I Was Wrong About Speed Reading (2015)

> In my school, we had a full semester of touch-typing on mechanical keyboard in both the 7th and 8th grades.

It's good they offered the class, but two full semesters of it sounds like terribly inefficient teaching.

What's funny is I don't know what many of the commands are for my text editor. But my fingers know. Sometimes I'll just watch my fingers to see what the command is, but I have to be careful - when I think too much about "what is the command" my fingers forget it.

I have some problems with this article because of personal experience which differs. They talk about the constraints of 'working memory' which makes it unlikely, or even impossible to scan more than a few sentences at once and comprehend them. It just so happens that i sometimes scan a whole page at once, just by looking at it, and have understood it. But almost only on paper, and without formulas or diagrams in it. But not every time, or 'at will'. It just happens.

Not in the sense that i memorized it, and could repeat it word for word, but the gist of it, the point, message, whatever.

It even varies, because sometimes, when i need to recheck some datum mentioned like a point in time, or an amount of something, or a cross reference, i recall exactly where on the page that was, and where that page was. This happens less on screens of any sort, but more so with real paper. Makes no difference if fiction, or non-fiction.

I guess it happens from anywhere from 0,3 to 0,5% of everything i read, it would be up to 5% if i'd only read on real paper. So much for the 'haptics' of 'cyber'...

Anyways, i could read before Kindergarden, because my older Sister tought me, just for fun. I remember the first word i could read was the neon signage of some supermarket called 'Hit', because i asked what it meant. That's how it began.

At the same time this introduced me to the concepts of different languages, different spellings for the same words, and different words for the same things in different languages. Because i'm german, and hit is english.

Early school was often boring torture for me because of that. I could read books and newspapers, and my classmates stuttered along excrutiatingly slow. This lasted maybe to the 6th grade, then they finally caught up(mostly).

Also around that time i finally realized that i had this ability, and it was something special. Interestingly again not in my native language, but in english.

Teacher said go to page xyz and read this, say ready when you are done. I did, and maybe 2 secands later said: 'Ready!' (Was something about the double decker buses in London)

I never read that before (at least not conscious) because everything in that book was boring to me, and of course got reprimanded, which i considered as unfair.

It's like having a photocopy before the 'inner eye' which slowly fades, but not exactly like a photocopy, because then i could read from it and repeat it letter for letter, and word for word, which i can't.

So i'm wondering what do they mean when they talk about 'speed reading', does this include the necessity of memorizing everything, being able to do it anytime, or just the 'lossy' compression of meaning like i (sometimes) do?

In case of the latter, then from my point of view that is like blind people (from birth on) talking about color.

some edits: spelling, structure

Several times people have told me I’m an exceptionally fast reader. I notice if I’m in a group and we’re asked to read a sheet of paper (eg some training seminar) I’ll usually be done way ahead of everyone else.

I vocalise everything. It’s usually a lot faster than you’d say it out loud though, probably if I tried to read out loud that fast I’d trip over words.

The secret is rather boring: I’ve just read a lot. I rarely have problems recognising words, so that’s key. For many types of reading I also infer content a lot, and it seems like my brain completes sentences, then I’ll continue on and “jump back” if one of the words was not as expected. I very easily for those tricks where people write “gondolas in Vienna”, so my brain is obviously doing a lot of inference.

I’ll often read the economist cover to cover, and I used to do the same with newspapers where I was young. Maybe reading every single word on such a variety of topics fixes the “surprised by words” category.

My tip is: read thoroughly and carefully and vocalise, read enough and the speed will take care of itself.

Because of ambiguity. And therefore conciseness.