Speed Reading

There is something called subvocalizing which many people do as they read. It entails "hearing" the words in your head. I am familiar with this because I do it occasionally as I write, and somewhat less so when I read. Dale thinks I read kinda fast already, and I'm sure I /used/ to. I could read a 300 page book in one night if I so chose. What happened, I wonder... LOL

Anywho, Dale sent me this neat article on how to speed read and why: http://zenhabits.net/2007/05/overclock-your-reading-speed/ I read through it and was on the sixth tip when he walked in. I started laughing because I realized I'd barely begun reading it and I was already through the whole article, and told him so. (In his email, he started out by saying, "Not that you need this, but...") Then Dale asked me, "But did you retain anything?" I immediately recalled something I'd not heard of before, a new word: saccades. It was toward the right side of the article, in blue, as if clicking on it would reveal a dictionary entry. I did not click it yet but intend to, as it's a new word. From context, I gathered it was something about little jumps of reading, perhaps chunks. I don't recall the six tips of speed reading to a T, but then, I wouldn't have if I had read it any slower, either. My brain retains whatever it feels like. [side note: I just looked up saccade. It's an eye movement which can last anywhere between 20 to 200 milliseconds. Now the sentence in which the word lived makes a bit more sense to me. Yay!]

Reading for me means information intake. When I read, I tend to form pictures or concepts in my head (actually, that was one of the tips - to visualize what you're reading, since the brain is largely geared towards recording visual input). These thoughts swirl around, reforming and reorganizing themselves until they settle into something a bit more concrete. Typically, when I'm truly engrossed in my reading material, I hear nothing at all in my head. One piece of the article did mention something about "losing interest" when one isn't reading quickly enough. I don't know if that's quite true, but it might be in some ways. If I'm not interested in something to begin with, it's difficult to immerse myself in its texts. So I tend to speed-read and skim through stuff. By doing this, I've discovered that I eventually run into a spot somewhere that I AM interested in, and this in turn makes me backtrack again and figure out how the text was able to lead up to what caught my attention. So, in this case, speed reading does help me retain interest (or rather, develop it). And, I retain FAR more information when I'm interested in it, so that in turn helps me learn new things.

On the other hand, I tend to read even faster when I'm learning or interested, because I "need" to know more - such as what happens in a novel, or how someone came up with a particularly neat theory, that sort of thing. You don't get that with speech. Speech is so much more limited! The stuttering, pauses, and idle conversation as thoughts proceed with the caution of an experienced dog sniffing a porcupine... with writing, all that has been done already, and whatever is uninteresting to the reader can be skipped. I love the written word for exactly this reason. It's more efficient in so many ways.

So, I finished the article and then noted that the authour, Kim Roach, loves productivity and has her own blog called The Optimized Life. Ooh!! This sounds like someone who might enjoy efficiency as much as I do!! It's so wonderful to find writers I truly enjoy reading. To combine this joy with a subject I'm interested in is a true rarity.

Anywho, I'm off to play with Photoshop now...

~nv