Will speed reading affect our learning?

[finandom]

Hi, I'm Harrison and this is the first post for me in this forum.

Recently, I found that I'm lack of knowledge and wish to catch up by reading book. I set a goal to read 1 book per week, however, I fail for first 2 weeks. Since I just allocate a few hours per day for reading, I think I need to increase the speed of reading.

Then I came across the words "Speed reading" and also "Photo reading" from Steve's Blog. I just curious that will speed reading affect my learning?

I have 2 goals for my reading:

1. I want to learn and get information to improve myself
2. I want to learn how to write and present my idea properly in words (English is not my mother-tongue, and I hope by reading books, I can improve my English writing)

So my question again: Will Speed reading affect my learning?

Thanks

[Shamou]

Hello and welcome aboard ********...

I am a slow... and I mean slow reader... when I read a book, I want to get all that the author has to say... some books have been with me for decades and have been read a great many times...

It is not how fast you read or how many books that you read... it's how much you do get out of it...

Just think about it... would you want to be operated upon by a brain surgeon who speed read his way through medical school...???

.

[Matthew Shea]

Theoretically, speed reading should improve your retention of the ideas presented in the book. I doubt it'll have any impact on your English skills, though. Most speed reading techniques, Photo Reading included, focus on skipping over non-critical text in favor of reading only that which presents the important points. That makes for less to sort through and your mind should retain the info better.

To improve your writing, you should write more. Reading at a normal pace can help familiarize you with proper syntaxes, but unless you're actually writing on a regular basis, your skills won't improve much.

[absvan]

I am not a photo reader but I have seen Paul Scheele's demonstration on video.

So my answer to you is that it depends on the purpose. If your purpose is to gain information/knowledge, then photo reading should help you. But I dont think photo reading a novel/fiction will be beneficial, because the whole point of reading then is to enjoy the novel.

I dont know if photo reading will help you improve your language. Something to be experimented......As mentioed in the previous post, you need to write to improve your writing skills.

Worst case - If photo reading does not give you anything from the book, read it the normal way

[Jes]

I spent a few days once researching speed reading, and I came to the conclusion that it is (mostly) a myth. Your reading speed CAN be improved significantly, but some of the speeds advertised by these photo reading companies are just BS. I wouldn't give up the idea completely, but be verrry skeptical when shopping around for any sort of program or class.

[Brutha]

@Jes: Speed Reading and Photoreading are names for two different concepts.

[finandom]

Originally Posted by Matthew Shea

To improve your writing, you should write more. Reading at a normal pace can help familiarize you with proper syntaxes, but unless you're actually writing on a regular basis, your skills won't improve much.

Yes I always write, in fact I write for my blog and internet marketing. I have improved my skill a lot since I started my blog 2 years ago. (My family and friends told me on this)

Originally Posted by absvan

Worst case - If photo reading does not give you anything from the book, read it the normal way

I agree with you. I think I should run a test on this for 1 month. Maybe in the whole June of 2007, I read everything in speed reading. Let's see what is the results after that. I think this will be a great experience for me. Anyway, thanks for the idea.

[matans]

I'd like to negate something mentioned earlier in this thread. Speed reading is used to read a book twice in two thirds of the time it would take a normal person read it once. So a brain surgeon would typically skim through the book once without grasping every word, and then progress to reading every word, thus covering everything and ending up with better retention. The person who implied speed reading important material is slopy just isn't aware that the way reading is taught in school actually blocks your brain from processing the information you read efficiently, or as efficiently as you can, unless you are a natural speed reader, and that it develops your speed AND your retention and comprehension. If the surgeon finishes learning the book faster, he has more time to read the next book.

All that given that you train yourself, since it is not a magic trick, but a matter of training, the same as you train in a sport.

now, relating to the original question on this thread - I think that speed reading is most relevant for you mother tongue language. But I would learn it anyway because as you learn English more and more you will be able to gradually benefit from this skill in English as well.

[finandom]

Originally Posted by matans

now, relating to the original question on this thread - I think that speed reading is most relevant for you mother tongue language. But I would learn it anyway because as you learn English more and more you will be able to gradually benefit from this skill in English as well.

Hi Matans, thanks for your comment. Your words really motivated me.