Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Speed Reading

from the wiki: Speed reading is a collection of reading methods which attempt to increase rates of reading without greatly reducing comprehension or retention. Such methods include using various psychological techniques such as chunking and eliminating subvocalization. It is important to understand that no absolute distinct "normal" and "speed-reading" types of reading exist in practice, since all readers use some of the techniques used in speed reading (such as identifying words without focusing on each letter, not sounding out all words, not sub-vocalizing some phrases, or spending less time on some phrases than others, and skimming small sections). Speed reading is characterized by an analysis of trade-offs between measures of speed and comprehension, recognizing that different types of reading call for different speed and comprehension rates, and that those rates may be improved with practice. (Abela 2004)

I used a program called EyeQ, you can buy it, or trial download it from certain sites which contain a torrent of information ;p.

I highly recommend it, it only takes around ten minutes a session or something, do that daily for a month and practice while reading online or magazines, etc. I use a system where I group two halfs of a line pretty fast now and don't always verbalize internally and read down an article like that. It's not really necessarry to read letter per letter, you can go full words, groups of words and keep increasing with time.
Whatever techniques you learn, it will greatly reduce time spent reading articles, you can scan for information and you can boggle the minds of people who are reading along sometimes :p. I don't use it always as I like to immerse myself, but you can adjust speed and choose wether or not to verbalize internally obviously. I also don't use it a lot for the same reason when I'm reading books but it's very useful in boring or lesser parts ;). It's just a very useful technology in the information age, another option, an extra application of reading technique.

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