Speed reading. Anyone give it a try?

[Kixyll]

Quote:

Incidentally people with photographic memory read this way. Anyone with photographic memory here?

I have a photographic memory, and I do read this way. I generally force myself to read phonetically though, because I find I finish books too fast.

Before you spend money on this, think about if it's something you actually want to do. Reading fast is all well and good, but I've found that buying a book and burning through it in an evening is far less satisfying than taking my time and reading it slowly in a few days.

 

[raif]

Sunbryne,
I am not sure if you are accounting for the method of speed reading in your math. I just read a page aloud at the max rate according to your calculations. Maybe your eye movement speed is based on moving from one focal point to another. Speed reading is an entirely different process.

I took a course in the college about this. All they did was teach people to look above the lines, that way in instead of ingesting the words along the line like sunbryne talks about, you more move down the page and rely on peripheral vision to catch the meaning. At my peak I could get about five words a "scan glance."(2 looks a line of text) It wasn't like reading, it was more scanning, but I actually got the same meaning out of the page as if I went and read through word by word. The only thing is that there was no enjoyment to the process, which is why I quit.

I am sure there are people that can do it, just like there are people that can do thousands of pushups at a time, though for most people that should be technically impossible.

 

[Demolition]

Quote:

Originally posted by SunByrne (Demolition's statement " anybody can "read" at 20,000 wpm, as long as you can scan written pages with your eyes at that rate" is incorrect because NOBODY can move their eyes even remotely close to that rate.) This doesn't include time to do any kind of processing of the text, this is just to get the words in view.

Sunbyrne,

I agree that I made that statement, however I did not claim that it was correct. I was merely repeating one of the absurb claims that late-night TV informercials have perpetrated. You will notice that I put "read" in quotes to denote that the claim was suspect. (Perhaps I should have made that much more obvious to avoid this sort of misundestanding. Next time...)

Anyway, the claimed rate (20,000 wpm) is preposterous. Basically, it entails reading 50 pages (each with 400 words) per minute. Personally, I don't think it's impossible to run your eyes down a page in 1.2 seconds or less (try it yourself), but I do believe it's impossible to comprehend what you've seen (notice I said "seen" instead of "read" -- what is occurring is not reading, but rather "scanning" (or "skimming", as you put it). My guess was one word comprehended per hundred, or four words per page. However, these infomercials suggest that 100% comprehension is possible.

Those claims of incredibly high reading/comprehension rates are the snake oil that you've derided. I did not deny this in my previous post, and I do not deny it now. However, other claims (for instance, those made by some posters in this thread) are not in the realm of the outrageous. It simply demonstrates that some people are able to train themselves to read at a slightly higher rate than average (supposedly in the 200-300 wpm range).

D.

 

[Bob Ebophalus]

I taught myself to read, and I can read, according to an online thingthat may or may not be true, about 400 wpm. I have pretty good retention on everything, but it's a lot better if I enjoy what I'm reading.

 

[Old Pa]

Yes. Reading skills are critically important to success in all of education, but especially in higher education. They can also make it a good deal easier and more fun to read, which removes obstacles to reading in and of itself.

It is possible to learn to read faster, with better comprehension, and with greater retention. All of these improvements will help you every day. I had the benefit of reading and speed reading training in high school. It helped me there and through college. I had to read fantastic volumes of technical material in graduate and law schools. I would not have been successful without good reading skills. I still love to read for recreation and work.

It would be my inclination to take the classes over the month. You are changing something that you already do in one way, so you are really changing habits. This takes time, repetitions, and commitment, because it's always easier to go back to your old system. The classes would keep you honest; you would have work and goals and practice in reading over time. You would have feedback on your efforts. And you could apply it to your other school work as you go along.

I think you have an excellent idea here. I resent the improvement of reading skills being labeled as "snake oil".

 

[SunByrne]

Old Pa, with all due respect, you have misconstrued what I said. I am not now claiming, nor have I ever claimed, that having good reading skills is a bad thing. In fact, I couldn't agree with you more that it's important--I'm a university professor, for crying out loud. And I certainly agree that with training, it is possible for most people to improve both reading rate and comprehension.

What I'm disputing are claims about the details of that reading rate. Anyone who claims to actually read (and I mean really read all the words), or to be selling you a class or system which claims it will get you to read, at more than about 500 wpm, is making a claim that simply isn't supportable based on the physiology of the human eye and the associated motor system which aims the eye.

For instance, the class the original poster is taking says that they guarantee to double your reading rate. If you're like Bob Ebophalus, or me, or probably Old Pa, you probably already read at 350+ wpm. Since it's effectively impossible to actually see all the words at 700 wpm, I find this claim *highly* suspect. If the class says "read at 400 wpm," or "skim text with limited comprehension at 650 wpm," that's a lot more reasonable.

I did not, however, claim that improving reading skills is a bad thing, and I resent the suggestion that I said any such thing.

Let me be clear: I fully concur that reading is important. OK? However, there are a lot of people out there who sell things that don't measure up to their sales claims (no, really), and I'm just making a point about the plausibility of some of those claims.

OK, some other responses:

raif, I'm sorry, but I also find your claim of having read a page *ALOUD* at 650 wpm highly supect--at that pace, you would be a contender for the world record! So unless you're both incredibly gifted and have been training at this task for a decade, I find that more than a little unlikely. I think you need to check either your watch or your word count. (Honest, the world record pace for speech is right in 600 wpm range, and it's *always* memorized and HIGHLY-practiced text, not text being read in real time.)

Demolition, point well taken--it wasn't really your claim of 20,000 wpm. And I agree that it's not impossible to run your eyes down a page in a second or so--anyone can just glance at a page--but at that rate your visual system will not even partially register most of the words on the page (unless the type is so big that there are only about 10 words on the page anyway). 20,000 wpm reading is a claim on the order of "fly to the sun and back in 10 minutes" (it would take light about 16 minutest to make said trip.)

The 650 wpm number I've given is an (approximate) upper bound on the human visual system's ability to move the eyes in such a way that the visual system can actually register every word. Since seeing all the words is generally the absolute minimum prerequisite for reading them (duh), that calculation provides a somewhat generous upper bound at that.

edit: typo

 

[usc goose]

SunByrne, everything you're saying might be true but I think I could still argue why I read faster than your 650 wpm upper limit of reading speed. I think I'd only be able to break that with retention while reading a very familiar author or some sort of textbook, newspaper or scholarly journal. As I have a very good understanding of voice and syntax, I don't have to look at every word in the sentence to decipher, comprehend and retain the words of that sentence. Come to think of it, I could probably speed read the work of a poor author since they tend to have an underdeveloped and trite sense of voicing.

Again, I've never taken a speed reading course, but I have taken tests to determine how fast I can read and people have tested me with having me just read a few pages from a book in a minute and regurgitate as much as I can. I'm pretty sure I've beaten 650 on more than one occasion.

But who knows, maybe you're right and the testing I've undertaken has just been flawed. Or something...

 

[mikeg]

Quote:

Originally posted by ServinginEcuador I bought and used the Evelyn Wood Speed Reading System a few years ago. It worked 100%. My rate tripled or so, and retention went up with it. Instead of reading a word at a time I can do about 4-6 words at a time and take it in. When I push myself I can pass 1000wpm, but generally stick to about 400-600. I highly reco one of these type courses over the read a whole page at a time and get up to 6000wpm or something rediculous.

I took the Evelyn Wood course in the 1970's and found it to be a total waste of time and money for me. My conclusion is that it works for some, but not for others. I think that for most people it has no lasting benefit.

 

[Old Pa]

SunByrne: While it could be entertaining to aggravate you further, HeadFi promotes a fraternal relation to which that would be antithetical. Small suggestion? Avoid terms like "snake oil". None of us was born yesterday and we appreciate your sensiitivity to irrational claims. Around here, we discuss a number of topics which inspire "high passion". Reading skills (almost absent among a majority of the population), are not to be discouraged despite some advertising "fluff". Never really thought we were far from the same page, but for expression thereof. Hope this may end it.

 

[Welly Wu]

Speed reading does work but you have to work consistently at it. There are two different types that I have tried: the usual speed reading which is chunking words together into groups of information and photographic reading. I learned using the Evelyn Wood Speed Reading & Learning program which incorporates a bit of both. It's like 50 years old in terms of technology but it still works. I regularly read at 900 - 1000 wpm with no comprehension problems. So long as I take notes of what I read & review them daily, then I'm fine. I'm still interested in photographic reading which is purported to boost speed reading to like 2,000 - 10,000 wpm. I'll give it a try sometime down the road but I'm happy with the results from the Evelyn Wood program. I see a lot of people here say that X works but Y does not. I say that directed & persistent focus delivers results in life; dabbling in one thing or another for a brief period is a waste of time, money, and energy. The same is true with audio gear IMHO.

 

[Old Pa]

Quote:

Originally posted by Welly Wu I say that directed & persistent focus delivers results in life; dabbling in one thing or another for a brief period is a waste of time, money, and energy. The same is true with audio gear IMHO.

Bud, looks like you have simply encompassed a great truth.

 

[usc goose]

Oh yeah, Sunbyrne. This is the website for the Mind Sports Olympiad which has a speed reading event.

http://www.msoworld.com/rules/speed-t.html

Last year's winner Anne Jones won it at 2,284 words per minute at 56% comprehension which comes out to an effective rate of 1,285wpm.

The Mind Sports Olympiad isn't exactly mainstream, but I'd say it's a pretty legitimate source.

 

[raif]

sunbryne,

I was running my words together BIG TIME, which is illegal in the world record competitions. That is why they memorize, to train their mouths not because they can't read that fast. I know, because I was a big micro machines fan as a kid, and used to practice with the guy every time the commercial came on and read about how he practiced for talking that fast.

Anectdote's aside, my statement wasn't about how fast I talk, but more to show that it was possible to talk about as fast as your reported max read speed. To me that just seems wrong.
Mostly, I was just hoping to get across that your math is most likely perfectly correct, but rather the method by which "speed reading" is performed is not sequential like talking, but still involves total ingestion of most every word on the page.

ps. yes I have been using the word "ingestion" too much, but I am trying to program at the same time and its hard to switch my brain back and forth from english to code.

 

[gpalmer]

Quote:

Originally posted by usc goose in my younger days, people used to say that. getting old though. last i was tested i think i was pushing about 800 wpm and I've never learned speed reading. I read ridiculously fast but i have to read everything twice if i want to understand and retain it.

Same here, I'm a bit north of Goose's speed in between 8 and 900 WPM but it's all natural from reading a lot as a kid. Last time they tested me my comprehension at that speed was in the top tenth of a percentile. He's perfectly correct, you don't read the words, you just know what they are by their shapes and you read the whole word at once. I find I have to slow myself down for my technical reading though to let all the interrelationships and permutations play though my head.

 

[zeplin]

there's only one way to solve this...
lets have a speed reading meet, hand out pages of a short story to everyone attending, and see how fast and how much of the story some of you who claim to be able to speed read can comprehend! and also, we could throw in some headphone-listening-sessions during the times that we're not speed reading

and maybe, while all you guys are competing, i'll run off with all the headphones

anyways, i can read pretty fast...i have no idea how fast, but faster than slow

but i always prefer settling down with some good reading material (head-fi or currently the dark tower series: stephen king) vs trying to read something really fast for the sake of well, trying to read fast! i would rather thoroughly retain something the first time vs possibly making a mistake or missing something only to have come back and read it again.