How to read faster?

[crich70]

12 days to finish a 400 page book isn't bad. Of course how fast a person finishes a book is sometimes a matter of how engaging the story is as well. I read the last Harry Potter book in about a day or a little over and it's over 700 pages, but generally I don't read a long book that fast. The story just kept me from being able to put the book down for very long. Of course the fact that I'm on disability and had plenty of free time played into that as well. If I'd had to go to work or had other similar obligations it'd have taken me longer to read it due to that as well.

[Yolina]

Originally Posted by arturg

I value the time spent on a good book so much that I don't really care anymore if it takes me one or ten weeks to complete it.

And that is all that matters

[kacir]

Originally Posted by arturg

I tried spreeder and I was comfortable with about 190 wpm. I made my wife do the test and she was able to read comfortably at 550 wpm which I see as amazing.

That Spreader is not done properly.
There are other programs that do that much better.
Try searching for
Rapid Serial Visual Presentation
When you set spreader to display more than one word, it doesn't take into account the length of the word (number of presented characters), as some other programs do. So sometimes it presents you with three very long words, wrapping them on several lines.

There are quite a few programs, even commercial software, and a few plugins for Firefox. Try "Yet Another RSVP Reader".
Install plugin, select text, right click, select YARR (name for the Yet Another Rapid Reader) and here you can adjust speed, width of the chunk and other things. Use up/down arrows to adjust speed and right/left arrows to adjust the number of characters. I am pretty sure that you could push yourself to much faster reading using this little program. As I said, there are even better programs


When people that are considered "average" readers read, they usually look at the chunks of the text, not at individual letters. So your eye jumps around recognizing entire words, not individual letters. People that read with decent speed often look at groups of words, the larger the group, the faster reader.

One of my friends, an exceptionally smart and intelligent guy, can read entire line of text with one glance (in a book typically between 50 and 75 characters). He is capable of reading an entire novel in a couple of hours. But he says that he rarely reads full speed, because you have to concentrate very hard. He also reads more slowly when he needs to understand the text thoroughly. He also made a very interesting remark that he can only high-speed-read only text in serif font. And it must be typographically well made.

Another guy I have met told us a story about his grammar school. He was attending a special school in a "captive town" founded by famous Czech enterpriser Tomas Bata. In captive towns all housing were built by factory for factory workers, all stores, schools and other institutions were operated by the same company. He said that for the first two (or was it three?) years, they were learning almost exclusively reading. He said that at the end of third class pupils were able to read much faster than an average adult and that this skill has helped his academic career tremendously. He claimed that he is able to read an A4 page at a glance, just by sweeping it with eyes from top to bottom.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by kacir

That Spreader is not done properly.
There are other programs that do that much better.
Try searching for
Rapid Serial Visual Presentation
When you set spreader to display more than one word, it doesn't take into account the length of the word (number of presented characters), as some other programs do. So sometimes it presents you with three very long words, wrapping them on several lines.

There are quite a few programs, even commercial software, and a few plugins for Firefox. Try "Yet Another RSVP Reader".
Install plugin, select text, right click, select YARR (name for the Yet Another Rapid Reader) and here you can adjust speed, width of the chunk and other things. Use up/down arrows to adjust speed and right/left arrows to adjust the number of characters. I am pretty sure that you could push yourself to much faster reading using this little program. As I said, there are even better programs


When people that are considered "average" readers read, they usually look at the chunks of the text, not at individual letters. So your eye jumps around recognizing entire words, not individual letters. People that read with decent speed often look at groups of words, the larger the group, the faster reader.

One of my friends, an exceptionally smart and intelligent guy, can read entire line of text with one glance (in a book typically between 50 and 75 characters). He is capable of reading an entire novel in a couple of hours. But he says that he rarely reads full speed, because you have to concentrate very hard. He also reads more slowly when he needs to understand the text thoroughly. He also made a very interesting remark that he can only high-speed-read only text in serif font. And it must be typographically well made.

Another guy I have met told us a story about his grammar school. He was attending a special school in a "captive town" founded by famous Czech enterpriser Tomas Bata. In captive towns all housing were built by factory for factory workers, all stores, schools and other institutions were operated by the same company. He said that for the first two (or was it three?) years, they were learning almost exclusively reading. He said that at the end of third class pupils were able to read much faster than an average adult and that this skill has helped his academic career tremendously. He claimed that he is able to read an A4 page at a glance, just by sweeping it with eyes from top to bottom.

That is interesting. Never head of factory towns. Live and learn.

I tend to read a paragraph at a chunk if less than 6 lines. The physical length of the line sees to make more difference in how comfortably I read than the characters per line. Aging eyeballs perhaps. On a 5 inch reader I am good with 80 character per line, on a 6 or 6.8 reader it is more like 60. Not really the number of characters but the physical length of the line.

It is all really well to cram as much text as possible on a page, but it just doesn't work for me. I have to almost concentrate on each line and often go back to the line before. Slightly shorter lines I don't even notice any transition in reading unless the evil Kobo skips ahead or back a page or 6.

Helen

[arturg]

crich70: Relating to your previous post, I am just about to go update my profile as I just purched Cybook Opus reader Finally I can enjoy my books on my own reader.

[haydnfan]

I do subvocalize and can read novels up to a thousand pages long in 8 hours or less. For those that think that is not good enough, you're probably skipping or skimming over sentences that the author spent hours tormenting themselves over and you simply can't be bothered to really appreciate what you're reading.

If it's important to you to read a novel fast, spend less time on other past times and focus on what you're reading. That is the only sure way to enjoy what you're reading and read more novels.

It is the transformation of reading into a consumerist culture of buying and consuming books that leads to so many fools trying everything to read faster, to buy more. Why? So you can start another novel while already thinking about the one ahead of it? Why not focus on enjoying what you're currently reading instead?

I pity those that all they want to do is reader faster just to get to the next thing and do it all over again. You're running on a treadmill.

[faltradl]

Hi Artur,

do not ask for methods of fastreading. That's for advanced readers, who must read many long texts for work. Your first step must be to read more often.

I have noticed that when I read, I tend to "hear" the words in my mind and sometimes my lips are moving as well. I have read that in order to make reading faster I have to keep my mouth busy to stay away from using my mouth to read.

Like the beginners in shool when learning writing and reading. They have to translate written words into speech, because thats the well known way. The brain must learn to scan the letters an understanding them.

With enough training you will not need to form the words with the mouth. You will her them in your head. Like, when you are thinking about somthing.

It's a bit the same like beginning reading a foreign language. First you translate word by word, and then finisch the whole sentence. But later you don't translate any more. - And speaking / reading are different systems of languages. (In some countrys really different languages.)

Greetings,
Faltradl

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by haydnfan

I do subvocalize and can read novels up to a thousand pages long in 8 hours or less. For those that think that is not good enough, you're probably skipping or skimming over sentences that the author spent hours tormenting themselves over and you simply can't be bothered to really appreciate what you're reading.

If it's important to you to read a novel fast, spend less time on other past times and focus on what you're reading. That is the only sure way to enjoy what you're reading and read more novels.

It is the transformation of reading into a consumerist culture of buying and consuming books that leads to so many fools trying everything to read faster, to buy more. Why? So you can start another novel while already thinking about the one ahead of it? Why not focus on enjoying what you're currently reading instead?

I pity those that all they want to do is reader faster just to get to the next thing and do it all over again. You're running on a treadmill.

1000 pages in 8 hours seems pretty darn fast. That is more than double the average rate assuming we are talking normal average words per page. And subvocalizing and appreciating the language while you are doing it, well I am impressed. You must be a prodigy of some kind.

Helen

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by SY Lee

In past, I used to search for some informations to read faster. I recommend this website: http://www.readspeeder.com/. I hope that can help you.

I just signed up. I may not get to take full advantage of the site until 2014, but it looks interesting and from what I've seen around the web, it seems to be held in high esteem. I should mention that registration is free, if anyone's interested.

I did take the initial test and discovered I read normally at a speed of 336 WPM. That's 134% the average adult speed according to the site, or 20% of the speed of pretty much everyone else at MobileRead (or so it seems ).

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I did take the initial test and discovered I read normally at a speed of 336 WPM. That's 134% the average adult speed according to the site, or 20% of the speed of pretty much everyone else at MobileRead (or so it seems ).

Indeed... My speed (on other tests) hovered around 380 WPM, but to keep up with the amounts that people over here are reading (or seem to be reading), I would either need to two to three times as much time into reading, or find a way to start reading at 750 to 1000 words per minute.

I stated that it takes me around 9 hours to read a +/- 350 page book, but I seem to be one of the slowest people in this thread with a large margin.

Could poor eyesight have something to do with reading speed? Some tips like "hold the book further away" and "try to read the entire paragraph at a glance" are just not going to work for me. Some of the sites or programs that scroll or flash words on the screen are useless; they're already gone before I'm actually able to focus on them.

On the Kindle, I mostly go like this:

- Focus on the top line, with the entire line in my field of view.
- Then, simultaneously read downward while also moving the kindle upward about half of its length.

I don't refocus, and I don't move my eyes from side to side. I "draw a line" right down the middle of the page. Then I turn the page, refocus on the top line again after blinking, and repeat.

I do the same with websites and forums, in a very narrow browser window, if the site allows me to do so. (MR doesn't: it's too wide, even at the smallest possible width.)

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I just signed up. I may not get to take full advantage of the site until 2014, but it looks interesting and from what I've seen around the web, it seems to be held in high esteem. I should mention that registration is free, if anyone's interested.

I did take the initial test and discovered I read normally at a speed of 336 WPM. That's 134% the average adult speed according to the site, or 20% of the speed of pretty much everyone else at MobileRead (or so it seems ).

Interesting. I don't think many of us read at 1500 WPM but what do I know. My mind is still boggling from the idea of reading 1000 pages in 8 hours while subvocalizing and appreciating the nuances.

Helen

[tompe]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

Is sub-vocalisation necessarily bad? I do it and I manage to read a book every week or so, reading about an hour a day. I guess it depends on how fast you sub-vocalise, but I would not want to read any other way. The voice in my head is like a friend narrating the story to me, and helps to immerse me in the fictional world.

I do that also.

I also read that you always have a voice in your head but sometimes you do not notice it.

Even if you read so slow as 5 minutes per page a 400 page book is then 2000 minutes which is around 35 hours. If you want to read you should be able to read 2-4 books per month even at that speed.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Interesting. I don't think many of us read at 1500 WPM but what do I know.

I think WT Sharpe is just a tiny bit skeptical with regard to the reading speeds that are often stated/claimed on MobileRead I'm actually quite skeptical, and openly so. Oh, I don't doubt that there are people who are faster than I am, but some claims are just too much to be believable.

Originally Posted by tompe

Even if you read so slow as 5 minutes per page a 400 page book is then 2000 minutes which is around 35 hours. If you want to read you should be able to read 2-4 books per month even at that speed.

That would mean a full work week to read one book. It would be quite tough to put 4 work weeks of reading into a month, next to a normal job. (I know; I've recently put in 2-3 work weeks of studying while having a normal job, and it's not funny.)

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Interesting. I don't think many of us read at 1500 WPM but what do I know. My mind is still boggling from the idea of reading 1000 pages in 8 hours while subvocalizing and appreciating the nuances.

Helen

I was certainly exaggerating our members' average reading speed a bit, but I didn't mean to throw that number out for serious consideration. That bit of hyperbole was simply my way of saying that I know I'm hardly the speediest reader on the block.

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I think WT Sharpe is just a tiny bit skeptical with regard to the reading speeds that are often stated/claimed on MobileRead I'm actually quite skeptical, and openly so. Oh, I don't doubt that there are people who are faster than I am, but some claims are just too much to be believable....

I'm not skeptical of anyone's claims. I know there are folks out there whose reading speed is blazingly fast and their comprehension is excellent. All I meant to convey by my remarks is that I'm not among their number. I envy their ability, and I'm sorry if I gave anyone the wrong impression.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I was certainly exaggerating our members' average reading speed a bit, but I didn't mean to throw that number out for serious consideration. That bit of hyperbole was simply my way of saying that I know I'm hardly the speediest reader on the block.

Sorry, I meant the web site was interesting. I have not seen that approach before. I haven't taken the test yet, but I will. I don't have to read faster, but a little self improvement doesn't hurt and I can't see this approach leading to skimming or lack of comprehension. Plus it is probably good exercise for my aging eyeballs.

Helen