What Speed Readers Won't Tell You
Summary
TLDRThis video script debunks the myth of speed reading, scrutinizing techniques like minimizing eye movement and backtracking. It argues that these methods don't align with how reading comprehension functions. Research indicates that speed reading sacrifices understanding, as demonstrated by tests showing that speed readers perform poorly on comprehension tasks. The script concludes that reading efficiency comes from language skill development and practice, not from quick-fix speed reading methods.
Takeaways
- 📚 Speed reading techniques often involve minimizing eye movements, which is a misconception because eye movements are essential for comprehension.
- 👀 The idea of reducing fixation points and regressions is based on an outdated understanding of how reading works.
- ✍️ Tim Ferriss' speed reading method involves drawing lines on pages to guide the eyes and minimize eye movement, but this doesn't improve comprehension.
- 🔍 Apps that present one word at a time to eliminate eye movement entirely are based on the same flawed principle of speed reading.
- 🧠 Reading comprehension is not about the speed of eye movement across the page, but about creating meaning from words and sentences.
- 📉 Studies have shown that when people are prevented from backtracking while reading, their comprehension suffers.
- 📈 Reading speed is influenced by language skills, prior knowledge, and the complexity of the material, rather than eye movement techniques.
- 📚 Actual tests of speed readers have demonstrated that their comprehension is significantly lower than that of normal readers.
- 🚫 Pushing reading speeds beyond 250-300 words per minute often results in a loss of comprehension.
- 💡 The belief that speed reading works may stem from the feeling of moving eyes quickly over text and picking up some information, even if it's superficial.
- 📘 Deep and thorough reading is more efficient and satisfying than speed reading, as it allows for a true understanding of complex information.
Q & A
What is the main claim of speed reading programs?
-The main claim of speed reading programs is that they can help individuals read faster without sacrificing comprehension or with minimal loss of reading comprehension.
What are the two-step processes discussed in the video to analyze the claims of speed readers?
-The two-step processes are: 1) Discussing the specific techniques that speed readers use, such as minimizing eye movement or backtracking, and 2) Looking at rates of reading comprehension for speed readers through various research methods.
What does Tim Ferriss suggest as a method to improve reading speed?
-Tim Ferriss suggests drawing lines down the sides of the page to create a narrower reading path, which encourages the reader to start and end at these lines, zigzagging across the lines with fewer fixation points, thus reducing eye movement.
Why do normal readers fixate on complex or unfamiliar words while reading?
-Normal readers fixate on complex or unfamiliar words because it takes them a moment to understand the meaning of the word in its context, which is crucial for comprehension.
What happens when normal readers pause briefly at the end of a sentence?
-The brief pause at the end of a sentence is the brain's way of chunking and understanding the unit of meaning that the sentence represents.
What is the effect on reading comprehension when people are prevented from backtracking while reading?
-When people are prevented from backtracking, their reading comprehension suffers because backtracking helps in understanding the material by revisiting complex parts.
What is the common misunderstanding about the relationship between eye movements and reading speed?
-The common misunderstanding is that faster eye movements across the page lead to faster reading speeds, ignoring the fact that reading is about creating meaning from words and sentences.
What were the results of the 1980s study involving self-described speed readers?
-The self-described speed readers achieved speeds of about 15,000 to 30,000 words per minute but failed to pass a 20-question multiple choice test even after reading the material three times, indicating poor comprehension.
What is the estimated maximum reading speed for a good reader without significant loss of comprehension?
-A good reader can read at a maximum of about 250 to 300 words per minute, with some studies suggesting slightly higher rates.
Why do some people believe that speed reading techniques are helping them?
-People may believe speed reading techniques are helping because they notice they can move their eyes more quickly over the words and still pick up some information, giving the illusion of increased reading speed and comprehension.
What is the most efficient and satisfying way to read according to the video?
-The most efficient and satisfying way to read is to read deeply and understand the material in all its complexity, rather than superficially skimming through text.
Outlines
📚 Debunking Speed Reading Techniques
This paragraph examines the validity of speed reading techniques, questioning their effectiveness in improving reading comprehension. It discusses specific strategies like minimizing eye movement and reducing backtracking, which are claimed to speed up reading. The speaker argues that these techniques are not only outdated but also counterproductive, as they interfere with the natural process of understanding text. The paragraph also highlights that reading comprehension is not merely about the speed of eye movement but involves creating meaning from words and sentences, which is influenced by language skills, prior knowledge, and text complexity.
🔍 The Reality of Speed Reading Claims
The second paragraph delves into empirical studies that have tested the claims of speed readers, revealing that their comprehension levels are significantly lower than those of regular readers. It recounts an experiment where self-proclaimed speed readers failed to demonstrate comprehension despite reading at high speeds. The paragraph also addresses the misconception that speed reading can be achieved without loss of understanding, emphasizing that reading efficiency is more about the depth of comprehension rather than the pace at which one reads. It concludes by suggesting that genuine reading improvement comes from enhancing language skills and practice, rather than relying on speed reading techniques.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Speed Reading
💡Eye Movement
💡Backtracking
💡Reading Comprehension
💡Fixation Points
💡Optical Perception
💡Language Skills
💡Self-Described Speed Readers
💡Reading Efficiency
💡Learning Myths
Highlights
Speed reading techniques often involve minimizing eye movements and reducing backtracking, which are claimed to increase reading speed.
Research on speed reading has shown that these techniques do not improve reading comprehension and may actually hinder understanding.
Eye movements are essential for comprehension as they help process complex words and sentence structures.
Normal readers pause briefly at the end of sentences, which is a natural part of understanding the text.
Backtracking while reading is beneficial for comprehension, contrary to speed reading techniques that discourage it.
Studies have shown that when people are prevented from backtracking, their reading comprehension decreases.
The idea that reading speed is tied to eye movement speed is a misconception; reading is about creating meaning from text.
Reading speed is influenced by language skills, prior knowledge, and the complexity of the material being read.
Popular speed reading techniques have been debunked as ineffective for maintaining comprehension.
Tests with self-described speed readers have shown they cannot pass comprehension tests even at much slower speeds than claimed.
Training in speed reading has consistently resulted in a significant drop in reading comprehension.
The maximum effective reading speed for comprehension is estimated to be around 250-300 words per minute.
Reading speed varies depending on the complexity of the material and the reader's familiarity with the subject matter.
Improving reading speed is best achieved through enhancing language skills and practice, not through speed reading techniques.
Many people believe speed reading works because they feel they are processing information faster, even if it's superficial.
The illusion of increased reading speed can lead to a false sense of comprehension and satisfaction.
Deep and thorough reading is more efficient and satisfying than attempting to speed read complex material.
Transcripts
At some point in your life, someone is going to tell you that they can speed read. And this person
may try to sell you his speed reading program, so that you, too, can consume information extremely
fast. But what does the research say about speed reading? In this video, I want to take a two-step
process to analyze the claims of speed readers. First, I want to discuss the specific techniques
that speed readers advise people to use, like minimizing eye movement or backtracking. When
you're reading, do these techniques actually make sense given what we know about how reading
works? The second is to look at rates of reading comprehension for speed readers. Researchers do
this in a couple of different ways. One way is to teach someone a speed reading technique and
then compare their reading comprehension under speed reading versus normal reading. Another way
is to bring in self-described speed readers and compare their speed and reading comprehension to
normal everyday readers. In either case, you have people answer a series of reading comprehension
questions or summarize what they've read as one of the main outcome variables. But first, let's talk
about the techniques themselves. Here is how Tim Ferriss describes his speed reading technique. "We
were taught to read we read word-by-word, so we go from the furthermost left word to the furthermost
right word. The problem with that is, you're not using any of this space or the margins...."
"And the way that you then remedy that is by drawing lines on some pages. So now you have
lines going down either side of the page. And instead of starting all the way to the left,
you're going to start at this line and then you're going to end at that line. You're now
going to be zigzagging just as you would normally but the parameters or the boundaries have been
moved in by a word. When you're looking at a given page your eye isn't moving smoothly
across each line, it's fixation, fixation, fixation. So the less
that we can regress - meaning bounce back or bounce up, you want to stay on that reliable
forward path - and the fewer fixation points we have, it's just a math problem, the less
time we're going to spend reading each page. Now you're actually going to track with your finger,
trace underneath the line like so and try to think of two fixation points per line for your eye. This
will keep you from bouncing up to previously read material. We've all had the experience of being
really sleepy..." "So it's just understanding the mechanics of the eye, a little bit about
optical perception, and then recognizing how you can optimize that for the printed page."
Both of these techniques are essentially about minimizing eye movements and this idea that
minimizing eye movements can make people read faster has been around for a long time. These
are almost the exact same techniques that speed readers were advocating for 70 years ago and
there are apps that take this basic principle of minimizing eye movements even further. They
present one word of a text at a time to you in rapid succession, so you don't have to move your
eyes at all. You just have to sit there and take in the words as they're coming at you. Keep in
mind, here, that the whole point of speed reading programs is to help people read faster "without
sacrificing comprehension" or, at least, without significant loss of reading comprehension. Here's
the thing: eye movements help you to understand what you are reading. They do not impair reading
comprehension. When people are reading something they fixate on complex, unfamiliar words. Why do
they do that? Because it takes them a moment or two to understand what that word means in that
context. Normal readers also pause very briefly at the end of a sentence. Why do they do that?
Because a sentence is a unit of meaning and that split-second pause is the brain's way of chunking
and understanding that unit of meaning. Our eyes normally backtrack when we are reading, especially
when we're reading complex material. Why? Because it helps us to understand what we are reading.
If you stop people from backtracking, like in this study here, reading comprehension suffers.
The idea that reading speed has something to do with how fast your eyes can move across the page
is a complete misunderstanding of what reading is. Reading is about how you create meaning from
words and sentences. The rate at which you can read something depends upon your language skills,
it depends upon what you know beforehand, and it depends on the complexity of what you're reading.
So the most popular techniques that speed readers claim to use don't make any sense. What about
actual tests of reading comprehension? In the 1980s, a researcher tested the speed and reading
comprehension of a couple of speed readers who claim to read upwards of a hundred thousand words
per minute. Now they were able to achieve speeds of about fifteen thousand to thirty thousand words
per minute, much lower than their estimates, but still absurdly high. But they couldn't pass a 20
question multiple choice test, even after reading the same thing three times times. That doesn't
seem like a very efficient way to read. What about training people to speed read and comparing that
to their normal everyday reading? You see the same kind of patterns. Reading comprehension
suffers dramatically. They can probably recognize some words that they read but ask them any deeper
conceptual question, ask them to apply anything that they read to some meaningful context,
ask them anything about any detail at all, and they do worse than plain old everyday readers.
A good reader reads at the maximum of about 250 words per minute or possibly 300 words
per minute. Some studies estimate that to be slightly higher. In practice your reading speed
just depends on what you are reading. If you're reading something that's dense, with layers of
meaning using complex sentence structures and unfamiliar vocabulary words, then you are going
to read a lot more slowly than if you're reading something with pretty simple vocabulary, simple
sentence structures, simple transitions, and no implied meanings. The only way to get better at
reading is to grow your language skills and get practice at reading. If you know more vocabulary,
if you're used to complex sentence structures, if you are experienced in parsing the text for
meaning, then you get faster at reading. But when you start pushing much beyond 250 words
or 300 words per minute, your comprehension is just going to suffer. This still leaves an open
question though. If you roam through the comments on a lot of these popular speed reading videos,
it's clear that people have convinced themselves that these techniques are really helping them to
read. I think what's going on is that people notice that they can move their eyes more
quickly over the words and they still pick up some information, they pick up little bits
of information as they skim the text and so they think that they have increased their reading speed
that way. It makes it feel like speed reading is working for them. And this is especially
satisfying maybe if you've always thought of yourself as a slow reader. But what you don't
realize is all of the things that you have missed by not actually reading. Reading on your own,
you can never know what you didn't comprehend. You can't split yourself into two parts and have
parallel universes where you read it speed reading and you read it normally. How would you know that
you didn't comprehend something correctly because you never got to the point of comprehending it?
I mean that's part of the whole reason why we do research on these questions. People turn to
speed reading because it seems like it's a more efficient way of understanding information. But
that's a mistake. Reading something deeply and actually understanding it in all its complexity is
a far more efficient way of reading. It's a more satisfying way to read as well. If you liked this
video, check out this video about other learning myths or if you want to hear more about the ways
that learning fast can backfire check out this one. I'll see you later, thanks for watching.
Weitere ähnliche Videos ansehen
You're not slow: the ultimate guide to reading faster (using science!)
Reading skills that work - for tests and in class
How to Speed Read | Tim Ferriss
The Science Behind Reading Speed - College Info Geek
Subvocalization | Things About Speed Reading Nobody Tells You
Reading techniques | Dr. Manjunathan M.S | TEDxAnandNagar
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)