Speed readingFollow

More accuratly, I should have said Lines of text, or even blocks of text.

Nexa, a little of this through my news reading and any online reading during my week vacation will be a life saver for my upcoming lit class. A million thanks.

Yes!


The earliest books I remember this way were The Lord of the Rings. I could describe the entire story of TLOTR to my mother at 9 and she was blown away (Fond mothers and their strange adoration of their children, thinking they are unique in some way.) I told Mum it didn't really count, I DIDN'T have the entire TLOTR books memorised. I just had my own movie of it constructed in my head, and I could describe what what happened in the movie.

It's kind of a nice memory actually. It took a few sessions while she was making dinner on consecutive days, and I told her the story while we were chopping vegetables together, and she cooked. She still owns the same nice knives, but the old huge, wavy wooden chopping block has been retired.


Now that I think about it, that's probably one of the things that really irritates me when main protagonists aren't described... especially if their eye and hair colour aren't described. Because my movie has to run with a faceless, headless actor. I can just make it up, but I also find it annoying if it's described later, and I've gotten it "wrong", and I have to reconstruct the main actor all over again. It really puts a huge kink in my rhythm, as I try to get the visualisation going again, without it wavering back and forth between "old, wrong hero/ine", and "new, correct hero/ine".

I played around with spreeder for a bit and I was rather surprised at how much I could grasp with it flashing by at 500 words per minute. The only problem I had was missing words when I had to blink, but I still managed to grasp the meaning of the text I used.

I don't think it's all that irregular.

HATE THIS ******* LAPTOP!

Edited, Jul 29th 2008 6:22am by Katie

I find it funny that all of a sudden, everyone is a speed reader! And always did so naturally with no training! And that poor typing, spelling, and pronunciation is just a result of blazing reading speed.

Edited, Jul 29th 2008 8:35am by Kelvyquayo

Imagine a bunch of scifi geeks who participate in book club threads not being able to speed read!

I'll freely admit I probably read slowly in relation to my mental faculties. I know that I subvocalize. Sure, I can skim something quickly and get the gist of it, but I'd call that skimming, not speed reading.

But I also only read for personal enjoyment, and part of that - for me anyway - is poring over every line, making sure I don't miss a single word, and examining the language used itself, as well as the content.



Edit: see, I took so long reading and re-reading my post, I got beaten by Samira.



Edited, Jul 29th 2008 11:14am by trickybeck

I speed read bad fiction...like when they've sucked me in just enough to kinda care what happens to the characters and kinda want to know how it ends...but not enough to actually *read* the whole thing like I give a damn. Case in point, Robert Jordan or Terry Goodkind.

If I could speed read the rest of Lost, I'd ******* do it.

Nexa

It depends on how you read it, I guess. Some people read the words. I dont know why or how, but when I read fiction for pleasure, I end up seeing past the words, and visualize the scenes instead. If I read for 15 minutes or longer, the story becomes more of a movie than it does a book I'm holding. I no longer see the book, or the words at all. With that, I can't slow down, I'm unaware of really reading in the first place.

I've met one or two people who read like that, but everyone else has a hard time grasping that concept, and I have a hard time putting it into words that would effectively explain it. At least words I can pronounce correctly

It is, in the idea that one can always slow down on speed reading the they desire to. The majority might be able to. But my point was, when you are reading to the point you dont see the words on the page before you, how do you slow down?