Ask HN: How do I improve my reading speed?

http://www.spreeder.com - Saw this posted here once. It helps you learn to read faster.

I took a reading class in high school. The concept is to read 3-5 words at a time and process the current block while moving onto the next block.

The biggest problem is information retention/comprehension losses though. I believe in my program they aimed for 70% retention or better on minor details and 100% on major ones.

It takes practice to develop but it's very useful when using search engines and whatnot. I tend to not use it when pleasure reading.

I actually think reading speed has a lot more to do with how things are written, than any reading skill.

For example, when I write code, I try to arrange things in such a way that my eye won't have to move much horizontally. I always put function names at the left margin, with return types above them, so that they're all "scannable" (because they are always in the same general place, my eye doesn't have to guess).

You know that inner voice you have when reading, that mentally speaks what your eyes are reading? Tell it to shut up.

When I read, at most, I'll say the first two words of a sentence every two to three sentences in my mind, before reading turns into more of an absorption of whats on the page. Obvious exceptions being when I'm reading something like Infinite Jest or Finnigans Wake (which sits unfinished on a table at home). But those books are difficult.

Here are a couple of things I've tried that work:

-Try using a pen or your finger to guide your eyes through the words in a line with a uniform speed. This will prevent your eyes to slow down at certain words.

-Try using a "L" shaped piece of paper to guide you through the words, and to prevent the previous word to be shown. This will prevent the unconscious backtracking of the eyes.

-Stop pronouncing the words your read in your mind. Try keeping a 'hmmmm' voice in your head to prevent vocalization.

While I found these techniques useful, I do not use them while reading the things I enjoy. I use them usualy just to skim over articles and comments to get to the important parts, and to avoid the bulk.

I read about that quickly if it's fiction, or if the concepts in the text I'm reading aren't that difficult. My theory on how I got to that point is just that I used to read a shit ton of books all the time. One happy summer, I polished off a book every single day.

So my advice is--just read more, a lot more than however much you are reading right now.

I find cutting off sub-vocalizing does not help at all, instead it totally messes with how much I comprehend or remember the material I'm reading. Instead I make that little voice in my head go as fast as I can, and it works.

Try practicing talking as fast as you can to a friend, like comically fast - but without making mistakes or abbreviating anything. I used to do this with my sister when I was a little kid all the time, and I have a pretty decent reading speed now. (Can easily finish something like one of the biggest Harry Potter books on a slow Sunday)

As always, heavily technical material takes longer to read. But something like a larger HN discussion thread I can comfortably get through in a couple of minutes. Goodluck!

If I'm reading fiction or something that's not too heavy, I tend to read at 800 - 1200wpm. Anything technical or with oddly shaped sentences/paragraphs slows me down to 600 - 800wpm. I'm not sure how many pages/hour that is, but I can finish off a 400 page novel in a couple of hours if I'm not distracted or interrupted.

I can only suggest what techniques work for me; I never intended to turn into a speed reader and can't recall perfectly the process of becoming one (I was mad about books as a kid/teenager and read novels very regularly from about the age of seven). But anyway, I don't subvocalise the words as I read, although I just realised I do as I write lol. I also ignore all the little words, like conjunctions and articles. My brain just seems to skip over them and focus on the nouns and verbs. Depending on the length of the paragraph (this doesn't work if it's huge), I look at the block of words and take in the order of nouns and verbs to 'see' the information being presented. That is, I don't 'read' left-to-write; it's more like observing a picture.

Also, I tend to subconsciously force myself to maintain/improve my reading speed quite frequently, by being aware of how long I'm spending on a book or article and setting a deadline for when I want to be finished then speeding up to make sure I meet it. This is a result of me not really being able to justify the time I spend reading books and articles 'for fun' instead of studying or working.

I can finish a 500 page book in about 4-8 hours. Building the scenes in my head is much more of a bottleneck than the actual mechanics of reading. Complicated scenes, e.g. The Pillars of the Earth, which is heavy on architectural terminology I'm not familiar with, and a huge amount of characters, e.g. Good Omens, slow me down considerably.

Also, being within earshot of people having a conversation slows my reading down to a grinding halt so my technique to read faster, outside of reading more, is basically finding a quiet place.

I've read slowly all my life. Turns out I have some subtle, but fixable vision problems. Find a competent vision therapist and get an exam - you may find something.

Of course if you already read quickly, I don't know if you'll find much.

there's all sorts of different kinds of reading.

it's not even particularly challenging to scan text at 100-150 pages per hour. That's about 30s per page, you can do an awful lot in 30s if you set your mind to it.

I filter things in stages if we're talking about articles/posts. I'll glance at a rate of something like 10s/page first, sorting out sets of documents that may be interesting.

Next up, look a little longer, filter out crap, get the basic idea and then determine what needs to be read for deep content.

Once you are reading for deep content or enjoyment, it's totally dependent on the material.