Are You A Slow Reader Or A Speed Reader?

Have you ever figured out your reading speed?

Have you ever figured out your reading speed? If you haven’t stop right here. Get hold of a watch and time yourself as you read this article till you see the word STOP.

Your time starts now.

Why is reading speed so important? Because the information glut of our times is a serious barrier to professional performance. A recent study by the Xerox Corporation determined that one must read at least 1,000,000 words (in print or on the net) per week just to stay abreast of new information. That’s 142,857 words a day.

Yet, the average reading speed is only about 200 words per minute.  So it would take the average reader close to 12 hours of reading a day at 200 words a minute, i.e. over 4,000 hours a year to read that much! Who has the time for that much reading? Do you?

Strange as it may sound, we have never really been taught how to read, after the basic lessons when we start school. But most people can increase their reading speed without reducing their comprehension. 

And effective readers enjoy better grades during education, competitive examinations and advance further in their careers.

So what prevents us from reading quickly? Here are the basic reasons:

1. Articulation (movements of the lips and tongue while reading to oneself) :
 A child first learning to read examines each letter, reads each     syllable, pronounces each word, follows along a line with his finger and skips back and forth as he tries to understand what he’s reading.If this habit of pronouncing the text persists, text is read not only with the eyes, but also with the “ears and lips”. As the child grows up, the movements of the lips and tongue could get hidden externally, but might continue mentally as “internal speech”. This child will be a slow reader all his life.

2. Narrow field of sight : 
“Field of sight” is the number of characters precisely seen by the eyes in one moment of sight. In traditional reading, when a few letters, or at best, two to three words are perceived, the field of sight is not wide enough. Therefore, the eyes have to make many jumps and stops. A wider field of sight enables more letters and words to be simultaneously seen at every stop of the eye. This results in fewer halts on a page, and therefore, a better reading rate.

3. Back-skipping 
In slow reading, there are involuntary back-skipping movements of the eyes and repeated reading of the same text. A reader usually makes 10 to 15 back-skipping motions for every 100 words. Without realizing it, some people read every section of text - easy and difficult - twice just to make sure they have comprehended the text. This will obviously reduce reading speed.

4. Absence of attention
A slow reader’s attention often wanders. So large fragments are sometimes read mechanically, without understanding their meaning. Speed reading actually contributes to better comprehension while slow reading works in the reverse.

5.     Reading Culture :
Francis Bacon put it best -
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”

STOP

How many seconds did you take to read upto this point? Now divide 644 (the number of words) by the number of seconds and multiply by 60 to get your reading speed in words per minute (wpm).

Send us your reading speed and the number of seconds you took to graymatter@hindustantimes.com with the subject line “Reading Speed”. We will review the results next week and tell you how to improve your reading speed.

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Thought for the Week

“Reading is to the mind 
what exercise is to the body.”
Joseph Addison
(Essayist, Poet, Dramatist & Statesman, 1672-1719)
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First published in Gray Matter - The Hindustan Times