Can you speed read?

Post Reply New Topic

I am a reasonably fast "normal" reader. I can knock over a two or three hundred page novel in a couple of hours.

My son in law is a speed reader. He can blast through a book in under an hour.

I have never tried to learn this skill. To me it would be like taking a glass of fine wine and downing it in one big gulp.

Actually when I am reading a novel I forget that I am reading. I see the scenes and hear the voices of the characters.
Sometimes I want to stop for a bit to "savor" what I have read.

My son in law assures me that he enjoys reading a novel even though he reads it several times faster than I do.

What do you think?

When I was younger I could read at 1600 wpm. I am a bit slower now.

ruveyn

When I was teaching reading comprehension, I learned about and taught speed reading. It is a very useful skill if you need to to read a lot of material that you aren't that interested in. I only ever used it when I was modeling for my students or studying for grad school and I never got much above 800 words a minute, but it was very helpful. For pleasure reading, 300 to 400 words a minute is considered optimal. Some people can read faster than that and still enjoy it-- many people who do speed reading use it only when they reading for content and not for fun. I know that my reading rate varies tremendously when I read stuff I like. Sometime it's all about the plot and I'm ripping the pages. Sometimes it's all about the prose and I can get lost in a sentence for several minutes.

The worst thing about speed reading? The method I learned required you to underline the words with your finger as you went. That drove my touch issues crazy-- only the very most expensive paper doesn't feel awful when I do this. So I never do it anymore. But I would if I went back to school or started major research.

If you use a ruler instead of running your finger under the line, you'll not only speed up fractionally, you'll find the touch issues aren't so bad. That's how I do it when I am reading for content. But although I read faster than most people, I do slow down for pleasure reading. You can't enjoy fiction reading it as fast as 1000 plus words a minute. Also, your long term memory is affected. You speed read quckly, to get the gist of something, then go back over the salient features more slowly to fix them in your mind. That's how I did it anyway, and the second, slower read ensured I remembered what I read, unlike the first read through, where I'd have forgotten up to seventy percent of it within a month or two.

Wow Wombat; that's exactly my view on speedreading.
Luckily I talk fast and so I read pretty fast. But speedreading? Nahhh....

I have an OCD issue with missing details when I read so I go real slow.

Yup...

I also read books from front to end... prologue and everything. I can't help myself, even if I only have to read one chapter.

I love reading, I read well, I read obsessively (sometimes two books a day)... no way some stupid speed reading course is taking that away from me

Does anyone have a URL of a test I could take to find out how many words per minute I can read?

I read quite fast. I can read a "teenage book" in under a day, but when I'm reading a "proper" book I can read it in a few days.

I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 18 hours 12 Noon=6AM the next morning LOL! I was SO PUMPED from finished such an awesome book I didn't go to sleep until 7 AM LOL!

I used to speed read when I was younger but only if I'd read the book before.

The first time, you really need to savour the experience.

When I first discovered "The Lord of the Rings" I couldn't put it down so I read it in one go.

Wow. It is well over 1000 pages. All afternoon, all night and well into the next day! It took me 18 hours to read that book.

By the end of it I was totally "whacked out" and walked around for the next week expecting goblins to jump out from behind every bush.

A test to see how fast you read, http://www.readingsoft.com/

I would point out that it's probably trying to sell you something (like a speed reading course.) Don't worry about reading fast, just about reading well. (I read the text at 527 words a minute apparently... but if I was reading a book I enjoyed I'd have slowed down. If I'd been skimming to get a sense of the text, I'd have read a bit faster, maybe 800. )

I've never met anyone else who is like that! That's awesome. People always ask me why I like reading so much and it's because it plays out like a movie in my head. It's the only way I can describe it. I'm a fast reader as well. I can do 200 pages an hour if I"m really into what I'm reading. I used to be able to speed read but I stopped doing it because the book was over too quickly. I haven't done it in about 20 years so I don't know if I still have the ability.

I think I have ADD or something, because I've always been a slow reader. I just took that test, and was rated at 147wpm. Jeez, no wonder why I hate reading. I'm thinking that you fast readers are able to 'flow' when you read, absorbing the text as you go, and not focusing on the words, specifically. I'm too 'mechanical' and have to think about the words as i see them, then let them absorb, after they've been translated into thoughts. It's alot like work. You guys seem to do that automatically? I must admit, I'm a little jealous.

That's how it works for me. Words transform into images and it's easier for me to absorb images over anything else.

I took the quiz and scored 400 wpm with 91% comprehension.

I'm good at it.