posted
You know those "eye Q" informercial that promise to improve your reading speed from two to ten times? Well, I gave it a try and found that it was marginally useful. I did increase my reading speed from 300 wpm to about 530 wpm, but my comprehension decreased from 100% to about 75%.
Has anyone else had any success with other speed reading software programs? I vaguely remember Tom Davidson and Slash stating that they read at above 1000 wpm. Are you guys just naturally fast readers or did you have some kind special training?
Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
The military increases reading for their intellegence programs by using programs that display things one word at a time, and then going faster and faster, though that doesn't work for me. While in 4th grade, my father gave me a program that taught you to start reading not a word at a time, but a phrase at a time, so you read in clumps of 2 words, then 3, then 4...and now I read about 10 words at a time and generally when relaxed can read at 700 wpm, and when I skim (while keeping comprehention) I read at about 1500. A lot of the training is just reading a lot, without doing much else you do start reading faster. Satyagraha
Posts: 1986 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:The military increases reading for their intellegence programs by using programs that display things one word at a time, and then going faster and faster, though that doesn't work for me.
If reading is anything like playing an instrument, the military is right. I'm a mediocre reader, but I've improved over the last few months by reading aloud every night. Reading aloud increases my accuracy and comprehension and forces me not to skim. My pronunciation is middle of the road-- I'm a mumbler-- but reading aloud is helping me with that, also. My "t"s have gotten more crisp, but my "r"s and "d"s still need a healthy amount of work.
I used to tick my clasmates off by skimming the due chapters 10 minutes before class started and retaining comprehension - as I think back on it, it was a lot of just plain "clumping" and "recognition" because I certainly wasn't shy about slowing down for something that was new or caught my attention.
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I found the following method to be pretty useful:
Practice by covering the bottom half/third of a line of text with something opaque (index cards, thick paper) and read the line of text, moving the card with you downwards as you read. It's surprisingly easy to figure out what each line is. You can do this by covering the top half of each line (you know, most of the line so you can see half of most characters).
If you practice this, you can get faster at reading. -----
Oh yeah. And you can learn to read in clumps, like a sentence at a time, or a paragraph at a time. You sort of skim around the text for major keys and put it together in your head. It's kinda weird, and obviously lacks a lot of comprehension. But you can do it a bit if you try.
posted
I took an Evelyn Wood Speed Reading course once with my dad and my brother. I was this young kid (probably 11 or so). I did better than everyone in the class (mostly adults). Then I got in trouble for using the technique in school, even after the teacher tested me verbally in front of the whole class and I got the right answers.
Nasty nuns!
Oh well.
I stopped using it because it's the weirdest thing to have the book "get into your head" without you being mostly conscious of it. Spoils most of the fun of reading, IMHO.
But without it, I'm a very slow reader. I type faster than I read, I think.
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I knew I would find a lot of accomplished readers here. Thanks for the great tips. It seems a lot of you got the training when you were much younger. I'm already 28, I hope that's not too old to learn some new reading tricks.
BYuCnslr, how do you force yourself to read words in clumps? Do you just stare in the middle of the words and expand your field of vision instead of scanning your eyes from left to right? The confusing thing about Eye Q is that it teaches you to scan from left to right AND focus on the middle of the page at the same time. I think I'm going to get crossed eyed before I improve my reading skills.
Irami, reading things out loud usually improves my comprehension as well. But most of the speed reading classes say the vocalization is what slows down your reading in the first place. Supposedly readers like me are always subvocalizing the words in my throat, thus limiting my reading speed.
Shan, I think you are right. When I was reading everyday back in my college days, I was a much faster reader. I am just getting lazy in my old age.
Suneun, I've never heard of that technique before. Do you increase your speed because your eyes do not have to cover as much territory? I'm going to try that tonight and see how it works for me.
Bob, I think it does ruin the fun of reading a good book. But when you have a couple of boring trade magazines or office memos to blow through, I would not mind having the information mysteriously implanted into my head.
[ December 30, 2003, 01:40 AM: Message edited by: Beren One Hand ]
Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Heinlien had a book, or perhaps it was a short story, where a secret organization tries to rescue the sentient computer on the moon.
What made this secret organization memorable was their philosophy on reading and comprehension. They created their own language based not on sounds, but on ideas, so that all words were small words that didn't take long to process.
One example of how they read/thought. 13. What is that number. Is it one and three or even ten and three? No. We see it and say in our heads, thirteen. Its easy to memorize. Now take the number 3245385. How do we scan it as we read it? Three Million Two hundred forty five thousand, three hudred and eighty five? Or Thirty two, Forty Five, Three, Eighty Five. or Three twenty four, Five, Three Eighty Five.
Its an interesting theory much better explained by Heinlein in the story.
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:: thinks :: My eyes most definantly move back and forth on the lines, when I first began reading more, at times my eyes wouldn't focus correction every once in a while (because I was tired) and then I'd slow down my reading and concentrate line by line (the way Suneun does, by covering one line) instead of concentrating on the whole page and letting my field of focus expand though, I concentrate on the beginning of lines and focus right. One of the things that I remember from the speed reading program I had was there was a game on there, that you focused on the center of the screen, and a shape of some sort with a lot of colours would pop up (one side would be red, another would be green, and the third would be blue), and then you'd concentrate on that center point, and then around it would be the same shape with different colour patterns, that would flash slowly at first, and when it went away you had to click where the matching one was, and then it'd move outwards until you reached the edge, then it'd start over even faster, I'm thinking that's the same thing the eye Q does, I was never overly sure how it was supposed to help my reading, but it really did help me go faster in the "Where's Waldo" books . I've been paying attention to how I read again (the last hour), and I've noticed, that I'll concentrate on phrases up to 10 words, or I'll stop at puncuations. Example:
quote: Oh yeah.| And you can learn to read in clumps,| like a sentence at a time,| or a paragraph at a time.| You sort of skim around| the text for major keys and| put it together in your head.| It's kinda weird,| and obviously lacks a lot of comprehension.| But you| can do it a bit if you try.|
The "|"s mark off how I looked at the phrases in the original text, another example:
quote: One example of how they read/thought.\ 13.\<Thought on number 13 here> What is that number.| Is it one and three or even ten and three?| No. We see it and| say in our heads,| thirteen.|<thought> Its easy to memorize.| Now take the number 3245385.|<I don't actually pause to read the number, I just take it as a picture> How do we scan it as we read it? Three Million Two hundred forty five thousand, three hudred and eighty five?| Or Thirty two, Forty Five, Three, Eighty Five. or Three twenty four,| Five, Three Eighty Five.|
I really liked what was said earlier, "You sort of skim around the text for major keys and put it together in your head." That's very much what I do when I skim, you train yourself to be able to take out key words in sentences and completely ignore filler words such as "the" "of" etc. for example:
quote: It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent government stops and the rest of society begins, but it juggles the competing demands of Education, Social Welfare, and the Environment.
In this paragraph (taken from my nation in NationStates) the words I'll take are "difficult" "omnipresent government" "stops" and "society begins" and then I know that its compairing the "omnipresent government" and "society." Then, "competing demands" "education" "social welfare" "environment." and I'll know those are what it concentrates on.
When I slow down to read, say a novel, I'll take every word, but when looking at say "Three Million Two hundred forty five thousand, three hudred and eighty five?" I don't even pay attention to it, I'll go 32 45 385, though one cavet...when i look at the whole number as 3245385, I see 3245 5385 which is rather dangerous, if I don't pay attention too carefully, I'll think it's 32,45*,385 (in which the * is my brain filling something in but doesn't really comprehend a number) if I consciously think about the number then I'll use the 5 to fit the two pieces together. What I'll have to say though...is most definantly reading more helps the most.
added notes: If 3245385 is put into 3,245,385 then I am able to take it as whole because it's already broken down. And yes, Chinese characters are based upon ideas and objects, and using those combinations to create full thoughts, that's why puncuation in the Chinese is very primative, it's never really been needed. The problem with Chinese though, is then you have to memorize all the characters, or the pieces of characters and understand the meaning based upon the pieces of characters. Satyagraha
posted
To paraphrase Tom Conti in Reuben, Reuben "You teach people to read faster? You scoundrel! You should teach them to read slower!"
(I've got the book around here somewhere, but I'd hate to go digging for the exact quote.)
I've found that the people who read the fastest always feel that they understand as well as or better than other readers. Then when you really get into discussions with them, you see how much they absorbed and how little they digested and grew from.
Take your time: read, enjoy, learn, grow.
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The problem with that philosophy, is that it goes by the thought that people will always be more analytical when they read slower, which...doesn't always happen, reading fast, and comprehending is only part of it, the other part is analyzing and thinking about it afterwards, that in itself, as I've noticed has nothing to do with the speed that you read it, it's how much you think about what you read. Satyagraha
Posts: 1986 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Thanks for the detailed explaination BYuCnslr. I'm psyched and I'm ready to read some thick books tonight to test out your methods. Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Now, just remember Beren - they can't be thick books with font size 18. That's not playing fair. Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
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How do you determine how many words you read per minute? And is the length of time you remember a result of how fast you read?
For example, I'm a fairly fast reader, I don't know how fast, just that I'm faster than most of my friends, however, I have to reread books every two years or so to keep from forgetting them. Are those two things connected?
I want to be a faster reader because there is so much n the world that I want to read, and so little time to read it in.
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A really good way to guesstamate how fast you read, is take a normal page from a novel, count how many words are in the first line, the second line, and the third line (count how many in two more lines if you want) take the average words per line, and the count how many lines there are in a page to get a rough words per page, and then time about how long it takes you to read five pages or so, and some simple math of words/time. What I've really noticed about how much a person can read isn't how fast they read though...it's just simply how much time they are able to dedicate to reading, all in all, if you're willing to dedicate the time, you'll get the book done, no matter how fast...or slow you read. Satyagraha
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With the second one I noticed that when I was interested in what was being said I averaged a little below 450, but when I wasn't, I averaged a little above 300. According to the first test, I read at 295 wpm. Which is it?
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And the test classified me as an auditory reader, but I'm not, because I have to work to read poetry audibly. I'm so confused. Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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