In my early twenties I read that the human eye naturally tracks laterally in a jerky motion and that using a cursor helps train the eye to follow sentences smoo

In my early twenties I read that the human eye naturally tracks laterally in a jerky motion and that using a cursor helps train the eye to follow sentences smoothly over a book's pages. It was postulated that the gaps caused by the jerkiness were sapping the speed of information intake and that the smoother motion allowed larger batches of information to be "gulped". I began using a simple coffee stir stick. After a few months of initially difficult adjustment my speed reading superpower was born, which served me very well through university and my career. I recall sadly that my early school teachers used to scold kids who used their fingers, pencils, etc. to read. Those kids were onto something and lost a valuable life skill, I think.