image courtesy, Simon & Schuster

This has never been a bugbear for me. A lifetime of reading has led me to read at a fairly fast clip. But Adler puts into specific words, what it is that I actually, subconsciously do. This will help me advise my younger friends, when I used to struggle earlier, with a “Just keep at it”

Below followeth Adler’s advice …

  1. Great speed in reading is a dubious achievement; it is of value only if what you have to read is not really worth reading. A better formula is this:
    Every book should be read no more slowly than it deserves, and no more quickly than you can read it with satisfaction and comprehension. In any event, the speed at which they read, be it fast or slow, is but a fractional part of most people’s problem with reading
  2. The ideal is not merely to be able to read faster, but to be able to read at different speeds — and to know when the different speeds are appropriate.

So if that is the ideal, how do we go about increasing our speed if we are slow / irregular? Adles has an observation and a suggestion, that’ll take us most of the way there.

  1. The eyes of young or untrained readers “fixate” as many as five or six times in the course of each line that is read. (The eye is blind while it moves; it can only see when it stops.) Thus single words or at the most two-word or three-word phrases are being read at a time, in jumps across the line. Even worse than that, the eyes of incompetent readers regress as often as once every two or three lines—that is, they return to phrases or sentences previously read.
  2. Place your thumb and first two fingers together. Sweep this “pointer” across a line of type, a little faster than it is comfortable for your eyes to move. Force yourself to keep up with your hand. You will very soon be able to read the words as you follow your hand. Keep practicing this, and keep increasing the speed at which your hand moves, and before you know it you will have doubled or trebled your reading speed.

With a caveat however …

  • What exactly have you gained if you increase your reading speed significantly? It is true that you have saved time—but what about comprehension? Has that also increased, or has it suffered in the process?
    It is worth emphasizing, therefore, that it is precisely comprehension in reading that this book seeks to improve. You cannot comprehend a book without reading it analytically; analytical reading, as we have noted, is undertaken primarily for the sake of comprehension (or understanding).

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