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Speed reading or rapid reading is a selective reading process in which a reader improves their reading speed while attempting to retain as much comprehension of the text as possible. This is especially helpful when looking for specific information. Some courses and books on speed reading, often sold through popular psychology literature, promote skimming habits rather than reading ability. While skimming increases reading speed it does not help in retaining information.

Someone who speed reads and/or advocates the use of speed reading is called a speed reader, or super reader.

History

The psychologists and educational specialists working on the visual acuity question devised what was later to become an adopted icon of early speed reading courses, the tachistoscope. The tachistoscope is a machine designed to flash images at varying rates on a screen. The experiment started with large pictures of aircraft being displayed for participants. The images were gradually reduced in size and the flashing-rate was increased. They found that, with training, an average person could identify minute images of different planes when flashed on the screen for only one-five-hundredth of a second. The results had implications for reading, and thus began the research into the area of reading improvement.

Using the same methodology, the U.S. Air Force soon discovered that they could flash four words simultaneously on the screen at rates of one five-hundredth of a second, with full recognition by the reader. This training demonstrated clearly that, with some work, reading speeds could be increased from rauding rates to skimming rates. Not only could they be increased but the improvements were made by improving visual processing. Therefore, the next step was to train eye-movements by means of a variety of pacing techniques in an attempt to improve reading. The reading courses that followed used the tachistoscope to increase reading speeds, and assumed that readers were able to increase their effective speeds from 200 to 400 words per minute using the machine. The drawback to the tachistoscope was that post-course timings showed that, without the machine, speed increases rapidly diminished.

Following the tachistoscope discoveries, Harvard University Business School produced the first film-aided course, designed to widen the reader’s field of focus in order to increase reading speed. Again, the focus was on visual processing as a means of improvement. Using machines to increase people's reading speeds was the trend of the 1940s. While it had been assumed that reading speed increases of 100% were possible and had been attained, lasting results had yet to be demonstrated. It was not until the late 1950s that a portable, reliable and 'handy' device would be developed as a tool for promoting reading speed increases.

The researcher this time was a school-teacher with a passion for underachievers and reading, named Evelyn Wood. Not only did she revolutionize the area of speed reading, but she committed her life to the advancement of reading and learning development. Her revolutionary discovery came about somewhat by accident. She had been committed to understanding why some people were natural speed readers, and was trying to force herself to read very quickly. While brushing off the pages of the book she had thrown down in despair, she discovered, quite accidentally, that the sweeping motion of her hand across the page caught the attention of her eyes, and helped them move more smoothly across the page.

That was the day she utilised the hand as a pacer, and called it the Wood Method. Not only did Mrs. Wood use her hand-pacing method, but she combined it with all of the other knowledge she had discovered from her research about reading and learning, and she introduced a revolutionary new method of learning, called Reading Dynamics in 1958.

More recently speed reading courses and books have been developed promising the consumer even higher increases in reading speed at high comprehension. Using pseudoscience principles, they have even claimed to be able to extract meaning out of consciously unnoticed text from the para-conciousness or subconscious. These courses go by various titles such as photo-reading (1994), mega-speedreading (1997) and alpha-netics (1999). They tend to be accompanied with the sale of expensive electronic machinery, or mind altering accessories. Reading experts refer to them as snake oil reading lessons due to their high dependence on the suspension of the consumer’s belief.

Speed vs. memory

At best, speed readers can be considered experienced skimmers who claim to be able to read at superhuman rates (sometimes 1000-10,000 words per minute). When tested for comprehension on both light and comprehension dependent material such speed reading experts claims have been found to be false.

Speed reading courses and tests utilize skimming questionnaires rather than standardized reading comprehension tests in order to claim an improvement in reading speed and comprehension. Current empirical research into reading, and common sense, suggests that to improve comprehension, a reader would be sensible to slow down their rate of reading. When comprehension is not the goal, skimming and scanning can be cautiously applied.

Topics in speed reading

• Regression
• Fixation
• Skimming
• Rauding
• Subvocalization
• Vision span
• Meta Guiding Systems
• Vertical reading technique

See also

• Mind sport

References

• Reading Rate: A Review of Research and Theory. (1990) Professor Ronald P. Carver.
• Nell, V. (1988). The psychology of reading for pleasure. Needs and gratifications. Reading Research Quarterly, 23(1), 6-50
• Homa, D (1983) An assessment of two “extraordinary” speed-readers. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 21(2), 123-126.

External links

• Suggestions for improving reading speed
• SpeedReader - a free speed reading software
• RocketReader - commercial speed reading software - 14 day free trial
• speedreading.com - RocketReader-affiliated speed reading resources

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• Mind sports