reading Speed and Comprehension Level Now

A lot of people think you have to read slowly to "let it all sink in" -this is a huge misunderstanding!

why speedreading works
the average "thinking speed" is around 1200 images/minute
the average reading speed is around the 225 words/minute

If you read slowly, your mind will probably "get bored" and start all kinds of other processes in the background, and before you know it, your minds starts to wander off....You flip through the pages, but when you snap out of it, you have no idea what you've just read.

Why do people read slowly?
If people learn how to read, they learn to read out loud. And in this way, they learn to read at the same rate they speak. They get accustomed to a low reading speed.

The five steps to speedreading
1. Sit upright and alert! 30% of the oxygen you inhale is needed for your brain, If you slouch, you mess up the supply to your brain. And, if you keep your head positioned at an angle, your equilibrium will send the message to your brain that it can go wander off and go to sleep.

2. Move your finger or a pen or something else(I prefer a marker) across the words, doing this instantly wipes out most problems with reading faster. Start the pen 1 inch after the beginning of the line, and stop 1 inch before the end of the line, your eyes can capture several words at once, in this way it's one eye movement less.

3. Read with a rhythm, try 1 line/second for instance

4. Match your speed with the text, If it's complex, read slower, If it's boring, read faster.

5. Before you read a book, flip through it once, from beginning to end and look at every page, this only costs a few minutes.

Good luck increasing your reading speed!

http://www.xomba.com/5_quick_steps_to_increase_your_reading_speed_and_comprehension_level_now
http://www.xomba.com/speed_reading_reality_or_myth

Years ago (around 30) I took a speed-reading course and the basic premise was to run your finger down the middle of the paragraph/page and your eyes will naturally skim (peripherally) the rest of the paragraph and you can pick up the rest of the para or get the gist of it. Not good for studying, but good for getting a general idea. I wouldn't recommend it for general novel reading or enjoyment purposes.

Most writers (in those days, anyway) followed a general guide as in:

The first chapter set out the purpose of the book.
The first paragraph set out the purpose of the chapter.
The first line set out the purpose of the paragraph.
etc

And in most cases, that still holds true. This is for non-fiction, of course.

I know that my reading speed improved but can no longer remember the numbers.

I use that skill to this day. It's a good way to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Speed reading I can handle.. Speed remembering is what get's me. I read slow.. always have.. always will I think. I like to ponder..sit and think for a minute.