When I say "fast reader" I mean anyone who reads more than 300 words per minute, especially if it is over 400 WPM.
I am asking this because I am a slow reader and I literally do not understand how fast reading works.
I am a 120 WPM guy.
I will describe to you my process in detail, and I hope you can describe your process in as much detail as well. So here we go. (You can skip the rest of this article if you don't care about my phenomenology of slow reading. I opened this thread because I am curious about your fast reading phenomenology, and this description of mine serves just as an example of what kind of detailed account I am looking for)
First of all not all reading is the same. Sometimes I just skim, scan, or read a bit faster just to obtain information. I can do it unconsciously without even noticing. For example when I am scrolling I often just read titles and parts of posts I find interesting. I get a dopamine hit from scrolling / reading about the information I find interesting. In this process I am the boss, text is the slave. I do not pay due respect to the text, I just take from it what I want, what I find interesting. In this mode of reading I don't know exactly what my WPM is, but I think it would probably be faster, but not drastically faster than my regular WPM. To calculate WPM honestly and properly for this type of reading you would have to count only those words of the text I actually read. So if I read just bits and pieces that comprise 20% of the article, you should only count these 20% of the words. Since total word count in this mode is rather slow, the resulting WPM, even if it is faster than in standard reading it is still relatively low, when properly calculated. Anyway, even in this mode, and in any other mode of reading as well, I actually voice each word that I read in my mind. They become a part of my inner monologue, and I can actually HEAR every single word PROPERLY pronounced in my head, before I move on to the next word.
Now the second more of reading is "reading proper". This is when I take an article, a book, a short story or whatever, and I want to read the whole thing. Regarding voicing words in my head, obviously this happens in this mode of reading as well. I hear every word properly pronounced, before I move to the next. I do not actually speak the words, not even slightly with my mouth. My mouth is shut and I am perfectly silent. But my brain produces sounds that I can actually hear in my mind. My brain simulates pronunciation of each word.
Now the difference is, that in "reading proper", the text is the boss, and I am the slave. If I want to be able to claim that I have read something properly, I can only honestly claim it if I have, to the best of my knowledge, actually read every single word that exists in the text, from start to finish. Now, let's get into details. In "reading proper", I am reading everything... both interesting and boring parts. Since it is rare that I find the whole text interesting, I will have to go through many boring parts as well. When reading such material, I am not getting my dopamine. So my WPM falls a bit, and reading becomes effortful. Now, when it comes to decoding meaning, when I read I try to decode ALL the meaning that is there that I am able to decode. If they mention 5 things in a sentence, my mind tries to parse all of them, and to imagine all of them and to process the meaning of all of them. Now of course, I will not be able to decode the entire text. Sometimes I will bump into words that I don't know, and I will have to guess their meaning and sometimes my guess will be incorrect. But when it comes to parts of text that consists of known words, my brain tries to get the whole thing. So if a sentence in the book says "She hit snooze on the alarm clock three times that morning which is a bit too much even for a habitual snooze hitter that she is, which can probably be explained by gin induced poor sleep she had previous night, but after a day like that, after soul drenching meetings with her always unpredictable boss prone to giving always unclear tasks and planning even less clear projects, the gin was essential for her sanity", my brain tries to get the whole information:
- that she hit snooze 3 times
- that it's too much even for her
- that she's a habitual snooze user
- that she slept poorly
- that it was because of gin
- that she had a terrible day at work the day before
- that it was because of meetings with her unpredictable boss
- and because of his unclear tasks
- and less clear projects
- that gin was, nevertheless essential for her sanity
This is what my brain tries to do by default. But hear me out now. Sometimes I read about this, all with vocalizing each word in my head. But I might at some point be thinking about something else. My brain will play those words in the foreground, and I will hear them, but I will not always listen. Sometimes I will be thinking about what I need to eat for dinner. Or about how long I have been reading, or about how many pages I've read in this session, or about some health issue, or about really anything. But the fact that I still did pronounce every single word in my mind will mean that even if I didn't give them my full attention, they have at least been partially processed.
But not paying attention is definitely an obstacle to good reading and it sometimes does happen to me. Sometimes when I catch myself doing this, or when I read a whole page and have no clue what I just read, I go back and re-read.
Also if I find that I don't understand what I am reading, I can feel myself stuck at a single point in the book and re-read a sentence or paragraph multiple times. When I am distracted, worried, or thinking about other things, I can be very slow.
When I am free from other worries, I read a bit faster. Also if material is easier and more engaging I read faster.
So basically depending on the type of content, how anxious or worried about other things I am, the size of letters and size of page, how tired I am, how difficult the text is, etc... I can read anywhere from 7-8 to 20 pages an hour.
But consider that in "reading proper", I am a slave. I want to read the whole thing as some kind of self imposed assignment. I mean, if i decided to read it, I want to read it. If I don't read the whole thing, the task is not done. I don't have to. But then I will not claim I've read it.
So when I encounter parts with which I struggle, I can slow down significantly. Those are obstacles.
Anyway, if I am reading 15 pages per hour, I consider this a solid pace for myself.
I typically read a bit SLOWER than audiobooks. Why? Because I want to get ALL the meaning. And if I am just walking (or running) through text without stops I will miss certain bits. That's why I am not a fan of audiobooks as they just go, go, go. But I am not like that when I read. When I am reading and if I catch myself thinking about dinner and not paying attention (which happens a lot), if I get a sense that I didn't get certain part, I'll go back and re-read it. I want to get the full message, that's it. If I am thinking about something else while listening to audiobook, the audiobook doesn't care, it just keeps going, what I missed, it's permanently lost, unless I rewind. And rewinding audiobooks is a killjoy, so for this reason audiobooks typically aren't for me, because I can't process information this fast if I want to get it fully, and I hate when I miss parts and can't catch up. If I am to follow and pay attention, I need to be engaged. I become less engaged if I lose the thread of what's going on.
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