A question about speed reading

I wonder if someone could help me with this. Some time ago an acquaintance of mine recommended I try a method for speed reading. In the course of my studies I need to digest large amounts of text, so this would definitely be a useful skill. She gave me a few pages on the subject, but the material is incomplete. In the meantime, she has left for the States so she cannot send me the full thing anymore.

So my question is: does anyone know a good, affordable method for learning speed-reading? Or is this technique, as I sometimes suspect, just a load of rubbish?

I honestly don't know how to recommend on speed reading. I guess it's something you just pick up over time. I know i do it all the time, my parents are always staring at me in disbelief when i finish reading large chunks of text. I guess i just scan my eyes briefly over the text and quickly take in the all the relevant info, ignoring the small words, or something.

I wasn't aware it could be learnt.

But you could practice scanning through paragraphs and identifying the key points to absorb. Essentially, that's all it is, I think.

Hello Ludens,

speedreading learn

There isn't actually any kind of 'trick' to it. Read a lot, attempt to read more quickly, and to skip over inessential or repetitious material. Sometimes it can help you get the hang of the process if you attempt to read a very familiar book again, and push yourself to do it as fast as possible.

Mostly it's just a matter of habit. People read slowly not because they can't read quickly but because they're accustomed to their own, normal pace. Once you get in the habit of reading quickly you'll have to make a deliberate effort to slow yourself down to enjoy something you're reading just for pleasure.

When I was a kid I developed a bad habit of burning through everything I read, even the fun stuff, to the point that I started turning books upside down to read them when I wanted to slow myself down and absorb each word and sentence more carefully. Speed reading works best with textbooks which (IMHO) usually have extremely low information density.

I bought a book on the Evelyn Wood speed reading technique some 10-15 years ago. The gist of it is that you learn to take in several lines of text on a page at a time. The movement of the finger waving down the page is to help your eyes sweep down the page (or something like that). The thing that keeps us from reading fast is our tendency to "say" each word in our head as we read it. The thing is, we don't have to mentally say the word to know what it is, therefore when you learn to take in several lines of text at a time and you don't have to say each word, your brain instantly recognizes all the words and thus you can fly through the reading material. The not saying the words was a hard thing to let go of when I was doing the exercises.

I was able to increase my reading speed by 20-30% or something like that. But one of the other keys to speed reading (according to Evelyn Wood) is that you put yourself in a situation suitable to concentration - no music or TV, no comfy chair, etc. You sit upright at a desk or table. Unfortunately, that is not the way I like to read, and therefore I gave up on it. The testomonies in the book liken speed reading to watching a movie in the way in which the words fly through your brain. They claim you get high comprehension in addition to the speed. The limitation of speed reading is that it is not really suitable for techical material that you have to think about to understand. You still have to ponder the mathematical/scientific formulas and such that those kinds of texts present, and therefore speed reading doesn't buy you much in those cases.

That at least is my limited experience in the realm of speed reading. I hope it helps.

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Originally Posted by Ludens

I wonder if someone could help me with this. Some time ago an acquaintance of mine recommended I try a method for speed reading. In the course of my studies I need to digest large amounts of text, so this would definitely be a useful skill.

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Only if you need to skim through text to see if there's anything useful in it. If you actually need to study the text than reading will not normally be the limiting factor (though some 'undergraduate' textbooks certainly lack substance and can be read at a very fast pace, but I'd recommend avoiding those).

I am mostly reading scientific publications, so perhaps speed-reading is not what I am looking for. Still, thanks for the answers, guys!

I always thought that with enough practise you automatically get faster. I can't imagine that by taking part in a seminar or reading a book you can improve your skills quickly. I think it's an ability that has to be aquired over the years.
When reading academic texts for your studies I'd recommend to analyse the text for the parts including unique and important information. The author will most likely refer to other authors, recapitulate topics, introduce ideas, etc. etc. A lot of this is useless ballast that can be skipped. You'll know that from your own text production. Try to identify those passages that can be left out and find the important passages.
You can't do this in Mathematics but if it's any humanist subject than I guess it would work. It does for me. When picking up a text you most probably can already conclude part of its content from its title and abstract.

This may be interesting for you, it helps improve academic reading: http://www.si.umich.edu/~pne/PDF/howtoread.pdf (only 7 pages)

R'as

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Originally Posted by Ludens

I am mostly reading scientific publications, so perhaps speed-reading is not what I am looking for. Still, thanks for the answers, guys!

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Just read the abstract and conclusion, if potentially interesting than browse subtitles and paragraphs. Reading an entire article is something that is rarely done in scientific circles I suspect :laugh4:

Thanks for the link, R'as al Ghul.

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Originally Posted by doc_bean

Just read the abstract and conclusion, if potentially interesting than browse subtitles and paragraphs. Reading an entire article is something that is rarely done in scientific circles I suspect :laugh4:

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Obviously, but I need to work through a lot of those too.

i do speed reading automaticly... and im quite annoyed by it at times... sometimes I read a book... and I read it so quick, that I do get the entire story but I just miss the funny parts... I like to read slowly, take it all in, but I do it automatically... at school its handy but outside... not so much

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Originally Posted by Gregoshi

The not saying the words was a hard thing to let go of when I was doing the exercises.

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That's a bottleneck; I notice myself doing the thing quite often, complete with minute vocal cord movements in small chucks of text. In larger blocks of text, once I get going I don't have the time to form the vowels anymore - it's just something you have to force yourself through, from thereon it's just downhill.

Hmmm, I used to be very quick at reading... (quick at everything actually). Somehow, and don't ask me how, I was able to read so quickly I would understand the whole page by merely glancing hastily. I hardly read the words: it's more as if you... it's not about reading words, it's about "seeing" them and being very fast visually and mentally.

I too will simply say, indeed, it will probably take time and practice to learn. And the method I had may not be what is normally deemed "speed reading" but... well, I can't think of a name right now.

Read the first sentance to everything. It will tell you if you need to read that paragraph or not.