Speed reading; Do you speed read?

If you're missing things when you speed read, you're not really speed reading. You're probably doing more skimming than reading.

Speed reading, including speed comprehension, is just something that takes practice. And, it can be more difficult to practice and learn than, say, something like a video game. In a video game that gets faster the more you advance, you get instant feedback. If you miss something important, it probably cost you a life! With speed reading, you don't get that kind of feedback, especially if you're reading on your own and not part of a class or something where you will be tested on the material. As such, it can be difficult to master because you're not getting the kind of feedback that reveals what you've overlooked. Odds are that you won't even know you've missed something important or useful!

A good way to practice would be to practice with materials that include a quiz or test at the end. That way, you'll get a better indication as to how well you are doing.

here is a helpful link i came across:

http://www.bismarckstate.edu/student...eedReading.pdf

I consider myself a selective reader. Often there are predictable patterns allowing me to hone in on the important content, while skimming past other phrases.

For example, let's take a paragraph starts with the following:
"One of the most important aspects of speed reading is ..."
I can view this phrase without reading each word, and focus on what was said after the word "is".

Also, there can be erroneous points that are added that are not focused on the content of the article itself that don't need to be read in their entirety. For example maybe someone is telling us about the hardware in google's data center, but they start by talking about someone they met, or how they ate at the cafeteria before viewing the data center.

So I call my style of reading selective reading. I do sometimes miss something important, but if I feel I am reading something that is important overall, I tend to read it a second or a third time anyway, and that limits the number of comprehension errors.

I'm actually a slow reader. I can read paragraphs and paragraphs then at the bottom of the page I ask myself: "what did I just read?" the go back and start again. ADD rocks.

Tyrus

No matter how fast I read a book, I still need to do it a few more times to get all the nuggets out of it.

I think learning how to take good notes is more important then how fast you read. Mind mapping work for me.

And reviewing your notes every so often helps to store the information you just learned into your long term memory

Woody Allen joked he took a speed reading course:
"I read War and Peace... it pertains to Russia."

I speed-read when I am looking for information selectively -
as when reading yet another book on a topic I am already
familiar with.

Some books are denser than others, more challenging to
comprehend, explain concepts that need thought - I can
blast through "think rich" books because they are mostly
similar and repetitive... but a book on technical things? No,
not for me... in that case I read carefully and often take
notes in the margins and stop to think or try things out.

My parents both listed to tapes on "fast pitch" all the time... kinda gave me the chills when I was a kid, but now I see the benefit of listening to a one hour cassete in under 30 minutes.....

I took a speed reading course in college (1982 or 1983). It was a formal course with tests after the assigned reading. I don't remember my speed, but I do remember that based on testing I retained quite a bit of what I read.

But I didn't like speed reading, so I never used it outside the course.

John

The only time I speed read is when I want to get a general idea of a topic.

I'll grab as much decent content as I can and then plug it into Spreeder. It's a cool tool for speed reading. It lets you decide how many words to view at a time, and how fast.

spreeder.com - Free online speed reading application

I'm not affiliated with it in any way, but find it useful.

All the best,
Michael

I don't speed read, but I'd say that I read pretty fast and retain what I'm reading rather well.

How fast is considered speed reading?

I have slowed down my normal reading in recent years, but when I need to I can still go all out. I can read an entire page of text with full comprehension in under a second. When I do this, I don't read the individual words- I read entire paragraphs at a time.

The only problem is that if my thoughts wander (ADHD sucks) I can get through several pages before I realize I don't know what I just read.

I use both speed reading and slow, absorb the material reading. If it is something like a guide or a tech manual or something along those lines, I tend to speed read. If I am reading a book for fun... i tend to read slower to absorb the words and savor the enjoyment of reading that book.

It depends what I'm reading.

If I'm reading fiction I tend to sub-vocalise, i.e. read at the same pace as if I were reading out loud, as a storyteller would. I enjoy the characterisation much more at this speed.

Non-fiction I find I can speed read, with full comprehension. This comes with practice due to necessity having worked in places where you were required to absorb lengthy reports and feedback on their content in very short time periods. The sheer volume of reading matter forced me to learn to speed read using Tony Buzan methods.

About ten years ago I tried my hand (or should that be eyes?) at photoreading, Paul Scheele's method which requires putting yourself in a trance-like state and scanning pages at a ridiculously fast pace, I guess about 2 seconds a page. I was studying for a particularly boring Health & Safety exam and hadn't paid too much attention during the course. The night before the exam I went through the 200 page text book using photoreading. I didn't notice any increase in comprehension until the exam when the answers seem to come out of nowhere. I passed with about an 80% pass rate. I reckon I would've been lucky to scrape 50% prior to my photoreading cramming session.

This wasn't the first time I'd used photoreading but it was the first time I'd tested my comprehension using it.

Peter

It depends on what I'm reading and how interested I am in what I'm reading. Sometimes I speed read through novels and sometimes I speed read non-fiction. It just depends. I haven't thought about how much I actually retain when I'm speed reading but it's worth thinking about. Hmmm.

Like Peter I, too, put myself into a light trance with study-type of material. I do retain the gist of it but not the details so a few days later I tend to return to the material for the details.

Something else I thought of, similar to Loren's point.

It depends on WHY I'm reading. If I'm reading something technical, I'm apt to skim to the parts I need; that I don't know yet.

If it's for pleasure (almost always non-fiction), then I like to slow way down and savor the words. Nothing like the precise word, turn of a good phrase, or delicious pun to make reading enjoyable.

~Michael

Speed reading is definitely not for me. I enjoy reading, but realized little details escaping when speed reading. I felt it was too difficult to catch on to the subtle nuances each reading material (fiction and nonfiction alike) provides. I caught myself having to backtrack couple of times because I felt like I've missed something while speeding through the words, and this is just too frustrating for me. I don't like the feeling of getting the "jist" of the material - I'll stick to regular reading.

Speed reading is useful for people, but the most important to remember that we need to grab the main content, keywords. As normal I always highlight the keywords that I find it important

I used to write abstracts so I do speed read. I read for ideas! And since there really aren't more than a few good ideas in a full book, it doesn't take long to glean the most important information.

But, as someone mentioned in a previous post, if it's technical info, you have to ingest it at a much slower pace.

I had formal training in college on speed reading. It was an interesting course. You learn the root of words. For example specare which is latin root that means to look. Once you know that you know that any word with spec in it typically has to do with looking or seeing something. We learned all sorts of these roots. That is how you can read so fast and comprehend.

When speed reading you are not reading or sounding out individual words you are scanning over them.

The instructor had this machine that would flash a word up on a screen and you'd have to say what it was. Pretty much everyone in the class was able to see a word that was only on the screen for 1/100 of a second. You'd think you didn't see it, but 9/10 times you would be able to say the word.

I got up to 1100 words per minute with a comprehension rate in the 90% range. It was good for reading history or any subject that is just words. Where it falls apart is science. Let's see you speed read the Kreb's cylce and comprehend that

I've gotten away from speed reading because my second major was biology, so lot's of diagrams and pictures to study and they really didn't lend themselves to speed reading.

I still do it once in a while, but I'm not at 1100 wpm anymore, probably 700. But if you are reading for entertainment, I prefer to slow down and savor the words. Novels are not meant to be speed read.

Well this all depends as some have already pointed out ...

But does looking at all the pretty ebook covers and then slamming my mouse to the bottom of the page to see the price constitute speed reading ...lol

James

So does anyone have a nice program with quizzes to test comprehension?

I don't "speed read" but I do read A LOT faster than anyone I personally know. I do believe that it has helped me significantly in Internet Marketing, because I can spend 30 minutes reading something that another person would probably take several hours to read.

I don't lose any points than if I read something slowly. As Dan said up at the top, if you are missing information, you really aren't speed reading.

For all of you sports fanatics, I believe I actually learned to read fast by religiously watching ESPN's Sportcenter every day. They flash an entire page of stats for about 10-15 seconds (or however long), and I used to get frustrated when I couldn't digest everything.

Eventually I was reading and remembering everything on the screen after seeing it just once and well before they moved onto the next set of highlights.

So yes, tell your wives that watching ESPN is good for you, Solomon said so

Solomon Huey