As far as speed reading goes, I'm no champion, but I can honestly say that I read the original post and all of its responses (above my comment thus far in the thread) in about fifteen or twenty seconds. I used very minimal subvocalization-- the only words I really "hear out loud" in my head are words or phrases my brain picks out as key phrases at this point, which enhances memory of key concepts. This comes with many years of practice, and it starts with focusing on the ability to move from "point to point" in a body of text, as one of the posters noted (which happens to be one of the key phrases that my brain picked out and subvocalized to me).
I saw some concerns about comprehension, but I can assure you that one can comprehend enough key data to function well enough in the business world or stay abreast of news topics. I can look at a 500 word body of text and pick out a single typographical error on the page in about five seconds or less. This is an excellent skill to develop for proofreading purposes. I would not use this skill when studying key material for rote memorization purposes, except perhaps in the first reading thereof. However, when scanning a single body of text, or especially when an entire corpus of documents needs to be reviewed (and perhaps revised), it is an invaluable tool to have in your skillset.
Start off by focusing on the second word in from the left and right hand sides of the margin, and running your finger down the page as you go... from there, over a couple weeks of practice, you can start moving closer and closer to the center of the page. I find that in a five or six sentence paragraph my eye darts briefly to the top-left and then to the bottom-right of that paragraph, and grabs most of the relevant information as it passes by.
If you want to learn this skill pretty quickly, and a whole bunch of other really awesome life skills, Timothy Ferriss does a great job of teaching it (for free!) Do a Google search for "timothy ferriss speed reading" and you'll undoubtedly find a ton of YouTube videos, blog posts, etc. If that name seems familiar to anyone, it's probably because he's the author of "The Four Hour Work Week", and a very accomplished person in a staggeringly wide variety of disciplines.
Good luck, everyone!
~ Crates (cr8s.net) |