[ale] OT: Is speed reading a pile of ...

[David S. Jackson]

On Sun, Jul 14, 2002 at 10:44:03AM -0400 Cade Thacker <linux at cade.org> wrote:
> I was at the library the other day with my wife and they had a audio
> tape(4 tapes actually) speed reading course called the Evelyn Wood Seven
> Day Speed Reading and Learning Program. I checked it out, and have listed
> to the first two tapes, and it is more just a tape of good study habits so
> far....
> 
> So my question is, the average person reads at 250 words per minute, has
> anybody on this list improved their reading speed? They are making grand
> promises of 1000 to 3000 words per minute with comprehension.  My wife's
> comment is that if something sounds too good to be true, then it probably
> is. If speed reading was so great and awsome, why wouldn't everybody be
> speed reading, the teaching this in High School or College?  Sounds like
> snake oil to me.....
> 
> I figured somebody on this list has tried this concept before.

I took an Evelyn Wood speed reading course (actually two) when I was
young.  There's really nothing entirely revolutionary there except that
it tries to teach you not to rely on subvocalizing what you read.  You
know, that little voice going along in your head as you read a sentence?

We can only talk about 300 words per minute max, unless you're from the
north east, then you might get gusts up to 350 or so.  :-)  If you're
from the deep south, you're probably down around 250 or so.  :-)  Just
kidding!!  

Anyway, if you can get over the dependence on that little voice, you
know longer have to "say" what you read, and you can read faster.  

But, there are other types of reading that are highly intense and don't
lend themselves to speed reading as easily as, say, a detective novel.
Much of the technical stuff, like programming manuals, present a highly
concentrated form of language where each sentence might contain three or
more times the required thought to comprehend than an equivalent
sentence from the detective novel would.  If you're reading something
even more concentrated, like mathematics or obfuscated code or
electrical diagrams, these forms of communication are already highly
concentrated.  They probably more closely resemble the picture that's
worth a thousand words than they do a sentence that could be speed read.  

But the course could still be of value to you if you read a lot of
technical stuff.  Just becomming aware of what your mind is doing when
you read the different types of material could be enormously beneficial
to you.  Learning how *you* comprehend stuff (of different types) could
help you a lot.  In these courses you do a lot of reading and a lot of
testing for comprehension.  The hardest part is *believing* that you're
actually getting what's written when you don't have you're subvocalized
voice that isn't there anymore.  (We associate comprehension with
articulation, often times.)  

So, a good speed reading course (Ev. Woods was *very* good) can give you
a lot of help even if you don't actually *read* some types of material
that much faster than you used to.  You could still improve your
comprehension by a lot and improve your overall effectiveness in
reading.  Even the so called "demonstration students" that I saw Evelyn
Woods take around many years ago back in Utah couldn't read poetry or
Math or C code very fast.  They had to slow waaaay down.

However, I would recommend a *guided* course, not one you take by
yourself.  The reason is that the entire process is largely
psychological, not intellectual.  You have to learn to have confidence
in your comprehension without the subvocalized voice.  That's largely a
psychological process that is better to go through with an experienced
mentor.

Dave "still subvocalizes" Jackson

-- 
David S. Jackson                        dsj at dsj.net
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