Speed reading

[Dredred]

For my school (I study journalism) I have to do a lot of reading. I'd like to learn to read faster as it would save me a lot of time. On the internet I found information about a lot of different speed reading techniques. Have any of you ever tried any of those, and did it work for you?

[rockoon]

Does this require retention of information?

[fuelair]

Many years ago, I taught a speedreading course for a company - they did things right,by my standards, (taught to get used to using more peripheral vision, to move eyes down page at regular (constant) speed, tested with questions that required knowledge of the material - though not understanding of it - in all fairness, if someone cannot understand/interpret the material no speedreading course I am aware of will help!).
My speed was 800 wpm w/95+% comprehension when I started and 6000wpm
w/80% comprehension when I started the teaching (they required prospective teachers to take the course - they did not charge for that). Best student that I personally know of/worked with got to 10,000wpm with (minor quibbles) 75%comprehension. This was about thirty years ago in Nashville,TN.
I have no idea if that company still exists and I only worked for them until I got a full-time regular job (about 11 months) but it was American Speedreading Academy.

[Dredred]

Does this require retention of information?
I had to look that one up in a dictionary; english is not my first language. If I understand correctly, you're asking if I'm required to remember what I read? Yes I am.

[Dredred]

My speed was 800 wpm w/95+% comprehension when I started and 6000wpm
w/80% comprehension when I started the teaching (they required prospective teachers to take the course - they did not charge for that). Best student that I personally know of/worked with got to 10,000wpm with (minor quibbles) 75%comprehension.
Amazing. Now I'm definately going to learn how to speed read.

[Freethinker]

I took a Speed Reading course many years ago, only to find that I already knew how to do it. Since I was a child, I've had two reading styles: Absorbing every word and thinking about it, and blazing through it to get the high points. Never thought about it until I was given the pretest and scored something in excess of 3000 wpm with good retention.
I think what gives you the real speed boost is learning the "style" of the writing which allows you to skip the junk and go right to the important information.

[bjb]

I learned some speed reading techniques when I was in junior high school. It is possible to use them and increase your reading speed without skipping words. I think I started at 300 and got up to 900 and that was about as good as anyone got in the class. Most people in the class started at just over 100 and some got to 300, so it seems the simple methods we used were able to triple our reading speed. We didn't use the peripheral vision methods, we just used a 3x5 card and used it to scan down a page while trying to read fast enough to keep up with the card. Those other methods will get you reading much, much faster, but I think a 3x increase is very significant for such a simple method.

[Luciana]

Mandatory smart**s quote:

"I took a speed reading course and read 'War and Peace' in twenty minutes. It involves Russia." Woody Allen

Not that I don't know much about speed reading. But the quote amuses me every time. :D

[Gravy]

I try to practice slow reading whenever possible. I wouldn't want to be involved with any subject that invited speed reading.

[Luciana]

Not that I don't know much about speed reading. But the quote amuses me every time. :D

:rolleyes: Don't type and speak on the phone, folks. :rolleyes:

[69dodge]

:rolleyes: Don't type and speak on the phone, folks. :rolleyes:That's alright. I read it so fast I didn't notice the mistake. :D

(This is true, BTW.)

[veggie doll]

I try to practice slow reading whenever possible. I wouldn't want to be involved with any subject that invited speed reading.

Why not?

[aggle-rithm]

I heard somewhere (I believe it was skepdic) that a study was done in which every other line of text in the reading was from a completely different source, so the reading made no sense at all. Speed readers were unable to detect this anomaly.

[Serenity]

What's the deal with -EyeQ-? It makes some rather grandiose claims. Is there anything to it? Anyone here have any firsthand experience with it?

https://www.asseenontvnetwork.com/vcc/eyeq/eyeq/130368/

[Banbury]

My speed was 800 wpm w/95+% comprehension when I started and 6000wpm
w/80% comprehension when I started the teaching (they required prospective teachers to take the course - they did not charge for that). Best student that I personally know of/worked with got to 10,000wpm with (minor quibbles) 75%comprehension.

Please excuse me if I don't believe this claim. As a speed reading teacher you aren't exactly unbiased.

From the Skeptic's Dictionary:

Anne Cunningham, a University of California at Berkeley education professor and an expert on reading, reports that tests measuring saccades (small rapid jerky movement of the eye as it jumps from fixation on one point to another) while reading have determined that the maximum number of words a person can accurately read is about 300 a minute. "People who purport to read 10,000 words a minute are doing what we call skimming," she said.

[Beerina]

I have doubt of it, too. While it would be possible to pick out the larger words, and blow by pronouns, small verbs, articles, etc. and "pick up the pace", I would like to see an independent study that correlated word rate with comprehension based on a test.

I don't know that the speed reading claims to be doing anything other than skimming, though. Do they actually claim people are reading every single one of the thousands of words per second?

Also, the more skilled readers (not speed readers) might be able to pick up words on either side of the word they're focusing on. I can, I just tried it. Hence they might very well read a lot more actual words than 300 -- they just have 300 eye twiches a minute. (Which is 5 per second, quite a rapid rate.)

[Roboramma]

I think that speed reading is probably quite similar to listening to someone talk without paying attention. If they accuse you of not paying attention you can always go back and find that you actually heard what they said and repeat it to them, to convince them that you were listening, but when you remember, you might find yourself surprised at what you're remembering, because you heard the words, but didn't think about their meaning.

Basically I think that's what speed readers do - they read the words, but they aren't forced to stop for the fractions of a second necessary for the brain to figure out what they mean. Some words or phrases will catch their attention, and these will be processed, because they are obvious and attract the mind to them, but many will be read, but then not thought about.
Just like if I'm not listening to what you're saying and you say, "Rob." I'll hear my name and know that you're trying to get my attention, some words or phrases will stand out.
But the majority might be missed.

I'd like to see a study on how long any information that is gleaned from speed reading is retained, as compared to reading at a normal pace. I think it's the brain's processing and thinking about what it's reading that slows us down, but it's also exactly that which can aid memory and understanding of the material.

[bjb]

I don't believe that 300 wpm limit. I know I can beat that while reading every word. The trick is to read several words at a time. One speed reading technique is to train yourself to read a line of text at a time. Some claim to read an entire paragraph at a glance but I don't think most people can do this.

As for myself, I have found that certain words will jump off the page if I'm looking for them. For example, I was paging through a car magazine looking for an article about a Formula 1 race, when I noticed the word 'killed' on the page. However, I was turning pages rather quickly so I had to turn back a page to see what had happened. The second time, I had to scan through the page several times before I found the word 'killed'. Fortuantely, it was an engine that had been killed, not a driver.

Ever since then, I've wondered why I was able to pick out that particular word from a whole page of text that was just flashing past me. What I think happens is that your brain filters out most of the information that it recieves. When you are reading, your eyes see the entire page of text, but your brain filters out everything except the word you are focusing on. If you go one word at a time, you will hit that 300 wpm limit, which is where I was before I took the speed reading class. Perhaps speed reading trains your 'filter' to open up and let more words through for each glance. If you can read a line of text at a time, that would be quite an accomplishment and you would be able to beat 300 wpm while still reading and comprehending every single word on the page. Many words are ignored in the more advanced speed reading methods and that allows people to read thousands of words per minute. But I think that's skimming, and I can do that if I'm really not interested in what I have to read.

[bjb]

Here's a link to a speed reading/comrehension test

http://www.readingsoft.com/ (http://www.readingsoft.com/)

I got 876 words and 81% on the comprehension test. I had to re-read some of the sentences since they were setting off my B.S. detector. I normally don't read this fast but I can skim a page much faster than this.

[drkitten]

I heard somewhere (I believe it was skepdic) that a study was done in which every other line of text in the reading was from a completely different source, so the reading made no sense at all. Speed readers were unable to detect this anomaly.

At the risk of sounding like a credophile, I don't really see the significance of this result (although I agree that it's interesting, and would like to see the full citation if you can find it). Speed reading isn't about trying to figure out if every other line of text was from a completely difference source. Speed reading is about trying to glean information from a written source as rapidly as possible. One obvious "optimization" that any engineer would tell you is to start by figuring out what you can assume about your source, and use that as a basis. Since most texts are coherently written, you can start by assuming text coherency..... and if someone hands you a deliberately incoherent text, the conclusion shouldn't be that you can't speed-read, but that the person is a twit.

For example: I have to read a lot of journal articles in my work. I have a standard method of doing so quickly. I read, in turn, the abstract, the introduction, and (if it seems worth it), the conclusion. In a "standard" scientific paper, that will tell me everything I need to know about the research unless I plan either to replicate the experiment or to criticize it in detail. But if your conclusion is "it is feasible to do X," then unless I plan on doing X myself, I don't care about the details. I can read, and retain, the idea that it is feasible and not worry about it otherwise.

And in this sense, I have near 100% retention. There was one relevant fact, and I remember it.

I used to joke in graduate school about "optimally compressing" seminar announcements. Every week we would have several seminars, and the usual announcements would be posted telling who, where, when, and most importantly what about. I would typically read the announcement and then make a simple decision, to go, or not to go. If I decided to do, I wouldn't bother to remember the rest of the details, because, well, I would probably find out the speaker's name again at the seminar. All I needed to remember was that I wanted to go.

My real question, thus, is what "95+% comprehension" means. I can easily imagine someone being able to score 95%+ on a test of a well-written passage just by reading every other line or every other word, because there is so much information you can pick up from context.

[bjb]

My real question, thus, is what "95+% comprehension" means.

I didn't remember everything from what I read in that speed reading test, but I did absorb the fact that it was propoganda for a company that sells speed reading computer software. That's my kind of reading comprehension!

[JamesM]

At the risk of sounding like a credophile, I don't really see the significance of this result (although I agree that it's interesting, and would like to see the full citation if you can find it).

I remember reading this on The Straight Dope (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_155.html), but there's no other details, unfortunately.

[Dogdoctor]

I took a speed reading course a long time ago. The first week we were tested using various different tests. After that the teacher took me to the side and said what the heck are you taking this class for? I dropped it. However I know my reading speed has gone down a lot due to reading mostly science journals and books. I used to be faster reading ficiton because understanding the exact meaning wasn't so important and also easier than a science journal. I rarely read fiction anymore and when I do I can't get to the read one whole line at time right down the page like I used to. Now I read each word separately or maybe groups of words.

[antihippy]

I'm not sure whether speed reading is a good idea or not. What I do know is that there is no substitute to hardwork and practice.

There is a big difference, I believe, between skimming a page and filling in based on context [getting the gist] and actually reading. Over the years I've developed several techniques for picking the essential points from a text, but I've also discovered that actually investing the time reading is no substitute for getting the gist.

Like drkitten I believe you can normally read the salient parts of a paper and get the essential points - but I've been caught out by bad science as a result (in the dim distant past now). Of course we develop extra BS filters, as time goes on, to compensate for our mistakes! The point being that you have to actually read what is being presented to you.

My advice for anyone looking for shortcuts is not to bother. Spend the time building up your basic techniques as these will surivive far longer than any gimmick you might pick up.

If you want to read faster here's my advice: read books, read a lot of books, read all the time, get used to reading the writing the styles you are likely to meet in various different genres. You should find that your reading speed picks up over time. There are probably other points that I have forgotten to list. Of course some people just read slower than others (I believe this is normal in all human activities) and is just natural.

Of course I may be wrong and that you can shortcut the process by taking a speedreading course - I've never bothered with, or had the personal need to invest in, such a course.

[antihippy]

Someone was asking for a link to the paper mentioned above. I was curious as well so I did some digging. I can't find the relevant paper (difficult without the name of the paper) but found this (http://www.naesp.org/ContentLoad.do?contentId=1081).

Anne Cunningham's email address is a link on that page.

[hh-dragon]

I was in a PhD program in the humanities for many years that involved a lot of reading. Everyone else in the program was a fairly quick reader but I never actually noticed any "speed readers" (I'm thinking of the hand movements which I associate with speed reading).

My baseline is a Stephen King novel. He's a decent stylist and usually a very good pacer. I can read a Stephen King novel with great comprehension at about 300 pages an hour. That drops radically going into more boring and/or difficult material. The slowest I've ever read and actually understood is part of a Deleuze and Guattari theory book... at about 5 pages an hour. I was about average for the program, there were some slower readers than me and some faster. Everyone skimmed like crazy too. A typical assignment for one class might be, "go read this 1000-page medieval Spanish epic poem, read this 300-page book written about the poem, then read 10 critical articles on the book on the poem, write a short paper and be prepared to discuss all of the reading critically for three hours next week." I'd read a few carefully chosen parts of the assignments closely, and skim over the rest.

I think skimming techniques are pretty important and should be taught as early as possible.... they're also key for learning to read foreign languages.

[Gravy]

I try to practice slow reading whenever possible. I wouldn't want to be involved with any subject that invited speed reading.
Why not?
Can you tell I was a literature major? :)

[coalesce]

Go Speed Reading!

Go Speed Reading!

Go Speed Reading Go-o-o-o-o-o!!

Michael

P.S.

Sorry...

[LordoftheLeftHand]

I heard somewhere (I believe it was skepdic) that a study was done in which every other line of text in the reading was from a completely different source, so the reading made no sense at all. Speed readers were unable to detect this anomaly.

I think the fundamental difference of opinion here revolves
around the definition of the word reading.

I don’t know where the line should be drawn, but I have a
Anna Rorick is a tech-savvy person. She does most of her
strong feeling that if you do not notice that every other line
buying online, so she stays on top of the latest news about
is from a different unrelated source, then you are not “reading”.
<O:p
LLH

[vbloke]

Here's a link to a speed reading/comrehension test

http://www.readingsoft.com/ (http://www.readingsoft.com/)

I got 876 words and 81% on the comprehension test. I had to re-read some of the sentences since they were setting off my B.S. detector. I normally don't read this fast but I can skim a page much faster than this.

I managed 3270 wpm and a 91% comprehension score.
It's something I've just always been able to do since I first learnt to read - I remember my teachers saying that I had an advanced reading ability when I was young and it's just carried through.

[bjb]

That's interesting. I think some people are just incredibly fast readers. For example, I knew someone who seemed to be able to read a whole paragraph at a time. I already knew she was amazingly good at math but one day, I found a poorly written newspaper story that inadvertently contained a joke near the end. It wasn't funny unless you read it right. Anyway, I gave it to her and almost immediately she started laughing. So not only did read the story (one large paragraph) in a couple of seconds but she had the comprehension to find the joke.

I believe this is a talent some people have, but like any other talent, it needs to be developed by lots of reading. It is not something that can be taught, so in that sense, the speed reading classes are a scam. I think a few hundred words per minute is realistic, though, and that's quite an improvement over the way most people read.

[rats]

I remember descriptions of “OT” scientologists included the ability to always open dictionaries at the required page, and speed reading books by flicking through pages (as long as all the words were understood, of course).

As they’re so interested in getting money into the ‘church’, it’s a wonder no scientologist has easily won the $1 million challenge with such straight forward claims.

Apologies for the slight derail.

[fuelair]

I learned some speed reading techniques when I was in junior high school. It is possible to use them and increase your reading speed without skipping words. I think I started at 300 and got up to 900 and that was about as good as anyone got in the class. Most people in the class started at just over 100 and some got to 300, so it seems the simple methods we used were able to triple our reading speed. We didn't use the peripheral vision methods, we just used a 3x5 card and used it to scan down a page while trying to read fast enough to keep up with the card. Those other methods will get you reading much, much faster, but I think a 3x increase is very significant for such a simple method.
This sounds like an old version of the Evelyn Wood method (I have no idea what they do currently or if the company exists anymore).

[empeake]

This may come in a bit late, but I hope it will be helpful.

From my experience, the best method to read faster is simply reading a lot and expanding you vocabulary. Every new word you encounter in printed text has to be "deciphered". The next time it appears, you recognize in less time and move on, thus cutting down on the time.

Because of this, speed-reading courses that claim to quicken your eye movements and strenghten your scanning skills are mostly a waste of money. Even if you could capture a full page of text at a glance (something that only happens with people that have a photographic memory), you still have to interpret what it says. This is impossible if you don't master the language and terminology, and don't know the meaning of the printed symbols on the page.

I'm a translator, and my reading speed when I work is about half of what it is for entertainment purposes. Why? Because in my work I can't scan certain words and fill in the blanks; I must be certain that what I read is exactly what was written.

My advice: forget speed-reading courses and just read, read, read. You'll see great results in a relatively short period of time.

[macgyver]

Go Speed Reading!

Go Speed Reading!

Go Speed Reading Go-o-o-o-o-o!!

Michael

P.S.

Sorry...

Loved that show...especially the FABULOUS MACH 5!

[rjh01]

This may come in a bit late, but I hope it will be helpful.

From my experience, the best method to read faster is simply reading a lot and expanding you vocabulary. Every new word you encounter in printed text has to be "deciphered". The next time it appears, you recognise in less time and move on, thus cutting down on the time.

My advice: forget speed-reading courses and just read, read, read. You'll see great results in a relatively short period of time.

Do not know much about speed reading courses. What I do know is that when I was a kid I was backward when it came to reading. A few years ago took a speed test and discovered I was now fast. All I had done in between times is do a lot of reading.

Sorry this is not a double blind test, so you must reject this evidence.

[Art Vandelay]

Either the people at Eye Q are seriously deficient in Math skills, or they are unconcerned with honesty. I saw a commercial in which they said how much their clients had improved. If someone started at 200 wpm, and ended at 300 wpm, that would be labeled a "150% improvement", when in fact it is only 50%. They flash these numbers by really quickly, so you have to be really paying attention to notice.

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Many years ago, I taught a speedreading course for a company - they did things right,by my standards, (taught to get used to using more peripheral vision, to move eyes down page at regular (constant) speed, tested with questions that required knowledge of the material - though not understanding of it - in all fairness, if someone cannot understand/interpret the material no speedreading course I am aware of will help!).
My speed was 800 wpm w/95+% comprehension when I started and 6000wpm
w/80% comprehension when I started the teaching (they required prospective teachers to take the course - they did not charge for that). Best student that I personally know of/worked with got to 10,000wpm with (minor quibbles) 75%comprehension. This was about thirty years ago in Nashville,TN.
I have no idea if that company still exists and I only worked for them until I got a full-time regular job (about 11 months) but it was American Speedreading Academy.


This sounds like alot of nonsense to me. 10,000 words per minute? BS.

Let's imagine that an average paragraph has 50 words in it. An average page in a book might have about 10 paragraphs per page. So about 500 words per page on average. 10,000 words per minute would mean you would read 20 pages in a single minute!



Here is 5,998 words from a random article on "talk origins".

Evolution is a change in the gene pool of a population over time. A gene is a hereditary unit that can be passed on unaltered for many generations. The gene pool is the set of all genes in a species or population.

The English moth, Biston betularia, is a frequently cited example of observed evolution. [evolution: a change in the gene pool] In this moth there are two color morphs, light and dark. H. B. D. Kettlewell found that dark moths constituted less than 2% of the population prior to 1848. The frequency of the dark morph increased in the years following. By 1898, the 95% of the moths in Manchester and other highly industrialized areas were of the dark type. Their frequency was less in rural areas. The moth population changed from mostly light colored moths to mostly dark colored moths. The moths' color was primarily determined by a single gene. [gene: a hereditary unit] So, the change in frequency of dark colored moths represented a change in the gene pool. [gene pool: the set all of genes in a population] This change was, by definition, evolution.





You could read this in 1 minute? Nonsense!

Edited for breach of Rule 4.