The basic issue with speed reading is that you can't read anything difficult that way.
Spritz – read 500 words per minute without any training
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Re: Spritz – read 500 words per minute without any training
#32FAQ says: > Next, let’s talk about subvocalization. This is the process whereby, whenever you read, you talk to yourself, repeating every word in your head. The issue here is that most people can only speak at about 180wpm, maximum. Increasing speed beyond that means not saying every word to yourself. This makes no sense to me. I've read at 600 wpm while sub-vocalizing every word. That's much much faster sub-vocalizi…
This makes no sense to me. Spoken English does not reach 10 words per second even in New York; to hear it, even inwardly, would be to hear a jam of syllables with no respite and hardly any time to parse out the phonemes.
Re: Spritz – read 500 words per minute without any training
#33I tried to make something similar while learning Javascript (ClojureScript).
Re: Spritz – read 500 words per minute without any training
#34I wonder whether this uses the front-facing camera for blink detection, particularly at higher WPM settings. A blink typically lasts 100-400ms (per Wikipedia), and 500 WPM is .8333... words per 100ms. A blink thus seems very likely to miss a word or two once you're using this the way its creators intend. I don't see any mention of blinking or mitigating its impact on the site, though.
I guess a software could insert a "blink break" every couple of minutes. They could even display an a video commercial during that time, to monetize your blinks.
Since everyone seems to try to patent everything: in this comment I claim the invention of a killer business model for speed reading apps. 25 Feb 2014, 4:30pm Sydney time :)
Re: Spritz – read 500 words per minute without any training
#35Looks like the same technology as spreeder ( http://www.spreeder.com/app.php )... what's the difference between the two? As someone who tried using spreeder for a while, I can say that your retention is quite a bit lower than normal reading, especially when reading complicated texts, since you loose contextual clues (your brain is really good at doing look-aheads for clues).
It doesn't seem to work very well for me. I tried it in two different browsers and I get this http://i.imgur.com/cEMcR0M.png when I try to enable chunks.
Yeah I was having the same issue, however, it works in the demo when I got to the main page here: http://www.spreeder.com/
Re: Spritz – read 500 words per minute without any training
#36FAQ says: > Next, let’s talk about subvocalization. This is the process whereby, whenever you read, you talk to yourself, repeating every word in your head. The issue here is that most people can only speak at about 180wpm, maximum. Increasing speed beyond that means not saying every word to yourself. This makes no sense to me. I've read at 600 wpm while sub-vocalizing every word. That's much much faster sub-vocalizi…
This makes no sense to me. Spoken English does not reach 10 words per second even in New York; to hear it, even inwardly, would be to hear a jam of syllables with no respite and hardly any time to parse out the phonemes.
Well I can listen to text to speech at ~550 wpm anyway. You apparently think that's impossible, all a jam of syllables. I have friends who do similar.
no respite is a matter of practice. time to parse the content is not that hard if you've already learned to RSVP faster.
you're basically denying what you don't know how to do, for no apparent reason.
Re: Spritz – read 500 words per minute without any training
#37I tried to make something similar while learning Javascript (ClojureScript). http://jsfiddle.net/P7c3s/
Care to share the cljs source?
Re: Spritz – read 500 words per minute without any training
#38I tried to make something similar while learning Javascript (ClojureScript). http://jsfiddle.net/P7c3s/
Interesting. One thing that struck me is I would like a small pause on full stop or comma.. to digest that thunk before continuing on and allow for blinks.
Re: Spritz – read 500 words per minute without any training
#39As someone with horrible reading speed, the demo on their home page worked pretty well. I'd like to see a demo with some more advanced text. Marketing language is pretty easy to digest quickly. I'd like to see a selection from Gödel, Escher, & Bach or something to see how well I could comprehend more dense texts.
It's been awhile since I've really looked into anything speed-reading related, but as far as I recall, there aren't that many good techniques for speed-reading something like Godel Escher Bach, because the bottleneck for comprehension for really dense or deep texts is usually time taken to think about it. When I'm reading some like GEB, I usually end up reading it slowly, then stopping and thinking about it even afte…
the big thing when speed reading is to read it, just read it. Your brain will churn on it. Then come back and read it again. Your brain will churn more. Make notations in the margin the whole time. Now finally read it again. You'll get it all done faster than one read through and your brain will churn a ton on it. It's like when you come back to code tutorials a few days later after some practice and know what's going on a bit more and get further.
Then go back and read your notations (just put ticks or dots by the stuff that's important in the margins). And now you understand it and you can summarize it in the notes. And this cements the learning.
Of course this is a lot of work. I'd rather slam it once, brain index it and maybe come back if I care.
Re: Spritz – read 500 words per minute without any training
#40This is very interesting (and as has been pointed out in other comments, not exactly a new idea). I think its proper application, though, is in a tool for practicing reading, not for actually reading tests.
One major thing this approach looses is the inherent non-linearity of text. If I miss a fact and want to back up a bit, or want to pause for a moment and think about something, I can (when reading) without even thinking about it. Even if this approach is faster overall, it makes reading more like listening to audio or watching a video; it's a big pain to rewind or pause.
Secondly, this is actually slower than true speed reading or skimming because it forces you to read every word. Truly accomplished readers will often read material at a very superficial level, only dipping in and reading consistently when they encounter a novel concept. Essentially, they can use semantic compression to increase their reading speed by only bothering to read what they find to be relevant. This operates on every level, from the page to the chapter to the paragraph to the sentence. It isn't perfect, of course, but it's always possible to back up if one finds crucial information has been missed.
Finally, even though this tool is truly excellent for breaking the subvocalization habit that hampers most slow readers, once you learn how to read without subvocalizing it becomes a bit redundant. For example, looking at Spritz, I cranked the speed to 500. It felt pretty good, like I was reading fast. Then I went and took a traditional reading speed test and clocked in at 700wpm, with 95% comprehension. So I'm not sure my overall speed is better with Spritz.
That said, I'll probably keep coming back to this or technologies like this, now that I'm aware of them. They seem a really good way to force oneself into the speed-reading mindset - I have a feeling that doing this for 60 seconds before a normal reading session would improve reading speed substantially.