THE TRUTH ABOUT SPEED READING
What if I told you that you could read hundreds of books spending three to four hours per day?
What if I told you, you could read over 10,000 words a minute. It’s within your reach.
Today I will give you some tips to improve your experience without having to buy expensive courses based on dubious promises. There are no shortcuts on the road to comprehensive reading, only consistency and hard work.
Dominic Fraiberg wrote a very interesting article about speed reading and his criticism of it.
I will describe the reading process.
The first element that we should review critically is reading speed.
We know that there are people with the ability to remember a full page of text. This is true but they need more than a glimpse to memorise the text. Dr. Keith Raynor of the University of California finds that it is impossible to read more than 500 words per minute in English due to anatomical reasons. During reading, several small muscles work on eye functioning. They are responsible for movement, focusing, stabilisation and other functions. In addition there is contraction of the iris, which dilates or shrinks the pupil to regulate the entry of light like the aperture of a camera. All these processes must be monitored by the brain and their speed determines the eye’s ability to take a picture accurately.
This picture is not yet accurate. It must reach the brain for it to work its magic. Like an experienced magician, the brain has to combine several ingredients. First we photograph the text and combine the letters into words. Then we match those words with their meaning. Then we transfer the knowledge to our consciousness and to our short-term memory. We cannot remember complex content without the participation of our consciousness, no matter what certain promoters of fast reading say.
Another important element of reading is understanding the text.
If your child understands 50% of a text he may be eligible for additional courses. A study conducted by Professor Cervera of Carnegie-Mellon University shows that readers capable of reading 700 words per minute do not improve their understanding of the text after reading it several times. This indicates that the eye does not see certain parts of the text. This is at best, since there is also the possibility that the reader had prior knowledge of the subject.
Other studies suggest that reading with a good understanding is possible only if we read at a speed of no more than 300 words per minute. Perception of the text was poor above this limit and no one who read the text at more than 600 words per minute retained 75% understanding of the text. When there are other mental tasks, such as focusing on our memory, the optimal speed is reduced to 140 words per minute.
This does not mean that we cannot improve our reading speed. We can improve within the limits previously described. It is necessary to accept the limitations presented in the previous points, if we want to understand what we are reading.
Why do we read books? In the previous minutes we have presented evidence that we cannot read scientific literature or even popular science quickly without a significant loss of understanding of the content. We read to experience history, to acquire wisdom or in other words to digest wisdom. Let’s talk a little about these motivations.
Let’s imagine that we are reading a book with some new knowledge. We have to read the book to learn something and relate it to our previous knowledge about the topic. Learning specialists define this process as the process of internalisation. To carry out this process of internalisation we require time, time in consciousness. Repeating the text three times, let’s say, will help us deepen our understanding of it. In the first reading we understand the main theme of the text and an idea of the structure of the new knowledge to be acquired. When we read the text again, the mind will not be able to read the text so quickly because we have to internalise the knowledge. In the third reading we repeat again the step of internalisation. Again the methods of quick reading will not help you fully interiorise the text.
If we want to acquire the most valuable knowledge of a book there are no shortcuts. We need pencil, paper and a slow reading of the text to be digested.
For all these reasons we must consider whether or not it is worthwhile to read quickly. Because contrary to what we might expect, it will not be the same, it will not be that wonderful time machine they want to sell us. Reading can be speeded up but to a certain limit. It can be accelerated even more, but this can be in opposition to the objectives of understanding and interiorising the knowledge.
Taken from the Video: The TRUTH about Speed Reading! @psychologyunleashed
