11–20 of 29 posts
Your site tells me absolutely nothing about the product without requiring me to sign up. Consequently, I did not sign up.
Whereas those courses focus on training you to not just read individual words, but entire lines or blocks of text, and without subvocalization, yours seems to focus on increasing your word-by-word reading speed as much as possible.
In your FAQ you say:
"We have taken the latest speed-reading curricula and cut out all of the extraneous exercises to create an effective, simple tool to improve reading speed. The readfa.st curriculum forces users to read at speeds that push the upper limits of your comprehension and by constantly challenging you to push yourself faster; at the same time we use regular quizzes to ensure that you maintain your understanding of the text."
What is the 'latest speed-reading curricula' you've based the site exercises on? I have an interest but not expertise in this subject, would love to know more details.
Also...
"Ani, one of our co-founders, read at over 1,000 words per minute without any training. When we noticed how blazingly fast he was finishing books, we began to look into what makes people read at such vastly different speeds. We did extensive research into the scientific (and pseudo-scientific) literature around how people read, but the body of work is not very encouraging. Most speed-reading products make unverified and unverifiable claims about their effectiveness, and because of their SEO and sales interests, those specious claims overwhelm most legitimate discussion around speed-reading. One of our goals is for readfa.st to help us better understand the process of reading and what factors affect speed and comprehension."
It would be both awesome in general and good marketing in particular if you elaborated on your findings. Think OK-Cupid data blog but about speed reading.
Finally, one question. On the initial assessment I hit 'Too Fast' at 1105 WPM, but the report said I was only reading at 880 WPM. Why the discrepancy?
This javascript site parses a whole lot of text and displays it at a fixed location very quickly. I can read about 475 words/minute with very good comprehension. I don't catch all the specific names but in some cases I find that I form a high level overview of the material much faster. I tend to notice big picture patterns when I use this tool. I don't know why more people aren't writing apps that work like this for ios or android. When I finish my current side project I want to try something like this in flex.
Hey guys, great idea, but your method seems off from most of the speed reading courses I've found. Whereas those courses focus on training you to not just read individual words, but entire lines or blocks of text, and without subvocalization, yours seems to focus on increasing your word-by-word reading speed as much as possible. In your FAQ you say: "We have taken the latest speed-reading curricula and cut out all of…
As far as a data blog - that is one of our middle-term goals, but until we have more users, the best we can offer are anecdotal evidence. This type of shoddy analysis is a big part of the problem with existing reading research, so the plan is to wait until we have a more robust data-set before we start publishing results. I'll post on HN when we start publishing results.
The reason for the difference between the final treadmill reading speed and the suggested speed is that users regularly demonstrated a significant loss of comprehension at the final speed. We think that it was because of the delay between realizing that the treadmill was too fast and stopping the treadmill. At first, we reduced the speed by 10%, but after a few more users, it was clear that was insufficient, so we're trying it at 20%. The quiz speed is adjustable (with the faster/slower buttons or by using f and s as hot-keys), so it's meant more as a suggested starting point than as a definitive reading speed.
Thanks for your feedback!
Hey guys, great idea, but your method seems off from most of the speed reading courses I've found. Whereas those courses focus on training you to not just read individual words, but entire lines or blocks of text, and without subvocalization, yours seems to focus on increasing your word-by-word reading speed as much as possible. In your FAQ you say: "We have taken the latest speed-reading curricula and cut out all of…
The exercises we looked at were everything from the index-card/finger and stop-watch to flashing words all-around the screen. Based on the small bits of data available and the effectiveness of the various exercises on our own reading speeds, we found that flashing "chunks" of text (similar to spreeder.com) and the "word-snake" method (that we decided on) were the only effective methods of increasing reading speed. Be…
Every time the topic of speed reading comes up I post about http://www.zapreader.com/ This javascript site parses a whole lot of text and displays it at a fixed location very quickly. I can read about 475 words/minute with very good comprehension. I don't catch all the specific names but in some cases I find that I form a high level overview of the material much faster. I tend to notice big picture patterns when I us…
Every time the topic of speed reading comes up I post about http://www.zapreader.com/ This javascript site parses a whole lot of text and displays it at a fixed location very quickly. I can read about 475 words/minute with very good comprehension. I don't catch all the specific names but in some cases I find that I form a high level overview of the material much faster. I tend to notice big picture patterns when I us…
Another site, similar to ZapReader is spreeder.com. Sites like these offer a really spartan reading experience, but on top of a proven curriculum/methodology. They were a big part of what inspired us to create the first version of readfa.st.
I imagine an interface where I fix my gaze in the center and see text pulled through the single point. Perhaps the words near the fix point are a little blurry. Words further away are unreadable. I think there should be something like a gutter on the right or left for images, equations or code samples that floats from bottom to top as it is in context.
If I hit pause I would like to see all the text snap into focus with my focus word highlighted somehow.
Also, I would like this to just work with any old web page. I hate having to pull the print version of long articles then copy and paste into zap reader.
Good luck with your site.
Awesome app! I'd actually enjoy reading regular books like this. Can I upload PDFs to have read to me at my speed of choice? If you could access my kindle library that be even better.
