Philotic Web

I'm in one of those phases right now where I want to read pretty much everything I can get my hands on. Going to bookstores sucks. I buy so many more books than I know I'll get around to reading, but I buy them anyway. I think that this summer, I've read 22 (?) books, including a few plays. But I want more and more, and what better way to read more, than to read faster?

I think I read at about your typical speed, but then again what does that even mean? Any big readers out there have tips for maybe practicing reading faster, without missing the same amount of information you'd get at a slower rate? Am I even making sense?

I try practicing this tip I learn to divide each line of a book into 2-3 sections of words and just kind of read the sections all at once instead of skimming to each word at a time.

How fast do you read, and have you practiced reading faster?

I don't know if I've ever practised, beyond reading just about everything i can get my hands on every day of my life. Does that count?

For a moderately complex story (I am using Harry Potter as my ruler), I guess I go at about 100 pages in an hour. I see each word, but I may or may not group them in groups of 4 or 5 words each. It's very intuitive for me, so stopping to think about it is weird.

I did Harry Potter seven in... six hours. I maybe took half an hour total of breaks within that six hour period, so I read pretty fast.

My tip is that I don't read that fast in meatier books. Something like Harry Potter is great because I know that I'm going to re-read it, so missing some isn't too bad, and actually can lead to a very enjoying re-read. I think that one of the ways I read is by consciously moving ahead even before I understand what I'm reading. I think that the best way to read quickly is to not really care if you miss too much and feel free to stop and turn back to check things, at least for fiction.

For very dry things, like text books, I skim like crazy. I don't know if I've trained myself for it, but I'm good at picking out the important bits and reading quickly to get an idea of what it's saying. Once again, if I'm particularly confused or interested I go back.

I think that overall I use the technique of not consciously reading. I'm in the habit of reading every word I see, so by forcibly looking over a page of words just faster than I think I can understand I allow myself to read at a more reflexive level. I think that it can be difficult to train yourself to do that, but the simplest thing is get some sort of drivel, like a crappy paperback and try your best. Because you won't be invested in getting everything you should be freer to read quickly and miss things.

I don't know if any of that made sense, but good luck!

i read roughly 2.5 pages a minute with full retention. this increased during college. in high school i was tested and read a solid 2 pages a minute.

i can skim/speed read at a much faster pace, but that's very different, and has slightly less retention.

a lot of things factor into how fast you are able to read (which for these purposes includes comprehension and retention), but one of them is the method by which you learned to read.

most kids in school learn to read with the Phonetic approach.

my mom taught me to read when i was quite small, and she used the Whole Language method, which means that i can now read and comprehend entire blocks of text at a time, rather than reading each letter or word or sentence one by one.


[edited to add]

tips for learning to read faster: read aloud. honestly. in the long-run this will increase both your speed and ability to retain. when you read aloud your brain has to be focused on two things at once: the words you're reading and speaking aloud, and the words that come next. over time, this can improve your speed and retention.

I'm a terribly slow, easily distracted reader and get very frustrated by this. This in turn causes me stop on occasion to relax myself and then continue on.

I would say my average is about a page a minute, sometimes more and sometimes less, depending on what's happening around me (noise usually causes me to read without comprehension), the size of the page (smaller paperback versus bigger hardback), and font size.

My mom is a huge reader and tried her best to pass this on to my brothers and me, but it was never a preference for us; we read when we had to and rarely read for recreation.

This changed for me in 9th grade with EG. I had to know what was going to happen in the Speaker books. This led me to pick up other sci-fi/fantasy books and I've since tried to read at least a book a week. I don't always reach that goal -mostly not, though not for lack of effort- but I always do better than I did the year before. Slow and steady wins the race, neh?

Not very. It took me 3 whole days to read HP7. I guess I must have read for about... 5-6 hours a day, maybe? I know some people read it in one sitting.

Typically, I don't want to read fast if I'm reading for pleasure. If it's a novel that I've waited for, shelled out cash for, and am enjoying, I usually want it to last me at least a week. I gave myself a 3 day limit to read HP7 because I didn't want to have to worry about spoilers for any longer than that.

Depends on the book. Provided it's not older and/or denser English (like Locke or Tillich), generally two or three paperback book pages a minute.

Harry Potter 7 took me about five and a half hours.

Yeah, same for me. It really depends on the book, the size of the words and the pages, the 'denseness' of the writing. I can slam through Ender's Game pretty quick... several pages a minute... but a book like Atlas Shrugged, which was in my opinion a 'denser' English writing, very tiny wording, I could get through a page a minute on less word-dense pages.

There is this program called "EyeQ" which apparently helps you boost your reading speed. It works by teaching your eyes to move faster and focus on entire sentences of words instead of reading each word. I have a copy somewhere, but I've never tried it out.

I've also just recently had a conversation with a guy who does a LOT of meditating and he's told me that when he gets into a deep focused state he is able to read a 200 page book in an hour with a higher retention that if he were ti read the same book normally. However, as a result he has said that he sufferers a migraine and is unable to focus on anything longer than a few seconds for an undetermined amount of time.

I seem to read in real-time. As if someone were reading the book to me, except it's my internal monologue.

There is this program called "EyeQ" which apparently helps you boost your reading speed. It works by teaching your eyes to move faster and focus on entire sentences of words instead of reading each word. I have a copy somewhere, but I've never tried it out.

I've tried that. Didn't like it. Didn't stick with it.

I seem to read in real-time. As if someone were reading the book to me, except it's my internal monologue.

Exactly how I was going to put it. What's with this "groups of words" thing?

However, with books I enjoy/know I will enjoy, I try to read slower, to help the words sink in more. Especially with books like the Harry Potter series, where every word/sentence is a morsel that is meaningful and often humorous. I would say the speed is... I don't know. Like someone reading a block of text to a class?

For serious. Groups of words? It just sounds like me talking in my head. Or... whoever is narrating.

I read this thread in 5 seconds flat.

For serious. Groups of words? It just sounds like me talking in my head. Or... whoever is narrating.

but what it sounds like and what's happening are slightly different. i "hear" as i read, too. i also "see" it.

Now I'm curious if my mom taught us to read by some particular method or another. I know that my older brother and I were both reading before we started kindergarten, which for me was age 4. And reading this thread I'm really surprised to find out that not everyone reads by groups of words at a time. I always thought that everyone did that. Like, you don't focus on each individual word but your eye just kind of skips along and takes in lmaybe half a line at a time or something. It's hard to describe but I know they have studied it with eye tracking programs. I don't know how fast I read exactly. I know it's faster than average but nowhere near as fast as Kelly.

but what it sounds like and what's happening are slightly different. i "hear" as i read, too. i also "see" it.

You can still "see" and "hear" at the same time. Just... like a narrator of a movie. I find it no different than that.

I don't even know if we're arguing!

we're not, Mich. i don't think.

you seemed confused by the fact that a few people (myself included) mentioned reading whole groups of words at a time, and said that rather than doing that you heard narration in your head.

i was saying that whether or not you read by sentence, or word, or letter by letter, you can still "hear" and "see" as you read. hence what's actually happening with your eyes and your brain is separate from whatever it may "sound" or "look" like. does that make more sense?

I think I read a little faster than average, and I learned to read at a fairly young age. I don't know what kind of method my parents used, but I definitely do the whole "read several words at a time" thing.

As far as forcing yourself to read faster goes, I had a teacher in high school who liked to tell us a story about his friend, who could eat an entire hoagie ("sub", for those of you not from the Philly area) in 2 bites. But why would you want to? There's no way he's actually enjoying that hoagie. Just take it slow, and enjoy the book. Savor it.

Reading isn't always done for pleasure. In such cases, all I'm looking for is ways to save time.

True, but the original post at least implied that the reading was done for pleasure.

wizzard, it's all relative. If you're watching a moving in slow motion, does that increase your pleasurable experience? Even maximize it? I contend that increasing your speed of reading (as long as it doesn't jeopardize comprehension) does nothing to diminish the experience.

And I'm a bit of a strange reader. I always used to sound out every word in my head and so reading took forever. This was back in grade school. Somewhere between now and then I started reading sentences in two bites. Not each word, but two large chunks. This has sped up my reading incredibly. However, when I sit down with a book, I almost always start slow and then speed up.

Now, someone once told me about that EyeQ program and how, basically, it exercises your eye muscles. I once did some of the warm-up exercises, just to see, and I think it may have helped. But I've been pretty unsystematic in testing that hypothesis. So I charge you with finding out and reporting back.

i agree with Ollie--if you're retaining and comprehending all that you read speed won't haven't an effect either way on your enjoyment.

i read for work and i read for pleasure. usually a book a day for both, so that's two books a day. i love every single minute of it.

I contend that increasing your speed of reading (as long as it doesn't jeopardize comprehension) does nothing to diminish the experience.

But it's over more quickly.

Reading is like eating, slow down and you'll taste more of the flavor. If you read too fast, your mind will choke on the words, then who will be there to Heimlich your mind?

::shrug::

to each his own.

i know unequivocally that i have never lost even a glimmer of meaning or enjoyment from anything i've read at 2.5 pages a minute. i certainly take no issue with people who read slower than i do, whether they do so by choice or by default.

Wait... you're telling me that you've never been annoyed by people who read slower than you!? I get sooooo annoyed by them, it's quite unreasonable, but oh well...

Why would I get annoyed by them? Unless we're reading the same page of a book, which is highly unlikely.

That happens all to often for my tastes....

Also, I hate people who take years and years to finish something when I want to discuss it RIGHT NOW because my head is full of ideas.

That happens all to often for my tastes....

Also, I hate people who take years and years to finish something when I want to discuss it RIGHT NOW because my head is full of ideas.

I hate impatient people who keep annoying me to finish something so they can talk to me about it. Usually makes me go slower.

I read in phrases, not by words or sentences. I read HP7 in 8 hours with potty and snack breaks.

Haha daaang siick responses.

I wasn't necessarily refering to pleasure reading in my first post, because lately I've been taking pleasure out of reading anything and everything school related and non (mind you, it's all literature or books about authors/novels so it's not entirely noninteresting).

Anyways, Young Val pretty much inspired this thread. i was checking out the book club, (For the first time?), and saw the kafka on the shore thread. I just finished a book by Kafka, and I was curious if it was a reference to the author at all. Anyways, i saw Young Val say she had read it three time over in a month. I just thought, Damn. Do you think you read 2.5 pages a minute because you trained yourself (or learned that way), or is it dependent on the person as well.

Also, does anyone feel like, the more different crazy writing styles they get used to reading helps them read faster in general when the style is less obscure (almost like a tolerance level -- the more styles you adapt to, the better you'll read)?

That happens all to often for my tastes....

Also, I hate people who take years and years to finish something when I want to discuss it RIGHT NOW because my head is full of ideas.

I hate impatient people who keep annoying me to finish something so they can talk to me about it. Usually makes me go slower.

Ooooohh. I know your kind... man I hate people like you!


I'm just joshing, so you know. It may bug me, but not THAT much.

My reading speed is as fast as lightning...sorta.

Well, actually, it depends whether I read in my native language, or English- which I'm very good at reading, but it slows me down somewhat.

I finished HP7 in a day, but I had a lot of breaks (mandatory- needed to do things), and it's in English...Overall, I think it took me about 8 hours of constant reading.

I read HP5 cover to cover in one day, and I thought that was fast...

But, it took me about 12 hours to read HP7, so...

Maybe not as fast as I thought.

-B_15

I hate impatient people who keep annoying me to finish something so they can talk to me about it. Usually makes me go slower.

Well, good, since it takes me at least a year to act on your recommendations. A couple of weeks ago we finally got around to enjoying something you recommended shortly after our last move.

Oh, my curiosity is piqued, I wonder what it was.