But that doesn’t sound like you anyway, so I wouldn’t worry about your rate of speed. When that starts happening, the thing to do is get as much background knowledge you possibly can from simpler sources and then go back to the original text. The only time reading slowly is real problem is if you are struggling so much with word recognition and concept understanding that your short-term memory is suffering, and by the time you finish a paragraph you’ve forgotten what the beginning said. The higher the students’ speed, the easier and more general the questions became so that people could feel they were understanding what they read at high rates of speed (and the company could justify their fees). I needed the money–then students got tested on what they had read. You certainly won’t understand the argument at any specific or concrete level.ĭecades ago I taught a speed reading course with some kind of learning machine that dragged your eyes across the page at ever higher speeds–What can I say? I was a graduate student and broke. And you might, if you are lucky, vaguely understand the author’s general point, but you won’t go much beyond that. ” (I probably mangled that but you get the drift.) You can read an essay at a thousand words a minute sure.
It’s like an old Woodie Allen joke,” I took a speed reading course and read “War and Peace.” It was about war. If the text is complex and unfamiliar, forget about speed reading. There is no such thing as speed reading with solid comprehension unless, of course, you already know the material. Then he might read several more books over the course of the day.
#Cal newport keystone habits full
Theodore Roosevelt was one of these types, reading a whole book before breakfast with full comprehension was something of a routine for him I believe. There are some anecdotes of people who are able to read through several books every day which I do not understand. And it would logically follow that time spent reading more difficult material would enhance the skill further. The more time one spends reading, the better they will become at it.
What I took away from it was that reading is a skill that is improved with time and effort, like everything else. use a ruler or notecard to track the line you are reading and slide it down as you go. Aside from that, there are a few tricks to help maintain focus, e.g. The one common thread between the different “methods” seemed to be avoiding the internal vocalization of words. (And the first two, in particular, are immensely useful in cultivating a deep work habit.)įor these reasons, consider this simple resolution for your New Year: commit to regularly spending a non-trivial amount of time reading a book that strains your comprehension.įrom everything I have read about speed reading, I haven’t found anything conclusive about it being some kind of revolutionary technique. These are all worthy goals by themselves.
0 kommentar(er)
