Speed Reading and Reading Styles

[Provoker]

Hello,

I am beginning to train for the LSAT, and want to increase the speed and precision with which I read...actually, I have a few months on my hands to work on my reading speed and efficiency before I even start to do MOCK conditioning. So, if any of you have strategies or tactics that are pragmatic (I can't stress pragmatic enough as I have no time for theoretical bric a brac) it would be greatly appreciated. I think I read at around 190 words per minute with 91% efficiency. Ideally, I'd like to bump it up to atleast 300 over the next few months without trading off too much efficieny.

Many have suggested that gains can be made when one stops sub-vocalizing (something I do all the time). Apparantly, when we read with a voice in our heads we are limited to around 200-250 words. But if one can learn to just 'see it' and process the information, one can read 500 or 1000 words per minute with reasonable efficiency. Do any of you just see and process?

This is an open discussion on reading styles, tips, excersizes, strategies, etc.

[Capt57]

When I read I hear a voice...a dialog in my head most of the time. If I try to speed up I lose retention and any enjoyment I get out of reading. I'm a little skeptical of speed reading. Sounds like a bit of a sham. I wonder what Skeptic magazine has to say about it?

[yondyr]

For pleasure, only 60 pages an hour. To learn, I really have to write the salient bits down, I can lose the jottings, it's the act of writing that sets it in memory. And er, no voice <looks askance at those two>

[rocksteady]

For pleasure, only 60 pages an hour. To learn, I really have to write the salient bits down, I can lose the jottings, it's the act of writing that sets it in memory. And er, no voice <looks askance at those two>

brainstorming about or summarizing a topic usually sets it in my memory, but just reading it doesn't really set it my long term without any kind of stimulus or debate, so even if I could speed read, I am not sure how much it would help....

[gallihand]

Not "hearing" what you're reading is definitely important. I've always just naturally read in thought-stream but from what I remember reading doing anything that keeps your vocal cords from being used while reading will help you learn to thought-stream (drinking water [doubt that would be effective], counting repeatedly, singing, humming, etc). Apparently when people sub-vocalize they still move the vocal cords as if they were speaking, hence the slower speed. To practice I would highly suggest a fiction book as they tend to have a good deal of description which you can visualize, which should help. Law on the other hand is like philosophy, it takes longer to read as you can't thought-stream a complex argument easily as it rarely has anything to "picture" which is why examples work so well as those CAN be thought-streamed.

I still find myself at about 60 pages an hour for some reason. It just feels more "real-time" to me, either that or I'm just lost in my mind.

disclaimer: I am not well versed in this. This is just going off a passing interest which didn't last long as I already did the biggest part, thought-streaming.

[yondyr]

oh good, I do 'thought-streaming'..it sounds so intellectual. :)

[OneBadMother]

I think that if you're doing testing, more important than the ability to read fast is the ability to skim for important information fast. The best way to do that is to read the question, then look at the text for pertinent words, tuning out the text that isn't pertinent. If you do that on your first run-through, you will have plenty of time to go back, double-check your answers, and re-read the text if necessary.

[Max T]

Here's a pragmatic tactic Provoker.

See the word "text" in the middle of OneBadMother's paragraph?
Focus on that word "text" and don't leave it.

Slowly stretch your peripheral vision so you can see the words "important" and "information" and "your" above and below "text".

Like a muscle, stretch further your peripheral vision to see "testing" and "answers" whilst still fixed on "text"...

Now read the paragraph traditionally from top left as usual- should be noticeably quicker.

Repeat this focus on one word when you're next reading and stretch your vision for a few seconds every few minutes and that should push words per minute up 100 words.
Bill Clinton could 'gulp' the paragraph above in a second or two.

Next, make fewer eye jumps by taking in more words per eye fixation- this sentence should take 2-3 (4 at worst) fixes to read.

[xhaan]

For pleasure, only 60 pages an hour. To learn, I really have to write the salient bits down, I can lose the jottings, it's the act of writing that sets it in memory. And er, no voice <looks askance at those two>

I don't think they're talking about an actual 'voice', I think it's more of a quick mental acknowledgement of how a word 'sounds'... at least that's how it is with me, I don't hear a particular voice, like a sound, and it doesn't really take much time to 'recognize' a word (I can read a LOT faster than most people can talk.)

[apostr]

Here's a pragmatic tactic Provoker.

See the word "text" in the middle of OneBadMother's paragraph?
Focus on that word "text" and don't leave it.

Slowly stretch your peripheral vision so you can see the words "important" and "information" and "your" above and below "text".

Like a muscle, stretch further your peripheral vision to see "testing" and "answers" whilst still fixed on "text"...

Now read the paragraph traditionally from top left as usual- should be noticeably quicker.

Repeat this focus on one word when you're next reading and stretch your vision for a few seconds every few minutes and that should push words per minute up 100 words.
Bill Clinton could 'gulp' the paragraph above in a second or two.

Next, make fewer eye jumps by taking in more words per eye fixation- this sentence should take 2-3 (4 at worst) fixes to read.

in addition :

your eyes don't really move along a straight line while reading. to pevent your eyes from losing time while trying to focus, you could help them by pointing out the eye fixation point with a pen, moving above the sentence you're reading...

also, to go to the next line , your eyes need to make 2 turns. your should start that movement before the end of the line and begin focusing after the beginning of the second line. a way to help you do this is to draw vertical lines after the beginning (2 cm for example) and before the end of the lines.

finally, if i remember correctly, the inclination between the plane of the document you're reading and the plane of your desk is ideally 45°-60° and should be kept at about an arm's length. all this is suposed to increase the amount of information your eyes can focus on at once.