Can one learn to read faster?

[Tdol]

I learnt preety quickly when they expected a novel read by the next day. Needs must as the devil...

Yeah, that's what scares me, too.

[Tdol]

Don't get too wound up about it- that'l only reduce your chances. Once you get into the idea that it is possible to read at that speed, then you're more likely to be able to do so. Negativity is often self-confirming. The opposite is equally valid.

Well, dduck, I tried what you said to do last night. I used the blunt end of a pencil, and drew an imaginary line through the words to help me not to look back at previous words. I got my speed up to 40 pages an hour. Thanks.

[dduck]

Originally Posted by Will

I've been trying to find some stuff on-line about this stuff, and what dduck says is what I'm doing. I read on word at a time, and that "just absorbing" thing doesn't make sense.

The key point here is to understand is that your brain works really fast while your one-word-at-a-time eye movements are really slow. As you've already found, if you streamline your eye movements, you're effectively increasing the speed of data arriving at your brain. Which, remember, is really fast. Some people can read a book in a couple of minutes! It's that fast!

When I used the word 'absorb' I was trying to highlight the difference between 'focusing' on the words and reading with less 'care'.

Glad to hear you've made progress. :)
Iain

So, people who can read really fast don't really 'absorb' it, they can just move their eyes as fast as their brain can 'absorb' the material? Did that make sense?

[dduck]

Some people can just 'look' at a page and understand everything on it. No eye movement involved. These people don't read in straight lines, but in pages.

Iain

Holy schneikies!!! That'd be awesome!

[Tdol]

I heard of an examiner here, who said she read exam scripts by looking down the centre of each line rather than by reading everything. She said that she could reconstruct the rest of the line without reading it. I'm not too sure I'd like to be marked like that.

Me neither.