new reading skills

[eternomi]

I definitely need to upgrade my reading skills. I am not bold enough to try photoreading, but I can see there is plenty of room for improvement even without photoreading.

For example, I repeatedly heard that having a little voice in your head do the reading outloud is not the way to go. It slows you down, decreases comprehension, etc. However, this is how I read and breaking away from it is amazingly difficult. If I just stare at the book, running my eyes along the lines, I don't comprehend anything. I have to have the little voice read outloud to start focusing on the content and understanding the material. I am not sure how to break away from this type of reading. Any ideas?

On the other hand, when I watch TV, there is no little voice narrating what I am seeing. Nor do I need this narration to understand what's going on.

How do I stop the little dude reading outloud in my head, and how do I comprehend without him??

Btw, is this what photoreading is?

[SamBeaven]

I recommend taking a look at Spreeder - it's a web-based speedreading tool where you can copy and paste some text into it and it'll give you one word at a time at a user-defined rate(I run it at 370 wpm at the moment, the default is 300). I find that if the words run past you at high speed it kills the subvocalizing, because you don't have time to do it.

[Dave Kaminski]

Speed Reading Test Online

Take this test, then read their tips. A computer program or a book are really good ways to start, and usually have good learning systems.

Some free articles

The software I used - I read 1000-1200 WPM

[RT Wolf]

I'm finding more benefit from the other parts of the photoreading system than from photoreading itself. Generally speaking though, the photoreading whole mind system has incorporated many of the better methods of understanding information in a book, including the concept of multiple passes through a book. That is, first, you flip through the book to get a better idea of what the book is about even before you begin, a short explorative pass. The next step is identifying how you want to approach the book further (if at all), that is, do you want to read it very deeply or superficially. Kinda hard to describe cause I'm tired, I'll try to organize my thoughts and get back to you.

In general though, there's the nuts and bolts of reading (or speed reading) and there's how you apply the nuts and bolts to get the greatest amount of information with the best comprehension for your needs.

If I recall correctly, the book named "How to Read A Book".

[eternomi]

It feels to me like I picked up the narrator style reading when I first started reading decades ago, but never dropped it after it was done being useful..

I try to compare it to learning a new language. When you first learn a language (or anything really), you first do things consciously and fully aware in your mind. Construct sentences one word at a time.. etc. Later this entire process becomes automatic. You just think of what information/feeling you want to convey and the sentence almost creates itself.

It seems as if I never made the jump to the automatic with reading. I still do it consciously and very slowly.

I'll try the software. Thank you!

[Andy]

I've been using Acereader for the past few weeks to help with reading faster. I notice that if I do some of the drills and then go read something, my eyes can seriously zip across each line while also comprehending it fine. But that ability seems to fade after awhile and I can't comprehend much while reading that fast. Overall though I'm seeing improvement, sub-vocalization is controllable now and my base reading speed has increased, so perhaps it just takes time to make this kind of reading a habit.

[Radek Pilich]

Originally Posted by SamBeaven

I recommend taking a look at Spreeder - it's a web-based speedreading tool where you can copy and paste some text into it and it'll give you one word at a time at a user-defined rate(I run it at 370 wpm at the moment, the default is 300). I find that if the words run past you at high speed it kills the subvocalizing, because you don't have time to do it.

HoooHooo this is IT, great tool man, thanks a lot. Will use it a lot for my native language articles :] Presently I can read 500 WPM with it. Once again, THANKS!