How Can I inrease My Reading Speed???

[Red Terror]

I read a few self-help books about how to eliminate or rather reduce sub-vocalization and the use of a "regulator" to fix your reading speed at a quicker pace. I read that Harold Bloom can read 500 pages in an hour --- now that is an extreme feat. How do you guys fare with your reading speed? As for myself, I can read about 20-30 pages in one hour. I like to savor the words and try to be attentive to what the author is doing and the story and characters. Any thoughts???

[ennison]

Read aloud. Read while listening to a recording. The second suggestion would only work if sustained. Personally I can see no real value in reading quickly. I read voraciously as a child but now I read in bursts.

[Dreamwoven]

I've never measured my reading speed, this website is about that: http://www.irisreading.com/speed-reading-tips-5-ways-to-minimize-subvocalization/

[EvoWarrior5]

I am currently not happy with my reading speed. I purchased a book several months ago, The Speed Reading Book by Tony Buzan. I have read almost half of it but it has been a while since I used it. It looks very helpful so I am still planning on trying to get the most out of it, but I have not gotten down to it since a while.

[YesNo]

I've found that for myself it doesn't matter how fast I read. What matters is the subjective pleasure or the increased understanding that occurs while I'm reading. A computer "reads" very fast, but there is no subjectivity involved when bytes are read from the internet and displayed on a screen.

However, when I was very young my uncle brought me a tool that was supposed to help me read faster by not vocalizing the words, but just looking at them as if they were images. I tried it but I don't think it improved my reading speed much. Ultimately I think sound is critical for understanding and it takes time to vocalize (even if silently in the mind) the words on a page. Even an image needs to go through a mental vocalization to be meaningful. That process takes time and the subjective pleasure and understanding that results is the reward.

[YesNo]

I was thinking about this thread when I woke up this morning. Trying to read faster is an attempt to increase the benefit from reading by improving our skill at reading. However, we have gone way beyond the need for that. We have computers today that rapidly "read", process and store in "memory" texts for us. We organize those computers to increase our subjective benefit. We have many-fold multiplied our ability to consume more texts. It is just not by personally reading faster.

[Dreamwoven]

Red Terror, I don't think you need to increase your reading speed as an end in itself. I guess as a tactic it is OK to do for an exam, if you are working to a deadline, but as a lifelong pursuit I would not recommend it. We all age, and your reading will also slow down with time. Read literature you enjoy and forget about speed-reading.

Good luck!