Any way to boost me reading speed?

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Aalto
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07 Sep 2008, 5:07 pm

I seem to nail two pages every 10 minutes, which I didn't see as too dire until the other day in which someone next to me on the bus was reading a book on Communist China at such a lick he was turning over every half-minute to minute.

Seeing as I predict we have many machines on WP who could reckon with this pace, does anyone have advice for my own reading patterns to speed up? Thanking in advance and that.



release_the_bats
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07 Sep 2008, 5:31 pm

Maybe it depends on how often you read and in what environment?

When I was in high school, they assigned about 40 pages per night in each class because they said that the average person reads 40 pages per hour. I used to read at that speed.

Now I think I read more slowly, but I also no longer spend 5 - 6 hours per day reading, and when I read it's often in a noisy, distracting place.

Maybe try doing a few hours reading a in quiet, comfortable place every day?



Aalto
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07 Sep 2008, 5:47 pm

Alright, I'll try completely focusing on a book, maybe with some not-too-overbearing music in the background (Indian classical is incredibly good at doing this in particular) and devote my time. There are reading methods too though, which I am keen on seeing. Thank you.



Electric_Kite
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07 Sep 2008, 6:39 pm

There are 'how to speed-read' articles out there.

When somebody who's just learned to read reads, he'll read one letter at a time and sound out each word. Later, a person will read one word at a time and string them together like beads on a rod to comprehend the sentance. Someone who reads fast is reading entire phrases in chunks and banging the chunks together in his head. You can actually monitor yourself doing this by maintaining awareness of your eye's movements as you read. To read faster, try to read bigger chunks of words at a time. You should get a longer smoother eye-movement. Then try to reduce the pause between reading one chunk and reading the next.

Success at this for me depends very much on what I am reading. The novels of Stephen King are sometimes a horrible snore, depending on my mood, but when they are not they read faster than anything in the world, three-four pages in a minute. It's a style thing, and I'll go all incomprehensible if I try to detail how it works, but you can figure it out if you compare King to something difficult to read.



Mudboy
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07 Sep 2008, 6:59 pm

This may sound dumb but it worked. Get simple children's books (first year) and read them as fast as you can. When you are happy with your speed go to year 2. Get happy and move up to the next level, etc. You can have fun and get fast in a few months.


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