6 ms·

I read quickly and have the same retention rate (or better) than most people I've interacted with. I don't do any of the tricky stuff that 'speed readers' do.

I read quickly and have the same retention rate (or better) than most people I've interacted with. I don't do any of the tricky stuff that 'speed readers' do. The only thing I'm aware is different is I don't hear the words in my head when I read as I'm often 'reading' a chunk of 3-4 words at once. I thought this was completely normal til I spoke to an ex about it when she commented I demolished books.

7952 7y ago
A family member is deaf and does exactly the same thing. He never learned to read aloud so never got into the habit. He reads ridiculously fast.
falcolas 7y ago
Yeah, based on a very informal survey I’ve seen on some reading-related subreddits, the biggest difference between fast and slow readers was whether they subvocalized or not. I fall in the “not” category (the average-sized book is a 3-4 hour length for me), but I will occasionally intentionally subvocalize, just to slow myself down a bit.
- dbmueller 7y ago
  Is this categorization (subvocalizers vs others) backed up by research? Can on learn not to subvocalize?
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    I suspect so, as almost everyone starts off as an out-loud vocalizer when they're first learning to read.
    - gowld 7y ago
      This is a _fantastic_ example of sampling bias. You simply have no idea when small children are reading silently. You assume they aren't reading until they vocalize, and then when they stop vocalizing you change your assumption to assume they are still reading even though you can't hear it.
      - pessimizer 7y ago
        I never knew that anyone subvocalized until I ran into theories that subvocalization was required for reading.
  - someguy345 7y ago
    I would consider whether you really want to. I'm someone who seems to have naturally not sub-vocalized for most of my life or at least if I did it was like a robotic voice fast talking in my head, I guess I would actually sound the words in my head but much faster than a person talking and in a way that did not help me develop a feel for inflection, etc. I have always been able to read faster than an average person but the last couple years has opened my eyes to a lot of communication issues I have had, basically my default has been that when I talked to people it would always seem very low energy and without much emotion or inflection and it has had a very negative impact on my social life, among other things. In the last couple years I've started learning a second language, in which I find it much easier to read if I do sub-vocalize at a normal human pace and I've also started pushing myself to record myself talking about various topics in English and to work on my communication skills overall. I've now started sub-vocalizing when I read in English as well and I'm noticing overall improvements in my life like being able to have more expressive and natural conversations with people. I'm sure reading without it has its places when you really need to speed read but I'm not sure a goal of never sub vocalizing is ideal.
- cnasc 7y ago
  > I fall in the “not” category (the average-sized book is a 3-4 hour length for me), but I will occasionally intentionally subvocalize, just to slow myself down a bit. This is what I do, though sometimes it's a second pass over a passage that I want to savor or really focus deeply on.
  - noir_lord 7y ago
    Similar to re-reading a passage I go back and re-read books I really like 3-4 times (and a few many more than that). I've read all of the Discworld novels at least 3 times and a few like Hogfather more than a dozen (I re-read it ever Christmas). Reading is one of lives truly great pleasures and it's one of lifes most democratic.
- dorfsmay 7y ago
  I'm an extremely slow reader. I read probably most books about this subject, but am unable to absorb material if I don't subvocalize.i see words, chunk of words, but they don't connect to each other and I get no meaning. I've wondered if this is one of those thing that if you have not learned how to do it before a certain age, your brain can no longer learn it, like seeing in stereo etc...
  - noir_lord 7y ago
    It could be, I was really slow to learn to read (and I mean slow, I nearly ended up in remedial classes) until I got exceptionally lucky in having a teacher who realised my issue wasn't capability it was boredom and who was willing to give up her lunch time to introduce me to books that were engaging (I still remember the first 'proper' book I read, 'Goodnight Mister Tom' by Michelle Magorian - The critical point was when I wanted to know what happened next and began (laboriously) reading it at home so I could find out) - at 7 I had the reading ability of a slow 5 year old by 8 I was reading books typically read in school by 16 year olds. Once I found books and authors I liked I became a voracious reader, from eight to adulthood it wasn't unusual for me to have 3-4 books on the go at once and to read 3-4 books in a week all the classic works of sci-fi, books on science, computers, geography, history, politics, biology I was a sponge, I'd read almost anything - I used to read while walking to and from school, I walked into surprisingly few lamp posts. The more I read the less I vocalised the words in my head, I started with pointing at each word (as most kids do) and then I stopped doing that, then I started looking at the word shape rather than the word and not vocalising it at all, it wasn't anything conscious just a natural progression. In a very profound sense that teacher and my mum altered the scope of my life for the next 30 years, the teacher by realising I just needed the time and the right material and my mum for scouring charity shops/2nd hand book shops to keep me fed with books as money was tight (bless her, she used to keep a list in her purse of all the authors I liked, what books they had written and which I'd read).
  - gowld 7y ago
    It's also possible that people who don't subvocalize aren't absorbing as much.
imjustsaying 7y ago
I read words aloud in my head. However, I remember reading words as fast as possible almost like an auctioneer when we would break up into reading groups in elementary school. My classmates thought it was hilarious but when the teacher came by, she would tell me not to read so fast. So I switched the extra processing power to making context-appropriate inflections, dramatizations, and intonations instead of the monotone my classmates were doing, which the teachers seemed to tolerate.
- cecilpl2 7y ago
  > context-appropriate inflections, dramatizations, and intonations I do this too, and other people often comment on how well I read out loud. I often find myself buffering words into vocalization while I read ahead a line or so and prepare the next sentence. I can insert pauses (or intone a clause as an aside) to make it easier for the listener to parse. What tricks do you have?
  - jacobolus 7y ago
    I have been reading kids books aloud for maybe 2 hours per day for the past 2 years (to an almost-3 year old), and at this point I can do a pretty decent read-aloud including voices etc. while also considering some unrelated technical problem in my head. The catch is that if I am thinking about something else simultaneously then what I am reading aloud doesn’t make it into memory; I can read for 20 minutes and then suddenly realize that I have no idea what happened in the story. The reading is on autopilot.
- gowld 7y ago
  You comment seems a bit defensive about your teacher inspiring you to improve your reading performance skills. Your teacher probably tolerated monotone because your classmates were working hard just to get the words out, and they weren't ready to add inflection. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjtPMiumixA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjtPMiumixA Don't Read Like a Robot - Blazer Fresh | GoNoodle
  - imjustsaying 7y ago
saberience 7y ago
I often hear people boasting about their "speed reading" skills and then I ask them what sort of books they read, turns out speed reading and having "good retention rate" is easy if you're reading crap. I could also speed read Clive Cussler, Stephen King, and JK Rowling. I love Philosophy and classic literature and I've yet to meet anyone that's managed to speed read Proust's "In Search of Lost Time", and then tell give me a detailed description of the plot, themes, artistic merit, and so on. Similarly with books like Ulysses. There's no possible way to speed read that book because it's so rich with allusions, references to religion, art, mythology, and philosophy. If you tried to "speed read" it, you would be missing half the point of reading it in the first place. Reading great books isn't about numbers, you don't get rewarded for how many classics you read in a year. Reading great books is about slowly absorbing all the riches inside, something that just cannot happen if you're rushing. I've read The Brothers Karamazov and The Magic Mountain 4 or 5 times and each time I learn something new and gain a deeper understanding of psychology and life. I find it more rewarding to read and re-read the classics slowly, writing notes, using a critical guide (or book of companion essays), than smashing through as many crappy novels or modern popular non-fiction books (The Power of Now of any of Malcom Gladwells books are typical fodder for todays readers).
- nickthemagicman 7y ago
  I completely agree. I can read incredibly fast however I've attenuated my reading speed over time to appreciate richness of text and think deeply about the ideas that are being communicated. At some point the actual technical part of reading becomes trivial and the ideas become what's important.
- qwsxyh 7y ago
  This is legitimately the most pretentious HN comment I've ever read, and that's a very high bar. I too dismiss things that people enjoy as "crap" because I have such a gigantic brain from reading philosophy and looking down everyone else, and belittle them for believing that they read and understand fast in the wrong type of book.
  - saberience 7y ago
paulpauper 7y ago
I think it's highly correlated with IQ. It happens that people with higher IQs read faster and and have better comprehension as demonstrated, for example, = by verbal score on the SAT.
- le3dh4x0r 7y ago
  IQ is a highly outdated concept and making wild assumptions about correlation unscientific. Reading becomes more effortless with practice.
  - noir_lord 7y ago
    In my experience (which isn't data) the correlation is weak at best, I know people I consider much smarter than me who read slower (my boss for example, he has advanced degrees in industrial chemistry and is ridiculously smart) That and people over-estimate my intelligence because I know about lots of random things, they think I'm smart because of that but they could have done exactly the same thing if they'd chosen to which feeds nicely into nature vs nurture I guess. I got hooked on books and my mum fed that addiction, that they didn't is the only difference. It helps that the perception of computer programmers is that we are geeky but do something that is incredibly difficult (when I know the reality is except for certain domains, you really don't need much math beyond arithmetic and the rest is conscientious attention to detail and explaining the problem simply to a really high speed idiot).
wodenokoto 7y ago
> I don't do any of the tricky stuff that 'speed readers' do. The only thing I'm aware is different is I don't hear the words in my head when I read as I'm often 'reading' a chunk of 3-4 words at once. That IS the tricky stuff speed readers do.

7952 7y ago

A family member is deaf and does exactly the same thing. He never learned to read aloud so never got into the habit. He reads ridiculously fast.

falcolas 7y ago

Yeah, based on a very informal survey I’ve seen on some reading-related subreddits, the biggest difference between fast and slow readers was whether they subvocalized or not. I fall in the “not” category (the average-sized book is a 3-4 hour length for me), but I will occasionally intentionally subvocalize, just to slow myself down a bit.

dbmueller 7y ago
Is this categorization (subvocalizers vs others) backed up by research? Can on learn not to subvocalize?
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  I suspect so, as almost everyone starts off as an out-loud vocalizer when they're first learning to read.
  - gowld 7y ago
    This is a _fantastic_ example of sampling bias. You simply have no idea when small children are reading silently. You assume they aren't reading until they vocalize, and then when they stop vocalizing you change your assumption to assume they are still reading even though you can't hear it.
    - pessimizer 7y ago
      I never knew that anyone subvocalized until I ran into theories that subvocalization was required for reading.
- someguy345 7y ago
  I would consider whether you really want to. I'm someone who seems to have naturally not sub-vocalized for most of my life or at least if I did it was like a robotic voice fast talking in my head, I guess I would actually sound the words in my head but much faster than a person talking and in a way that did not help me develop a feel for inflection, etc. I have always been able to read faster than an average person but the last couple years has opened my eyes to a lot of communication issues I have had, basically my default has been that when I talked to people it would always seem very low energy and without much emotion or inflection and it has had a very negative impact on my social life, among other things. In the last couple years I've started learning a second language, in which I find it much easier to read if I do sub-vocalize at a normal human pace and I've also started pushing myself to record myself talking about various topics in English and to work on my communication skills overall. I've now started sub-vocalizing when I read in English as well and I'm noticing overall improvements in my life like being able to have more expressive and natural conversations with people. I'm sure reading without it has its places when you really need to speed read but I'm not sure a goal of never sub vocalizing is ideal.
cnasc 7y ago
> I fall in the “not” category (the average-sized book is a 3-4 hour length for me), but I will occasionally intentionally subvocalize, just to slow myself down a bit. This is what I do, though sometimes it's a second pass over a passage that I want to savor or really focus deeply on.
- noir_lord 7y ago
  Similar to re-reading a passage I go back and re-read books I really like 3-4 times (and a few many more than that). I've read all of the Discworld novels at least 3 times and a few like Hogfather more than a dozen (I re-read it ever Christmas). Reading is one of lives truly great pleasures and it's one of lifes most democratic.
dorfsmay 7y ago
I'm an extremely slow reader. I read probably most books about this subject, but am unable to absorb material if I don't subvocalize.i see words, chunk of words, but they don't connect to each other and I get no meaning. I've wondered if this is one of those thing that if you have not learned how to do it before a certain age, your brain can no longer learn it, like seeing in stereo etc...
- noir_lord 7y ago
  It could be, I was really slow to learn to read (and I mean slow, I nearly ended up in remedial classes) until I got exceptionally lucky in having a teacher who realised my issue wasn't capability it was boredom and who was willing to give up her lunch time to introduce me to books that were engaging (I still remember the first 'proper' book I read, 'Goodnight Mister Tom' by Michelle Magorian - The critical point was when I wanted to know what happened next and began (laboriously) reading it at home so I could find out) - at 7 I had the reading ability of a slow 5 year old by 8 I was reading books typically read in school by 16 year olds. Once I found books and authors I liked I became a voracious reader, from eight to adulthood it wasn't unusual for me to have 3-4 books on the go at once and to read 3-4 books in a week all the classic works of sci-fi, books on science, computers, geography, history, politics, biology I was a sponge, I'd read almost anything - I used to read while walking to and from school, I walked into surprisingly few lamp posts. The more I read the less I vocalised the words in my head, I started with pointing at each word (as most kids do) and then I stopped doing that, then I started looking at the word shape rather than the word and not vocalising it at all, it wasn't anything conscious just a natural progression. In a very profound sense that teacher and my mum altered the scope of my life for the next 30 years, the teacher by realising I just needed the time and the right material and my mum for scouring charity shops/2nd hand book shops to keep me fed with books as money was tight (bless her, she used to keep a list in her purse of all the authors I liked, what books they had written and which I'd read).
- gowld 7y ago
  It's also possible that people who don't subvocalize aren't absorbing as much.

imjustsaying 7y ago

I read words aloud in my head. However, I remember reading words as fast as possible almost like an auctioneer when we would break up into reading groups in elementary school. My classmates thought it was hilarious but when the teacher came by, she would tell me not to read so fast. So I switched the extra processing power to making context-appropriate inflections, dramatizations, and intonations instead of the monotone my classmates were doing, which the teachers seemed to tolerate.

cecilpl2 7y ago
> context-appropriate inflections, dramatizations, and intonations I do this too, and other people often comment on how well I read out loud. I often find myself buffering words into vocalization while I read ahead a line or so and prepare the next sentence. I can insert pauses (or intone a clause as an aside) to make it easier for the listener to parse. What tricks do you have?
- jacobolus 7y ago
  I have been reading kids books aloud for maybe 2 hours per day for the past 2 years (to an almost-3 year old), and at this point I can do a pretty decent read-aloud including voices etc. while also considering some unrelated technical problem in my head. The catch is that if I am thinking about something else simultaneously then what I am reading aloud doesn’t make it into memory; I can read for 20 minutes and then suddenly realize that I have no idea what happened in the story. The reading is on autopilot.
gowld 7y ago
You comment seems a bit defensive about your teacher inspiring you to improve your reading performance skills. Your teacher probably tolerated monotone because your classmates were working hard just to get the words out, and they weren't ready to add inflection. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjtPMiumixA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjtPMiumixA Don't Read Like a Robot - Blazer Fresh | GoNoodle
- imjustsaying 7y ago

saberience 7y ago

I often hear people boasting about their "speed reading" skills and then I ask them what sort of books they read, turns out speed reading and having "good retention rate" is easy if you're reading crap. I could also speed read Clive Cussler, Stephen King, and JK Rowling. I love Philosophy and classic literature and I've yet to meet anyone that's managed to speed read Proust's "In Search of Lost Time", and then tell give me a detailed description of the plot, themes, artistic merit, and so on. Similarly with books like Ulysses. There's no possible way to speed read that book because it's so rich with allusions, references to religion, art, mythology, and philosophy. If you tried to "speed read" it, you would be missing half the point of reading it in the first place. Reading great books isn't about numbers, you don't get rewarded for how many classics you read in a year. Reading great books is about slowly absorbing all the riches inside, something that just cannot happen if you're rushing. I've read The Brothers Karamazov and The Magic Mountain 4 or 5 times and each time I learn something new and gain a deeper understanding of psychology and life. I find it more rewarding to read and re-read the classics slowly, writing notes, using a critical guide (or book of companion essays), than smashing through as many crappy novels or modern popular non-fiction books (The Power of Now of any of Malcom Gladwells books are typical fodder for todays readers).

nickthemagicman 7y ago
I completely agree. I can read incredibly fast however I've attenuated my reading speed over time to appreciate richness of text and think deeply about the ideas that are being communicated. At some point the actual technical part of reading becomes trivial and the ideas become what's important.
qwsxyh 7y ago
This is legitimately the most pretentious HN comment I've ever read, and that's a very high bar. I too dismiss things that people enjoy as "crap" because I have such a gigantic brain from reading philosophy and looking down everyone else, and belittle them for believing that they read and understand fast in the wrong type of book.
- saberience 7y ago

paulpauper 7y ago

I think it's highly correlated with IQ. It happens that people with higher IQs read faster and and have better comprehension as demonstrated, for example, = by verbal score on the SAT.

le3dh4x0r 7y ago
IQ is a highly outdated concept and making wild assumptions about correlation unscientific. Reading becomes more effortless with practice.
- noir_lord 7y ago
  In my experience (which isn't data) the correlation is weak at best, I know people I consider much smarter than me who read slower (my boss for example, he has advanced degrees in industrial chemistry and is ridiculously smart) That and people over-estimate my intelligence because I know about lots of random things, they think I'm smart because of that but they could have done exactly the same thing if they'd chosen to which feeds nicely into nature vs nurture I guess. I got hooked on books and my mum fed that addiction, that they didn't is the only difference. It helps that the perception of computer programmers is that we are geeky but do something that is incredibly difficult (when I know the reality is except for certain domains, you really don't need much math beyond arithmetic and the rest is conscientious attention to detail and explaining the problem simply to a really high speed idiot).

wodenokoto 7y ago

> I don't do any of the tricky stuff that 'speed readers' do. The only thing I'm aware is different is I don't hear the words in my head when I read as I'm often 'reading' a chunk of 3-4 words at once. That IS the tricky stuff speed readers do.