Speed Reading: Is it worth it?

[Nigel B]

I trained using the Paul Scheele course - it works, for fast gathering of facts, but not deep gathering of knowledge. Useful to decide whether something is worth a deep dive.

That said I use fast audio instead. I 'read' audiobooks primarily, often when driving. I have trained myself up to between 2-3X normal speed depending on the narrator. Initially this sounds like the Chipmunks - but your brain adjusts very quickly. I find I can absorb facts at the higher right in audio.

YMMV of course.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Everyman]

I trained using the Paul Scheele course - it works, for fast gathering of facts, but not deep gathering of knowledge. Useful to decide whether something is worth a deep dive.

I have been using this book - The Photoreading Whole Mind System by Paul Scheele.

I have to admit that it works for everything for me. He / someone else, advises not to use it for fiction books, as you don't want to know the end before you read the middle part (obvious).

But for learning is excellent. Might not work for everyone. Is worth giving a shot. You still need to contemplate what you have read, and also make notes, apply other techniques. But this one revolutionised reading for me, and of course makes the retarded school taught way of reading even more obsolete.

If you want numbers e.g. pages per second... it all depends how much effort you will put into practice. There is basically no limit...

It makes reading more pleasurable and exciting. It is fast, so you don't get bored as easy, and of course you stay focused longer and remember more (you don't fly away with thoughts...)... It's cheap enough to buy and try for a week.

 

[André Casal]

I'll preface this post with an acknowledgement: I realize that MJ and many established members of this forum advocate doing over getting caught in an endless reading cycle. This makes sense, but in the process of doing I'm sure many of us will have to do at least some reading/crash courses/etc.

This brings me to my question: Do any of you have experience with speed reading? Is learning about speed reading worth it? Can it cut down the learning curve and free up more time for doing?

I stumbled onto a Udemy speed reading course and I'm wondering if it's worth it.

If the point is to download knowledge faster, a much better alternative to speed reading is audiobooks because you get to listen during tasks that don't require your full attention like driving, working out, walking, jogging, commuting, washing dishes, folding clothes, traveling and so on.

I get to listen to an audiobook a week on average.

 

[Everyman]

If the point is to download knowledge faster, a much better alternative to speed reading is audiobooks because you get to listen during tasks that don't require your full attention like driving, working out, walking, jogging, commuting, washing dishes, folding clothes, traveling and so on.

I get to listen to an audiobook a week on average.

From my experience. When we do two things at a time, we don't do anyone of them good. And when we drive, we focus on driving. Obviously. I even stopped listening to music while at gym. I wanted my brain to focus 100% on the muscles I work on. See Arnold's advice.

It's a form of meditation. I advise to do only one thing at a time, and treat it as meditation. For me it worked much better, even if I spend less time. I get more out of it because it's quality time.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Lavern Muller]

Reading is worth, but what about correct pronounciation dude!
I mean this problem is with me of making incorrect pronounciation while reading too fast.

 

[HackVenture]

I assume you are talking about business books and the objective should be knowledge.

Go 80/20 and realize majority of the important information is in a minority of the number of words.

Learn to read fast yes but don't be afraid to slow down and take notes or digest when you come to a part that resonates with you.

 

[SJuan9]

I've been speed reading for a while, but I mostly tailor my speed to what am I reading and why. For skimming, pre-reading, or for a quick run-down on a book or article it is great. But for any type of deep, analytical or pleasure-type of reading, it simply doesn't work for me.

These are the books I used to get my reading and speed-reading developed in the last few years. I still review them from time to time

1. How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading [Mortimer J. Adler]
2. 10 Days to Faster Reading [The Princeton Language Institute]

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Anakalypsi]

Short: Speed read to find information that you're actively searching on for some reason. For deeply understanding something new or engaging with your creative part of your brain it is worthless.

 

[100k]

I dunno about speed reading, but I love to listen to audiobooks or podcasts at x2 speed.

Works like a charm with headphones.

 

[lewj24]

I highly recommend the book: Speed Reading For Dummies. The guy explains how it work and gives you things to practice.

It's hard and I haven't put in the work required to be good at it.

But speed Reading is not skimming.

Basically all it is is reading without having that voice inside your head read to you. Because that voice is too slow. You then can move your eyes quicker and start using your peripheral vision to read. And that doesn't just mean your left or right peripheral. That's the hardest part for me. Once you can read with your peripheral vision you start reading quicker because you need less eye fixations per page. When you're good you can read whole paragraphs with one or two eye fixations.

This increases reading speed which in turn increases comprehension because we can fit more information into our short term memory and connect more dots before our minds forget what we read.

So, for example, a speed reading god would read the above paragraph by looking at the center of it and read the whole thing instantly. (Maybe not on PC but on my phone the above paragraph is 5 lines with around 4 to 7 words in each line)

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Everyman]

Reading is worth, but what about correct pronounciation dude!
I mean this problem is with me of making incorrect pronounciation while reading too fast.

Why are you worried about pronunciation while reading? I am curious and actually don't understand.

For deeply understanding something new or engaging with your creative part of your brain it is worthless.

Why would you say that? I am asking because my experience is to the contrary. I am interested - is the method or something else?

 

[Tidder Jail]

I think it works for skimming. I am a slow reader if I want to immerse myself in the text. However if I want to speed read I just skim through by recognising every 4th or 6th word and am still able to follow the dialogue, then anything that looks interesting I can slow down and read the paragraph.

I take it that is what the course teaches? Have you tried looking for a YouTube video on speed reading? It will take a fraction of the time that a course will take.

The old trick of reading the back cover, intro, end, then using the index to focus on the areas of most interest are great ways of getting an abstract. There are also web sites that do a good job of dissecting the meat for lots of business related books.

www.blinkist.com for example.


Lots of ways to get though a book quickly. However often the more effort you put in the more you take from it. I recently read a book twice. Second time around with a highlighter and sticky labels. Then I went through a third time writing all the highlighted sections out into a word document and annotating them. Took ages but was worth all the effort.

I like to read books on kindle because it becomes easier to do what you did. You just highlight the text in kindle, export them, copy/paste to google docs and style it the way you want

 

[YoungPadawan]

I've studied speed reading pretty in depth in the past. Basically, what I've taken from it, is to first look at the table of contents to get a feeling of what will be in the book.

Then, when you are reading, you can kind of skim through parts that don't really apply currently to your life, and in the parts that you are interested, you can slow down and read at normal speed.

I've found the advice of 'reading diagonally' and 'reading two sentences at a time' and similar advice to be hogwash. Just look at the titles of the different sections and skim over the paragraphs as you normally would to get the gist of it.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.