I know /lit/ typically does not advocate speed reading, instead focusing on retention and comprehension...
But you have greats like Mr. Bloom reading 16 pages per minute in his prime, and still able to retain, memorize, and analyze the text. I can't even imagine how this is possible.
To what extent should you put effort into increasing your reading speed? Obviously reading faster is beneficial because you can read more. Right now I read between 250-350 WPm which is basically average.
>>7736551
>But you have greats like Mr. Bloom reading 16 pages per minute in his prime
That's one page every four seconds.
Yeah.
And it's pretty clear he memorizes what he reads.
How does he do it /lit/?
>>7736573
Is it just his innate ability or a skill he developed?
>This means you basically ignore words you know are coming.
prune/delete
This, means, you, basically, you, know, are coming
highlight:
>ignore words
Sentence meaning? Ignore words.
>So you glide your eyes across the sentence, slow at ignore words and read them, and keep gliding to the end. How do you know where to slow down and read, and where to glide along and skip? Practice, like anything else.
Becomes:
>glide sentence, ignore words, where slow, read skip? practice.
Which one is faster to read? The transformation happens in your brain, you select which words to focus on as you read in real time, then interpolate their meaning with some abstract silent thought mechanism. You don't only read left to right, you also read horizontally, piecing context together from words 2 or 3 sentences apart.
You also want to suppress your inner voice and read in silence. Since most books tend to have a consistent meaning over the course of a few pages, you get the general thrust of whats going on without actually reading 70-80% of the words.
Personally I can't stand speed reading and think it's awful. But retention is not terrible, and if you really need to get something read and out of the way, it definitely is time efficient.
>>7736581
There is no such thing as innate ability. There is no such thing as innate genius or photographic memory. Only skills.
>>7736597
What the fuck are you talking about
>>7736551
It's called having a high linguistic IQ and innate biological aptitude for memory retention. Most of us are born without those gifts and honestly speed reading for the sake of memorization just seems silly to me. I mean sure if you're a critic and need to grow your repertoire for reputations sake or you need to remember specific quotes or events for critic that's fine, but to me the greatest part of literature is analyzing the overall thematic and enjoying the submersion, both of which are absolutely destroyed by any attempt of speed reading.
I'm sure it'd also be useful in a professional sense if you're a scholar or something but that's not me so idgaf.
>>7736600
>post something that 99% of people acknowledge as false (and is false) as a point of objective truth
>smile to yourself thinking how many butt's you'll rustle
>nobody actually cares that some idiot just made a stupid remark
4chan in a nutshell.
>>7737172
ayyy
You need to be mentally disciplined to be able to pick out the proper important words in a sentence and ignore the fluff.
The words count no longer matter because you are not reading all of it. In your mind you are rewriting every sentence so that you are only reading the necessary.
It's fun but it actually hurts after a bit. With practice you get better but becoming a faster reader is no great skill in its right.
>>7736597
>t. tested in the 105-110 IQ range and desires to maintain delusions of grandeur
>>7738710
I actually know this feel. 115. As I've grown older I've learned to manage my delusions.
>>7738724
125 is necessary but not sufficient for genius, according to some dicks who studied minds greater than their own.tfw tested 124.
Why not do both? I often speed read sections that consider boring, and I can also take half an hour for sections that I love. Not necessarily in same novel though.
>>7738700
>and ignore the fluff.
I'll never understand that approach to literature.
Do you think these people have speed-sex? Speed-eating? Races through art museums to see who gets through them first?
>>7736588
I have done the ignore words thing. I try to not subvocalize but I never can retain any information when I do that.
I often just glance over words like "the" and "this" but I also do it for words that are long and have a lot of syllables. I know what they mean and I don't need to bother saying it in my head.
I don't do it a lot though. I find I enjoy reading a lot more when I take my time. Especially with pauses. When I try to read fast all punctuation becomes a note about what is to come next rather than an instruction to pause.
>>7736600
>>7738710
But he's right. No-one's born good at anything, there's not really such a thing as inherent ability, becoming great at something is nearly entirely practice.
IQ in particular is next to useless, and is recognised as such by most psychologists. It's a test for measuring people's ability to function, designed to find mentally retarded individuals ability to recover and operate in society, not to go "You're x amount above average, therefore you are better than everyone who scored below you".
Means jack shit if you don't take every effort to improve and learn.
You don't have anything better to do with your time either way
