From: Dickey, Michael F (michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com)
Date: Tue Feb 18 2003 - 08:58:25 MST
-----Original Message-----
From: gts [mailto:gts_2000@yahoo.com]
Nate wrote:
> What are the best ways to increase reading speed. Does increasing
> speed have drawbacks. Do the computer programs give you results, if
> so how much are they exaggerating the results they advertize.
> Let me know thanks, Nate
"The trick to speed reading is learning how not to "sound out" the words in
one's mind as one reads. But as above it pleases me to sound out the words
in my mind as I read, and so I lost interest in speed reading. "
Nate, I second gts's comments, I read often and have read a lot about speed
reading but was quite skeptical of it. The other day I gave it a shot while
reading something I didn't particular enjoy but needed to read. You have to
concentrate on not subvocalizing as you read (I understand some people do
not, and I wonder if deaf from birth people read faster) because reading in
that manner limits your speed to the subvocalization speed. As I understand
it, the process is something like
1) brain recognizes word through pattern recognition
2) word is subvocalized
3) word entered into memory (kind of)
When looking at it like that, its hard to understand what the
subvocalization is for, since part of recognizing a word necessarily entails
recognizing that word! So anyway, I tried it the other day and made a
concentrated effort to not subvocalize but I lead my eyes in the reading
with a finger (another tactic often suggested) After each sentence I would
stop and attempt to repeat the sentence, to my astonishment I found I often
could repeat it word for word, with more accuracy than if I had
subvocalized. The retentioned seemed to be better than the conventional
type of reading, but it is very difficult to get used to reading without
subvocalization, its like soaking up information without your upper level of
conciousness being aware of it. I think that might be the role
subvocalization plays, your super fast pattern recognition and information
processing capable brain telling your relatively dimwitted serial process
simulated 'conciousness' that you are in fact reading.
I need to practice more, but I keep tending back to subvocalized reading as
gts mentions, because it seems more enjoyable?
Michael Dickey.
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