Speed of reading

Yesterday my brother asked me how I can read so many books.  He asked if I read every word, heard every word in my head, or did I speed read.  The answer to the first two questions is yes, no to the third.

The only appeal of speed reading is that I would be able to read more books.  But speed reading involves skipping words, getting a general gist of what's being said and that does not appeal to me at all.  When I read, I read every word so that I become even more enveloped in the world within the book.  Particularly when reading fiction, reading every word allows me to visualize the scenes depicted in the book.  Skipping words would be too distracting to me; instead of getting lost inside the book, I would feel more like an outsider, an observer.  I know this because I have done some speed reading: when I am no longer interested in the book and just want to know how it ends.  Thankfully, this doesn't happen often.

Another reason I can read so many books is because I read so often.  I have been reading as much as I can for as long as I can remember.  I make reading a priority in my day.  While others have television, Facebook, online games, gardening, sports, and other hobbies, my hobby is reading.  This gives me a minimum of five hours a day (depending on my schedule) for reading.  Just like other things, the more you do it, the better and faster you get.

And I've just started reading "Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read" by Stanislas Dehaene.  So I told my brother I'd let him know what I learned from it, since the index has quite a few references to the speed of reading.

On a side note, at Easter my mother gave me an envelope with all of my report cards in it (Junior Kindergarten to my last year of high school).  Yesterday, I read them.  One of the most interesting things I saw was on my Junior Kindergarten report card.  My family was posted to CFB Lahr in Germany, which is where I attended JK.  On the report card under "Reading and Writing Skills" are two criteria I have never seen on a report card before or since: (1) Shows a respect for books and (2) Explores books with interest.  Oh, how I wish those two criteria were on every report card forever!  I think those two things should be mightily encouraged in today's society.  Just because people spend more time online now than they ever have doesn't mean that books have lost their usefulness or power.  I think a respect for books is highly critical in humanity in general.  And I will do my best to promote that in others.

Read on,
Paula