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Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

nytimes.com

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Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#31

Post by aaron695 »

jasonkester wrote: post #9

I don't get why anybody would want to speed read a novel. (Outside of a High School literature class where you're being forced to read Ethan Frome and you just want to get back to playing Minecraft, of course). When I'm reading Hemingway, I'll go back and read individual paragraphs three times to squeeze the last drop of juice out of them. There are only so many Hemingway paragraphs in existence, so wasting one feels…

> I don't get why anybody would want to speed read a novel.

The bit about 'War and Peace' was a joke. Woody Allen didn't really speed read it :)

But even if it wasn't, War and Peace is a great example of a classic most people would be happy to speed read. It's not a relaxing novel like Harry Potter but it's perhaps arguably an important novel to read.

In today's society classic novels like that are often more about absorbing the knowledge rather than enjoying the story, which is people want to speed read... Fast knowledge absorption.

You obviously like Hemingway, you must realise for most people that's odd. Just like you think it's odd a small part of the population might speed read certain novels. It's great that not everyone is the same.

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#32

Post by isomorph »

jasonkester wrote: post #9

I don't get why anybody would want to speed read a novel. (Outside of a High School literature class where you're being forced to read Ethan Frome and you just want to get back to playing Minecraft, of course). When I'm reading Hemingway, I'll go back and read individual paragraphs three times to squeeze the last drop of juice out of them. There are only so many Hemingway paragraphs in existence, so wasting one feels…

When I was a kid, I used to speed read each Harry Potter book when it came out, just to find out the plot so nobody could spoil it for me, and then I'd read it again later for enjoyment

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#33

Post by sea6ear »

I don't know whether to call what I do speed reading or not, but I definitely read faster than most people I know. I've spent a lot of time analyzing what things effect my reading speed.

I find that my reading speed is most heavily effected by how much my eyes have to move to scan the words in the line. The best for me is if a column is narrow enough that I don't really have to move my eyes side to side to get all the words in the column.

As an example, a Thompson Chain Reference Bible has about the perfect size columns (roughly 5-7 words per column) for me to be able to take in essentially the whole line at once, so I can just run my finger down the column and take in words about as fast as I can follow it with my eyes.

A related trick in this regard is one I believe I saw on Tim Ferris's blog which (if I remember correctly) suggested focusing on the 6 words at the beginning of a line and then the 6 words at the end of the line. For text that is too long to take in the whole line all at one glance, this seems to work pretty well for me.

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#34

Post by clarry »

Well, reading speed clearly isn't a constant across the population or even for one person. Some people read faster, and TFA article admits as much when it points towards experience.

A few hours ago, at 5am, while checking two weeks worth of email, I was very very drowsy and unfocused and couldn't read fast at all. I went to bed, slept a few hours, and now, somewhat refreshed, I can keep in zone again and read at a good pace. Reading speed for me definitely isn't a constant.

When I want to read faster still, I can make a focused effort to do so. Emphasis on focus. The faster advancing eye movement takes focus. As does trying to comprehend the larger amount of words or (short) sentences that the eye consumed in a pass.

Properties of the text have an effect on success; "speed-reading" a math textbook would be a complete waste of time for me, because the comprehension part requires so much more time and effort than "seeing" and "reading" the words. Same goes often goes for code or highly technical texts.

The layout has another effect. Back to the emphasis on focus. Give me the right font size, short lines, and likewise short paragraphs, and I can read much faster without stumbling. Yes, it is about eye movement, about anchors, about breaking the text into conveniently sized chunks that can be parallel processed. If comprehension for the given text is easy enough, then this can help speed up reading a lot. Still, it takes a bit of a focused effort, which I would call speed reading?

I read the linked article pretty fast. And my speed slowed significantly as I got back here, with the long lines stretched to almost full width of my display. First I stumbled a few times, and that was a sign to slow down.

It is fair to say there's a limit to how fast one can read without sacrificing comprehension, that's for sure. But you can totally make a focused effort to read faster.

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#35

Post by eropple »

jasonkester wrote: post #9

I don't get why anybody would want to speed read a novel. (Outside of a High School literature class where you're being forced to read Ethan Frome and you just want to get back to playing Minecraft, of course). When I'm reading Hemingway, I'll go back and read individual paragraphs three times to squeeze the last drop of juice out of them. There are only so many Hemingway paragraphs in existence, so wasting one feels…

So, for me, I read quickly and I read through books aggressively and without, as you say, savoring the experience: if it is a book with a strong character or event-based drive, I want to get at what happens to change them, or the events that drive the story, as fast as I can! But here's the thing--as you say, I do go back and read it. I'll read the same book three times, sometimes, and get more out of it each time. Once I know what the shape of the story is, I can more easily drill into it to appreciate the nuance. It's still faster than trying to read slowly to soak it all in the first time, and I think (can't prove, obviously) I get more out of it through the repetition than if I were to try to slow down and spend longer to do it only once.

YMMV, of course.

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#36

Post by PhantomGremlin »

What slows things down for me (and for most people) is subvocalization.[1]

It should be possible to get in the zone and not subvocalize, but I can only do it for very brief periods. And it's something that I can only do for "light reading" rather than when trying to understand highly technical information.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocalization

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#37

Post by jobigoud »

Regarding audio they say:

> Doubling the speed, in our experience, leaves individual words perfectly identifiable — but makes it just about impossible to follow the meaning.

Wow, sorry but this is very misinformed. A lot of people me included can listen to audio at 2x. I constantly listen to podcasts (so not a slow narration to begin with) at 2x in English which is not even my native language and I understand everything and enjoy it very much.

Blind users listen at 4x without loss of understanding.

You just need to train it.

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#38

Post by TheDauthi »

marvy wrote: post #12
atemerev wrote: post #10

Sorry, NYT, I can. Of course, speed reading gets some meaning lost. But the very skill of speed-reading amounts to developing a sense of look-ahead: first, intuitively establishing fast anchors in text to actually read a few moments later; second, to expand on this anchors, absorb the information and introduce feedback corrections in look-ahead patterns. All my reading is "speed reading"; I even can't follow the line…

Ok, so you notice you lose "some" meaning. The question is, how much? One way to find out is to read something the fast way and then the slow way and pay attention to how much is new the second time. Have you tried this, or perhaps some other way to see how much meaning gets lost? As for comparing reading speed to talking speed (audio books and lectures): of course talking is slower than reading, even if you don't sp…

I don't know about the parent, but I have tried this - repeatedly, in fact, including taking a number of reading comprehension exams each way, just to see the effects. Something that frequently happens is that I'll mix up side characters. I can only juggle a few characters at a time when speed-reading. I really made a mess of The Hobbit, back in the day, completely mixing up several of the dwarves. And I miss a number of nuances of language - a clever bit of wordplay might pass me entirely. Really, it comes down to the author's style - someone like Stephen Baxter might be on the harder side of sci-fi, but I'm able to chew through his books in hours because there are generally few extra characters. Everything just kinda... proceeds linearly. There's little to track other than what's immediately available. On the other hand, your typical high fantasy fare has to be chewed over the course of a few days if I'm to follow what's going on.

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#39

Post by acqq »

roywiggins wrote: post #30
acqq wrote: post #28

The last sentence is obviously a reference to the statement by Woody Allen: "I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia."

Did you speed read over the first sentence?

Well of course not, I've been speed-reading!

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#40

Post by aluhut »

Fuzzwah wrote: post #27

I use a chrome extension called jetzt [1] to read long form articles on webpages. I find that I'm able to read and comprehend comfortably at 650 - 700 words per minute as long as the text is well written and on a subject where I already know all the lingo. [1] http://ds300.github.io/jetzt/

Wouldn't be able to manage all I want to read without Squirt

https://www.squirt.io/

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