Speed Reading

[DanielScocco]

OK I am aware that this section is titled "Writing Basics" and not "Reading Basics" :). Regardless I think this is an interesting topic. Reading affect our writing, so being able to read fast should be connected.

My question is: are you able to speed read? How did you learn it?

I always saw those courses for speed reading, but never actually took one, so it makes me wonder how effective the techniques can be.

[Rio]

These days I read very slowly because I tend to study how others write. But when I used to read for readings sake I found I became quicker the more I read. It's just practise.

I had a friend who studied history at an Oxford University who had to wade through tons of books. He would turn pages in under a minute. When I asked him how he could read so quickly he told me that it was easy trick that happened naturally with practise. He said that the more you read the faster you get until eventually you start scan reading. He insisted the reader absorbs more this way too because he becomes more locked in to the reading process, mentally.

He also said, once you can read as fast as you can think you know you've reached top speed.

I've never read enough to get up to anything like that speed but I know he is right. Must be a great skill to have.

[Al B]

There are some tricks to it. Sometimes they might be regarded more as cheats, but it depends what you are doing and why you are reading a piece to some extent. Proper proof-reading means that speed-reading is rarely a sensible thing to do.

Often, people 'top and tail' stuff when speed-reading. What does that mean? well, topping and tailing, is reading the first and last sentences of a paragraph and quickly scanning the bit in between. Technically, it means you
haven't read it all, but it is often enough to take in what the thing is about, and is handy if you have to proof things quickly at daily news publications, when the deadline can be literally seconds away.

Depending on how well a thing is written, and if someone knows what they are doing when they wrote or subbed a piece, you can speed-read things with varying degrees of success. Of course, we all know that a piece should typically have a beginning, a middle and an end. But more importantly, there are a couple of other things to look for on well-written factual articles which can help.

Strictly speaking, an article should not try to hammer too many points home. Doing so means it will meander and lack focus, so, more properly, a well-written factual piece will put forward one idea, and any other ideas will be subordinate ones, merely there to support the main thrust of the piece. If this has been done, it's an aid to speed-reading.

Furthermore, if used correctly, sub headers should be like a shorthand version of a piece, so in theory, if used correctly, one should be able to read the sub headers of a piece and know broadly what the article is about without even reading it at all. Sadly, this is sometimes not understood by many writers, who often place a sub header on something merely to stetch the piece and break it up, which is really a paragraph's job, but if done correctly, sub headers can also aid in speed-reading.

Al

[Most Moon]

Around in May last year, I had interested in speed-reading though not an English speaker. Maybe because of my expectation of learning English faster(^^). I used to read articles on the internet and a book such as 10 Days To Faster Reading.

By the way, I found an interesting program called ZAP Reader which is a web based speed-reading program. You can get the information about it on the website Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uw6R3TkRf4) or go directly to the related page: http://www.zapreader.com/

During learning about speed-reading alone, I found myself having some problems like sounding out the words or decreasing concentration while reading. Sometimes I couldn't remember the text I read. In other words, If we can overcome the mentioned problems with the help of various techniques it seems to be easy for anyone to read faster.

In my opinion, however, technique is not every thing. There is something more important: the background knowledge. If you experience the drastic drop in speed while reading, it's when you're, in nine cases out of ten, tied to the unfamiliar or irrelevant fields. More concerned about life through steady reading with the effective reading habit, we could probably expect a little faster reading than now, not even a high speed.

One more... If you believe blindly in speed-reading techniques, why don't you read this article, Eyes’ visual span allows for up to only 300 words a minute : http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17705002/


P.S ; I'm afraid of making some grammatical mistakes in writing. Feel free to point out my mistakes. Thanks.

[Silke]

I don't know if I speed read, but I read very fast. (Much to my other half's consternation, since I can get through two 200 page books in a day easily)

I also read a lot. Anything, everything I can get my hands on. You may laugh, but I started reading in English (I'm German) with Barbara Cartland novels. They were written very simply (for me) and easy to read. I didn't really like them (waaaay too tame for me lol) but alas, thank you Ms. Cartland for the way you wrote. It taught me to read, sort of.

These days, I read only in English, and very fast. My bookshelves are uh... yes. Full. Because I can't slow down. :)

Silke

[--Deb]

I don't technically speed-read, either, but I definitely "scan-read" rather than reading every word. This is great for my reading comprehension, and I can tear through a new novel in a few hours if it's good enough. I average something like 24 books a month, which isn't bad when you factor in the full-time job, the knitting/spinning addiction, walking the dog, sleeping, and oh yeah, doing all sorts of things in front of the computer, like writing.

The only real drawback? When I'm writing fiction, I'm lousy at writing descriptive paragraphs, because I so seldom read them word for word. Things like plot and dialogue are no problem, but getting a solid "place" down for my readers always throws me a bit.

Oh, and there's no question that I read fiction faster than I read non-fiction--it's definitely easier to skim. It can be hard to slow down enough to really comprehend complex instructions--I remember reading Economics textbooks out loud to myself in college because it was the only way I could be sure I was catching every word!

--Deb

[Justin]

My question is: are you able to speed read?Yes, but I don't like to unless I'm skimming an article or looking for something specific.


How did you learn it?I first learned about it in a class I took years ago. I've practiced it but again, I only do it occasionally.


These days I read very slowly because I tend to study how others write. But when I used to read for readings sake I found I became quicker the more I read. It's just practice.That's how I've become for the most part, regarding fiction. If it's a good novel I don't want to miss anything regarding writing style, character subtleties, or things like that. Plus, if it's someone like Don DeLillo or the almighty Thomas Pynchon, there is no way that I'll know what's going on if I don't slow down and try to comprehend everything.

I just like good fiction so much that I've no desire to blast through it. I do, however, read constantly and I usually finish a 300-page novel in 2-4 days.



Oh, and there's no question that I read fiction faster than I read non-fiction--it's definitely easier to skim.It is easier but I'm prone to get bored if it's non-fiction. Fiction is where I usually find all the good stuff. :D

[Englishstudent]

I haven't took any classes in speed reading, but in my 1st semester in

college, our pro taught us how to read faster, and that by holding a pen

while reading a line, and make sure that you point out the words you're

producing along with the pen, and make the pen leads you!! I mean

the pen moves first, then you read.Don't read before the pen.So that way

you find yourself trying to catch the pen and evantually you'll read faster

with this exercise.

Thanx
I hope I explained perfectly.:o

[yogeshmithra]

I haven't took any classes in speed reading, but in my 1st semester in

college, our pro taught us how to read faster, and that by holding a pen

while reading a line, and make sure that you point out the words you're

producing along with the pen, and make the pen leads you!! I mean

the pen moves first, then you read.Don't read before the pen.So that way

you find yourself trying to catch the pen and evantually you'll read faster

with this exercise.

Thanx
I hope I explained perfectly.:o
If you speed read, your comprehending capacity can't coop with. See the latest research.Speed reading may be bunk
Eyes’ visual span allows for up to only 300 words a minute
By Corey Binns
LiveScience
updated 2:29 p.m. ET March 20, 2007

When you read, your eyes act like spotlights on a stage. The construction of your eyes allows them only to focus on one small area on the page at a time, so the idea of speed reading is bunk, according to several studies published in the Journal of Vision this month.

Although you might have the illusion that you see the whole page, you can actually only see small groups of letters at the point where your eyes are focused. Only eight or 10 letters fit in this tiny window, called the visual span. The rest of the letters are just a blur, said Gordon Legge, a vision researcher at the University of Minnesota.

So how does anyone ever finish a book as long as "War and Peace"? Readers make a series of eye movements while scanning the page, Legge said.

People typically make four eye movements per second, picking up about four or five words per second and 250 to 300 words per minute. That's a typical estimate for normal reading speed, Legge said.

Because of the constraints of the visual span, reading more than 300 words per minute is almost impossible.

"Speed reading is misleading," said Legge, whose research is published in the March issue of the Journal of Vision. "There's no magic there. You're just planting the little island of vision quickly through the page.

Shrinking window
When viewing conditions are less than ideal, the visual window shrinks, Legge said.

For instance, people with macular degeneration — the leading cause of vision loss in Americans aged 65 or older — read more slowly than people with healthy eyes, even if they're handed a magnifying glass. The disease affects the macula, part of the retina responsible for central, sharp vision, and forces people to rely on their cloudy peripheral vision.

In laboratory experiments, Legge and his colleagues tested how changing different aspects of the visual span, such as character size and contrast, affected the speed at which people read. Reading small print, print with poor contrast, or print with strange spacing also leads to slower reading, Legge told LiveScience.

On the brain
The visual window limits the ability to see things beyond just letters and words, such as icons on a computer desktop or Waldo in a "Where's Waldo" puzzle. In a second study published in the journal, scientists have plotted how these visual scenes appear on the brain.

The sharpest vision occurs in the fovea, the center of the macula where receptors in the eye's retina are most tightly packed. This information is then sent to the primary visual cortex in the brain.

"The differing densities of the receptors in the retina are mapped in the brain onto the primary visual cortex in such a way that it's stretched so that a lot more cortex is dedicated to the fovea than the periphery," said Brad Motter, a neuroscientist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Syracuse.

The objects we look at appear on the surface of the brain in decreasing size, where the focal point is greatly magnified, and the objects farther away are smaller, Motter told LiveScience.

As in a "Where's Waldo" puzzle, crowded objects limit our ability to find targets in the visual scene.

Motter, along with his colleague, Diglio Simoni, looked specifically at people's ability to search for images on a computer screen. They showed that the proximity of objects that surround what a viewer is trying to focus on also determines how quickly a viewer can search out the target object.

"We found that finding the target was dependent on the density of things on the screen," Motter said.

[rdwriter]

I don't speed read. For me, reading has always been a form of relaxing and unwinding. The idea of flying through something instead of sitting down and taking the time to really enjoy it is completely unappealing to me.

[aaliamary]

hey Daniel, i just started on my first fiction novel:):), i cant seem to avoid long sentences, which some of my friends after reading told its hard to read such long sentences and retain the intensity in it:confused:...... is it possible for u suggest a way to make the sentences short in such a way i don't loose the essence of what i am trying to portray .....

thank u
aaliamary

[idiedforloveat3am]

I think speed reading can be very useful, especially for students and occupations where large amounts of information are quickly consumed. However, I can't imagine the digestion of the material can be nearly as sound and informative as one reading material at a tranquil pace. Especially literature although, at the risk of being an enormous snob, I admit to having read Stephen King's It at a much more rapid pace than The Sound and the Fury or Suttree. I guess I'm just simply stating the obvious: that some books' words contain poetry not easily glazed over and passed.