Several times people have told me I’m an exceptionally fast reader. I notice if I’m in a group and we’re asked to read a sheet of paper (eg some training semina

Several times people have told me I’m an exceptionally fast reader. I notice if I’m in a group and we’re asked to read a sheet of paper (eg some training seminar) I’ll usually be done way ahead of everyone else. I vocalise everything. It’s usually a lot faster than you’d say it out loud though, probably if I tried to read out loud that fast I’d trip over words. The secret is rather boring: I’ve just read a lot. I rarely have problems recognising words, so that’s key. For many types of reading I also infer content a lot, and it seems like my brain completes sentences, then I’ll continue on and “jump back” if one of the words was not as expected. I very easily for those tricks where people write “gondolas in Vienna”, so my brain is obviously doing a lot of inference. I’ll often read the economist cover to cover, and I used to do the same with newspapers where I was young. Maybe reading every single word on such a variety of topics fixes the “surprised by words” category. My tip is: read thoroughly and carefully and vocalise, read enough and the speed will take care of itself.