Do we, perhaps, have our own natural reading speed?
I was given to think, if not very much, by this article which floated past my attention lately: If you want to get smarter, speed-reading is worse than not reading at all.
I assume he's talking about people who follow some programme that is intended to increase their natural reading speed, rather than people whose natural speed of reading is fairly quick (Frankie Howerd voice going 'Don't Mock' at his boast of reading 100 books in a year). It is unlikely that readers will be able to double or triple their reading speeds (e.g., from around 250 to 500-750 words per minute) while still being able to understand the text as well as if they read at normal speed.”
If you’re reading fast, you’re not engaging in critical thinking. You’re not making connections between Infinite Jest and other post-modern texts; you’re not challenging a historian’s version of the American Revolution. You’re not having a conversation with the author. And if you’re not doing the work, you’re only walking away with surface knowledge.
Oh no? Begging to differ there. There is no 'normal' speed across the board: there is the speed that is normal for the individual reader.
Related, at least by a rather random process of association, In praise of readability, which is engaging with this rather problematic piece Against Readability (query: are not invocations of 'soap-opera' and 'middlebrow' gendered dog-whistles?), which is one of those 'god forbid readers should enjoy themselves' pieces. This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/2569257.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
comments.