A team of psychologists examines whether speed reading actually works –
whether reading at an increased speed leads to a loss in understanding or not (Association for Psychological Science,
January 19, 2016).
Speed reading was introduced in 1959 as a way to train readers to take in
more information more quickly without sacrificing accuracy and understanding.
Speed readers take in more visual information at a single glance and suppress
the inner speech that often occurs when reading silently word-for-word. With
the increase in digital text, another method has become popular – rapid serial
visual presentation (RSVP). The claim is that, free from the need for eye
movement, people can read more quickly than usual.
In the 1980s researchers studied speed reading by comparing the
comprehension levels among three groups: (1) speed readers, (2) people who read
at a normal speed, and (3) people who were told to skim the text. Results
showed that speed readers understood the text better than skimmers, but not as
well as normal-paced readers.
The normal pace of most readers is 200-400 words per minute. Skimming is
about 600-700 words per minute. The World Championship Speed Reading
Competition tests speed and comprehension, and the top contestants read about
1,000-4,000 words per minute with about 50% comprehension or above, although
there are speed readers who can read up to 10,000 words per minute.
This recent study addresses the question whether there is a unique form of
reading in which speed and comprehension are both high. They also sought to
determine whether people can achieve speed and comprehension with little or no
practice by using special technologies. The team from the University of
California in San Diego, the University of Victoria, the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, and Washington University in St. Louis will publish
their results in the Psychological
Science in the Public Interest journal in May 2016.
Reading is based on language, so it is not a purely visual process. However
the premise behind speed reading is that it is possible to use peripheral
vision to simultaneously read large segments of a page, perhaps even a whole
page, instead of one word at a time.
Researchers first studied eye movement. Normal English-language readers
span the distance of 7 letters, and about 30% of the time readers move past, or
sweep to, the next word to the following word, especially if the word is short
– but the word is still processed. About 10% to 15% of the time, the
researchers note, skilled readers make regressions, moving back to the previous
word, especially if the word is long.
Researchers also studied word identification and perception. In this part
of the study the researchers found that the perceptual span of readers is
limited – readers cannot obtain information from a very large area of the
visual field, but instead they process text in the centre of their vision. This
is contrary to the claim of speed readers.
Then researchers addressed the context of speed reading technologies to
gain more textual information – i.e whether people need to move their eyes to
read and understand. They found that people do
need to move their eyes to place them over the region that they want to process
in order to process the information more efficiently.
Reading speeds of speed readers varies considerably. They found that
reading speed is tied to language-processing abilities rather than the
ability to control eye movement. Therefore they also looked at how people
recognize words, the role of speaking in your head during silent reading, and
what happens when a word had more than one meaning.
Lastly they studied comprehension and understanding – of individual words
and sentences, but also total understanding of the information, and the new
speed reading technologies.
The results showed that ‘there is no such magic bullet.’ There is a
trade-off between speed and accuracy in reading. Increasing the speed with
which a reader encounters words has consequences for how well the words are
understood and remembered. In some reading, speed is the goal, rather than
comprehension. They also found that skimming is an important skill. The researchers state that ‘in many other
situations, however, it will be necessary to slow down to a normal pace in
order to achieve good comprehension.’ Moreover, they say that readers need to
re-read parts of the text to ensure better understanding.
In conclusion, the researchers state that the way to maintain high
comprehension and read text faster is to practice reading and to become more
skilled at language (e.g through increased vocabulary). ‘This is because,’ they
say, ‘language skill is at the heart of reading speed.’
MARTINA NICOLLS is the author of:-
The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends
(2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan
Curse (2009).
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