Misplaced Pages

Speed reading

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 144.214.54.82 (talk) at 08:11, 22 December 2004. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 08:11, 22 December 2004 by 144.214.54.82 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Speed reading or RRT (rapid reading training) is purported to vastly improve reading speed (at rates exceeding 1000 words per minute) with full comprehension. However, courses and books on speed reading, often sold through popular psychology literature, promote skimming habits rather than reading ability.

It is possible to adopt skimming skills within a few minutes without having to enroll in a course. However, skimming and scanning is a dangerous habit to foster as it severely reduces comprehension.

Speed reading courses and tests utilize skimming questionnaires rather than standardized reading comprehension 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.

A speed reader, or super reader, is someone who speed reads and/or advocates the use of speed reading. At best, they can be considered as experienced skimmers who claim to be able to read at superhuman rates (more than 1-10,000 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.


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.


See also

External links

Category: