While most people can read between 200 and 400 words per minute, speed readers manage to master three or four times that amount of text. Speed reading programs claim to teach participants how to read faster without reducing reading comprehension. However, research shows that this is not true. Fast readers can process more words per minute, but remember less of what they read compared to normal readers.
The only way to read faster is to read more, combined with expanding your vocabulary. The ability to read must be improved by effort, not tricks.
Forty years ago, Donald Homme, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University who specializes in memory and visual perception of linguistic stimuli, was contacted by officials of the American Academy of Speed Reading with a remarkable story. Two of their students achieved reading speeds in excess of 100,000 words per minute, which is more than ten times faster than their average student and more than 300 times faster than what college-educated adults can achieve (between 200 and 400 words per minute). . They wanted the professor to assess the incredible abilities of their students in a laboratory environment.
Curious, prof. Homa accepted with pleasure. In the lab, he assigned two men to read a high school textbook quickly and then take a multiple-choice test to assess their reading comprehension. After finishing the text in a few minutes, they took the test and absolutely failed. They didn’t seem to learn anything.
“The only noteworthy skill displayed by the two speed readers was exceptional page-turning dexterity,” Homa concluded.
Although this episode is admittedly anecdotal, it demonstrates what scientists learned early on about speed reading: it doesn’t work.
For more than half a century, all speed reading courses have promised to drastically speed up one’s reading ability without harming comprehension. Proponents argue that people can become fast readers if they learn to take in more words with fewer eye movements and by silencing their inner speech that accompanies reading.
Summarizing decades of research in an article published in 2016, a team of top cognitive scientists and linguists specializing in reading ability and visual perception debunked both of these principles of speed reading.
First, the way human vision works, including the structure of the eye itself, simply does not allow us to see words on the periphery of our field of vision with enough clarity to fully grasp their meaning. So the idea that whole blocks of words can be understood at first glance is meaningless. Moreover, experiments have repeatedly shown that the peripheral vision of a speed reader is no better than normal readers. It cannot be trained.
Second, silencing one’s inner reading voice may allow for faster input, but seems to come at the expense of comprehension. Sounds are key to language, so translating visual information into phonological (sound) form, even just in the head, is necessary for full understanding of written words.
Still, those behind speed reading programs point to data showing that their students’ reading speed improves while comprehension is maintained. Students are given an introductory and final test and overall improvement is noted. The authors of the 2016 report countered by claiming that these tests are bogus.
“Sometimes the pre-test is more difficult than the post-test, and other times the participants are tested multiple times on the same material. In either case, it is inevitable that they will perform better on the post-test simply because of the relative difficulty of the tests or because of repeated exposure to the material.”
When scientists have rigorously examined speed reading courses, they have repeatedly found that students do increase their reading speed, measured in words per minute, but this acceleration comes at the expense of comprehension. The faster people read, the less they remember what they read.
Today, there are apps that supposedly make speed reading easier. Most of them present the words of the text one by one in the same place, allowing the user to adjust the presentation speed. This method, called rapid serial visual presentation, allows the reader’s gaze to remain fixed—eliminating the supposedly wasteful need to scan from word to word. Unfortunately, these apps don’t work either. As users adjust the speed of text presentation, their comprehension declines.
So if speed reading is fake, is there a way to read faster? Yes, say the authors of a 2016 report. The answer is to read more, along with expanding your vocabulary. Such practice is admittedly time-consuming, but like many other skills that require hours and hours of repetition to perfect, the ability to read must be honed with effort.
Like a pianist who plays every day for years, a basketball player who shoots endlessly, or a pilot who spends thousands of hours in the air, expertise takes time. It cannot be learned through a 12 week training program.
Source: www.sitoireseto.com
