When you speed read

When you speed read, do you look at all the words, or just the keywords?



his is a question that one of my students recently asked me. If you are new to speed reading, it is a very good question to ask. In this month's article, I will explain what I do when I speed read. If you are a speed reader, you can compare your experience with mine.

When we read, our eyes tend to stop on longer words, rather than shorter ones. We must be anticipating where the next stop is going to be, whenever our eyes pause to see. I recognise the shape of the words and process them as groups of words. I know I see all the words when I speed read. The short, common words matter. A preposition can change the whole meaning of a phrase. For example, the meaning of 'get' changes dramatically. (Get on, get out, get in, get over, etc.) One of the key things I look out for are negatives, such as no, not and short form n't in particular. The shape of the words is important. People don't like reading material that is entirely written in capital letters for that reason. It makes it much harder to recognise the shape of the words if all the letters are the same height.

A good speed reader will hold more words in working memory. Recognising the shape of the words and processing them in groups is the key to developing the skill. It also improves comprehension. The speed reader can hold more of the sentence in working memory and can make better decisions about it.
I think about reading as a whole paragraph process. Firstly, I am searching for that main idea. I don't necessarily read in linear sequence. It is more about mentally putting areas of text together. The details attach themselves to the topic. Over the years, I have also come to appreciate the importance of the examples for memory. Often they are recall prompts for the concept. It is essential to have an awareness of the paragraph structure (topic, supporting ideas, details and examples). My question always is, 'What is this paragraph about? '

Keywords are, of course, really important from a memory aspect. Most of us, by age ten, have used a strategy of mentally repeating words to improve recall. Far from suppressing sub-vocalisation, I will use it to improve recall. I think this is where the idea that speed readers just read keywords comes from. I know I give more attention to keywords if I need to memorise information. I still see all the words. If I want to speed up, I just mentally hear the keywords faster!

Speed reading is a great skill to learn. If you do it thoughtfully, it can provide you with many insights as to how you process information. It can make a huge difference. You can use it to manage your reading workload much more effectively. If you haven't learned how to speed read, you might like to consider coming on one of my courses. You'd be very welcome!

Anne Jones, December,