I am currently taking the 7 Speed Reading Ex course. A few points I personally feel needs to be addressed. To learn how to speed read in 20 minutes I think is possible to learn the techniques. The challenge comes down to applying and mastering the skill now. Most of us learn how to read by subvocalization ( saying the words internally as you read) to understand how the word sounds, phonics. This slows your reading speed down. When you just use your eyes and see the words but do not say them your reading speed increases. There is a technique of reading blocks of words at a time, the reason why I have heard this works is because common words like "The", "and"...etc we do not need to subvocalize, we know what these words are. Like seeing a cow if you are an adult. You just look and know what it is, versus a child might say "Cow" out loud or internally. Next reading fiction versus technical books for technical books a strategy is to skim the chapter you are about to read, looking at titles, skimming the first and last paragraph of the chapter, looking for keywords. Then come up with questions you want to learn about this chapter after you have skimmed. Then speed read. Report and answer your questions and then review. That is what I have learned that helps with comprehension with technical reading. Now I am still going through the course. I started at 300 wpm and now I am close to 600 wpm. It takes practice and a lot of work, I believe it is not something you can learn and master just in 20 minutes. There is a lot of habits I am working through and retraining old patterns. They say it takes 1,000 repetitions to reprogram patterns, that is why I believe it would take some time to master this skill.
I guess speed reading has its applications on certain kind of books. There's a joke I (did not speed) read somewhere and it goes like, "I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia." Jokes aside, I reckon the reading speed and comprehension improves with variety of books on different topics.
lol! Yeah I definitely think it varies with material. Definitely with overly dense and information heavy content, speed reading will struggle. I think with light and easily comprehendible material, you'll have better luck with speed reading.
Am I mentally sick?? I don't know why I keep re-reading what I read.. I feel like I don't believe what I read, even though, I read it. Do you think its regression habbit or mental disease?
That technique is valuable in some degree for people that have a very rich vocabulary, people with a vocabulary of over 70.000 words. The average college student knows about 20.000 words, with a real domain of about 10.000. If you do not know your words you do not know what you are reading, you guess instead of really have a conceptual understanding of what you are reading. Real speed of reading and comprehension depends greatly on your vocabulary. The speed of understanding increases when you are capable to recognize when you do not know something and use dictionaries to increase your vocabulary. Shortcuts, like glancing and guessing, should only be used when you do not have access to good dictionaries.
I have a 100+ books per year addiction. But I prefer slow reading - taking the time to percolate ideas, think deeply about a book, and to really enjoy it. Reading is not a sprint - it’s a long, slow Sunday run. If you love to read, you’ll read more. If you try to sprint through books, it’ll be boring & you’ll hate it. Speed reading = less reading in the long run.
I saw a study about speed reading recently. If I recall correctly above 400 wpm your comprehension suffers. People who can read extremely fast are few and far inbetween.
Actually, reading fast forces you to focus more. It’s a huge myth that reading faster lowers comprehension. I recommend Jim Kwik he explains it really well. One thing that stood out to me, he said if you feed your brain one word at a time, you’re starving it and that’s when your brain will start looking for entertainment in other places
I think a lot of comprehension has to do with what type of a book you're reading as well. Of course, speedreading won't work on philosophy or physics or the like. If you're reading books that have been regurgitated in many different forms but under the same idea then you'll naturally start going through books a lot faster as well. That's what I experienced after having read 300 books last year. It's like the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The more you read the faster you become.
Siim Land Definitely true. There's some material that requires a ton of thought and analyzing to process. For this experiment we took 2 samples of fiction. One sample seemed to be much more difficult to comprehend than the other! Material definitely has a huge affect on comprehension and speed. Also HUGE PROPS on 300 books last year!!! 👌
I haven't used this technique, but I already don't typically read as fast as i am capable of reading because comprehension is more important to me than speed.
@@hellothisisron6158 - thanks for the reminder! I found that comprehension is a big issue for me when "speed reading." I definitely get through the content faster but don't recall the details I'd like when I take it at a slower pace.
Why I enjoy the idea of the experiment, I see some obvious flaws with the design. (Though no offense intended) You can’t expect someone to immediately read 3X faster. As Tim clearly states, you learn three things quite separately. Technique, speed and technique, and then test for comprehension. Just telling people that haven’t trained them selves properly to read at 600 WPM is setting them up for failure. Yesterday I practiced this technique for 20 min and took my reading speed from 380 WPM to 475 WPM. With full comprehension. Now this is nothing near reading 900 WPM, but it’s still a significant increase. I tested my post-study reading speed the way tim designed, where I read as fast as I could while still retaining full comprehension. I would redesign this, and ask 2 groups of friends: 1- don’t practice Tim’s technique, see how long it takes you to read the 2 chapters at full comp speed, and test for comprehension. 2- practice the technique, see how long it takes to read the same content while still “reading” it at full comp speed. (compare the 2) and test for comprehension. This way you could test whether or not someone who practices Tim’s technique could actually read better w full comprehension.
You missed one very important test (and this is where this form of speed reading shines).... Have a group read the question list first and then speed read the passage.
Aditya Ravi Shankar That would be an interesting test. I'm sure if you know what you're looking for to begin with then this speed reading would be more effective!
I think Comprehension is going to adopt to the speed after a time. But it surely will. As an example we can bring the fact of that if you take an average person and put him/her in a F1 car, drive 250 kph and see how good he/she was able to analyze surrounding people and other cars and how fast he or she anticipated the action, you would get the much different numbers with the professional F1 driver!!!! P.S I have tried to write as short as possible, I just have a little free time.... Hope that was understandable!!!! Cheers!!!
I remember trying Ferriss' reading technique a few months ago and just as you layed out, I felt that my comprehension wasn't nearly as sharp when speed reading and would find myself rereading a lot of passages to assimilate them fully... It's very useful that you looked more into it in detail, now I don't feel bad that I couldn't accomplish the over-ambitious goal of ~700wpm without sacrificing comprehension.
SuperJosch13 Haha I am with you man! It took me a long time to get used to. At the start I had to reread a ton, or I'd get so focused on using the technique that I'd just forget to actually READ. I do think I've gotten the hang of the technique, but it's only increased my speed slightly. If I go any faster with the technique, my comprehension ceases to exist 😂
Great video! When I tried this method of speed reading I felt like my comprehension went down. I figured it was because I was so focused on doing the technique and going fast. My mind was kind of split between reading technique and the actual book I was supposed to be reading, haha. Interesting test results, I wonder if comprehension from Group A would go up after practicing the technique for a few weeks.
Nirate357 Thanks man! For me personally, I've been working on the technique for a couple of months now, so going into the test I felt competent in using the technique comfortably. However, my retention still suffered using it. I think if group A had more time you'd see a slight improvement, but I'm guessing nothing drastic.
@@GoalGuys Perhaps what we need is how to improve our peripheral vision perception/comprehension. Because in normal life we don't' use our peripheral vision for this type of "work". We just take it for granted. Unless you do some sort of sports we usually don't even notice it. It might take a while to train to make it work better for us.
Some observations, questions, and information I had. First off, the "It can be learned in 30 min" isn't the same as "It can be mastered in 30 min." Your experiment, no offense intended, lacks depth and longevity needed to determine it's long term effects. You're asking them to change how they read and then testing them on it right then. Second, I'm curious about the peripheral vision piece you talked about. When reading, specifically speed reading, are we actually using our peripheral vision? Or simply looking at peripheral words. I think peripheral vision in speed reading is a common misnomer. I've watched his video and will say that you should take his "technique" as one half recommendation, one half technique. Parts of the technique are solid in theory, but so much of it needs personal adaptation that I would honestly say it's better to look at it as a recommendation. When I seriously started practicing it, my WPM jumped from 450 to 830*. But there's an asterisk, speed reading from what I see degrades. So it's best to treat it like HIIT, read really fast, then slow down to normal, then fast, slow, etc. As you progress just increase the time in burst and decrease in regular. Great video quality nonetheless, but I'd be interested in seeing you take this one step further and have your friends all commit to it and record their results. No need to compare an a/b group. The average reading speed and comprehension is already well established.
I don't remember the name of the study, but I am sure there was a study in University of Nottingham that concluded that 300 WPM is the fastest speed an average person can achieve without sacrificing comprehension.
Hey, as a huge follower of your channel I would like to offer you a help on this topic. I used to pass speedreading test with 1.1k words per minute and a certificate. It took me 10 months of practice 6hours per week to get there from 160 words per minute. I see a few misconseptions in your video and would like to help you to make a follow up video with how to improve your reading. Let me know if you are willing to work on it and how I can contact you.
sonNy Woh! That's impressive man. I would love to hear your tips and what works for you! Feel free to message me on our twitter/facebook page (links in the description). Excited to chat more!
I am currently taking the 7 Speed Reading Ex course. A few points I personally feel needs to be addressed. To learn how to speed read in 20 minutes I think is possible to learn the techniques. The challenge comes down to applying and mastering the skill now. Most of us learn how to read by subvocalization ( saying the words internally as you read) to understand how the word sounds, phonics. This slows your reading speed down. When you just use your eyes and see the words but do not say them your reading speed increases. There is a technique of reading blocks of words at a time, the reason why I have heard this works is because common words like "The", "and"...etc we do not need to subvocalize, we know what these words are. Like seeing a cow if you are an adult. You just look and know what it is, versus a child might say "Cow" out loud or internally. Next reading fiction versus technical books for technical books a strategy is to skim the chapter you are about to read, looking at titles, skimming the first and last paragraph of the chapter, looking for keywords. Then come up with questions you want to learn about this chapter after you have skimmed. Then speed read. Report and answer your questions and then review. That is what I have learned that helps with comprehension with technical reading. Now I am still going through the course. I started at 300 wpm and now I am close to 600 wpm. It takes practice and a lot of work, I believe it is not something you can learn and master just in 20 minutes. There is a lot of habits I am working through and retraining old patterns. They say it takes 1,000 repetitions to reprogram patterns, that is why I believe it would take some time to master this skill.
Thank you for giving me something to practice speed reading on
I guess speed reading has its applications on certain kind of books. There's a joke I (did not speed) read somewhere and it goes like, "I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia."
Jokes aside, I reckon the reading speed and comprehension improves with variety of books on different topics.
lol! Yeah I definitely think it varies with material. Definitely with overly dense and information heavy content, speed reading will struggle. I think with light and easily comprehendible material, you'll have better luck with speed reading.
First.
Am I mentally sick?? I don't know why I keep re-reading what I read.. I feel like I don't believe what I read, even though, I read it. Do you think its regression habbit or mental disease?
you can have dyslexia
That technique is valuable in some degree for people that have a very rich vocabulary, people with a vocabulary of over 70.000 words. The average college student knows about 20.000 words, with a real domain of about 10.000. If you do not know your words you do not know what you are reading, you guess instead of really have a conceptual understanding of what you are reading. Real speed of reading and comprehension depends greatly on your vocabulary. The speed of understanding increases when you are capable to recognize when you do not know something and use dictionaries to increase your vocabulary. Shortcuts, like glancing and guessing, should only be used when you do not have access to good dictionaries.
I have a 100+ books per year addiction. But I prefer slow reading - taking the time to percolate ideas, think deeply about a book, and to really enjoy it. Reading is not a sprint - it’s a long, slow Sunday run. If you love to read, you’ll read more. If you try to sprint through books, it’ll be boring & you’ll hate it. Speed reading = less reading in the long run.
I saw a study about speed reading recently. If I recall correctly above 400 wpm your comprehension suffers. People who can read extremely fast are few and far inbetween.
scyther1 Interesting!! I would love to read more about that. It blows my mind when people say they read anywhere over 700wpm. Makes me jealous 😂
Can you please reference the study, would love to check it.
Actually, reading fast forces you to focus more. It’s a huge myth that reading faster lowers comprehension. I recommend Jim Kwik he explains it really well. One thing that stood out to me, he said if you feed your brain one word at a time, you’re starving it and that’s when your brain will start looking for entertainment in other places
Tim Ferris’s book four hour work week is great.
I think a lot of comprehension has to do with what type of a book you're reading as well. Of course, speedreading won't work on philosophy or physics or the like. If you're reading books that have been regurgitated in many different forms but under the same idea then you'll naturally start going through books a lot faster as well. That's what I experienced after having read 300 books last year. It's like the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The more you read the faster you become.
Siim Land Definitely true. There's some material that requires a ton of thought and analyzing to process. For this experiment we took 2 samples of fiction. One sample seemed to be much more difficult to comprehend than the other! Material definitely has a huge affect on comprehension and speed. Also HUGE PROPS on 300 books last year!!! 👌
Hey Siim - cool channel :)
great channel..i binge watched all your videos.....
waiting for the next video...
Shiva Keshava Thanks so much Shiva! We've got some solid videos coming out really soon! 👍
I haven't used this technique, but I already don't typically read as fast as i am capable of reading because comprehension is more important to me than speed.
Interesting feedback, was just about to start Tim's technique and found this video - I hope I remember to stop back to inform you of MY findings :D
You forgot!
@@hellothisisron6158 - thanks for the reminder! I found that comprehension is a big issue for me when "speed reading." I definitely get through the content faster but don't recall the details I'd like when I take it at a slower pace.
Why I enjoy the idea of the experiment, I see some obvious flaws with the design. (Though no offense intended)
You can’t expect someone to immediately read 3X faster. As Tim clearly states, you learn three things quite separately. Technique, speed and technique, and then test for comprehension. Just telling people that haven’t trained them selves properly to read at 600 WPM is setting them up for failure.
Yesterday I practiced this technique for 20 min and took my reading speed from 380 WPM to 475 WPM. With full comprehension. Now this is nothing near reading 900 WPM, but it’s still a significant increase.
I tested my post-study reading speed the way tim designed, where I read as fast as I could while still retaining full comprehension.
I would redesign this, and ask 2 groups of friends:
1- don’t practice Tim’s technique, see how long it takes you to read the 2 chapters at full comp speed, and test for comprehension.
2- practice the technique, see how long it takes to read the same content while still “reading” it at full comp speed. (compare the 2) and test for comprehension.
This way you could test whether or not someone who practices Tim’s technique could actually read better w full comprehension.
You missed one very important test (and this is where this form of speed reading shines).... Have a group read the question list first and then speed read the passage.
Aditya Ravi Shankar That would be an interesting test. I'm sure if you know what you're looking for to begin with then this speed reading would be more effective!
Aditya Ravi Shankar but if I'm reading fiction where would i get these questions? Also don't they spoil plot points?
@@rikthomson9758 obviously you dont speed read fiction.
I think Comprehension is going to adopt to the speed after a time. But it surely will. As an example we can bring the fact of that if you take an average person and put him/her in a F1 car, drive 250 kph and see how good he/she was able to analyze surrounding people and other cars and how fast he or she anticipated the action, you would get the much different numbers with the professional F1 driver!!!!
P.S I have tried to write as short as possible, I just have a little free time.... Hope that was understandable!!!! Cheers!!!
I remember trying Ferriss' reading technique a few months ago and just as you layed out, I felt that my comprehension wasn't nearly as sharp when speed reading and would find myself rereading a lot of passages to assimilate them fully...
It's very useful that you looked more into it in detail, now I don't feel bad that I couldn't accomplish the over-ambitious goal of ~700wpm without sacrificing comprehension.
SuperJosch13 Haha I am with you man! It took me a long time to get used to. At the start I had to reread a ton, or I'd get so focused on using the technique that I'd just forget to actually READ. I do think I've gotten the hang of the technique, but it's only increased my speed slightly. If I go any faster with the technique, my comprehension ceases to exist 😂
At 1:45 has the greatest Nic Cage pillow ever.
Great video! When I tried this method of speed reading I felt like my comprehension went down. I figured it was because I was so focused on doing the technique and going fast. My mind was kind of split between reading technique and the actual book I was supposed to be reading, haha.
Interesting test results, I wonder if comprehension from Group A would go up after practicing the technique for a few weeks.
Nirate357 Thanks man! For me personally, I've been working on the technique for a couple of months now, so going into the test I felt competent in using the technique comfortably. However, my retention still suffered using it. I think if group A had more time you'd see a slight improvement, but I'm guessing nothing drastic.
@@GoalGuys Perhaps what we need is how to improve our peripheral vision perception/comprehension. Because in normal life we don't' use our peripheral vision for this type of "work". We just take it for granted. Unless you do some sort of sports we usually don't even notice it. It might take a while to train to make it work better for us.
Have you read the book called
Super reading for success.
Some observations, questions, and information I had.
First off, the "It can be learned in 30 min" isn't the same as "It can be mastered in 30 min." Your experiment, no offense intended, lacks depth and longevity needed to determine it's long term effects. You're asking them to change how they read and then testing them on it right then.
Second, I'm curious about the peripheral vision piece you talked about. When reading, specifically speed reading, are we actually using our peripheral vision? Or simply looking at peripheral words. I think peripheral vision in speed reading is a common misnomer.
I've watched his video and will say that you should take his "technique" as one half recommendation, one half technique. Parts of the technique are solid in theory, but so much of it needs personal adaptation that I would honestly say it's better to look at it as a recommendation. When I seriously started practicing it, my WPM jumped from 450 to 830*. But there's an asterisk, speed reading from what I see degrades. So it's best to treat it like HIIT, read really fast, then slow down to normal, then fast, slow, etc. As you progress just increase the time in burst and decrease in regular.
Great video quality nonetheless, but I'd be interested in seeing you take this one step further and have your friends all commit to it and record their results. No need to compare an a/b group. The average reading speed and comprehension is already well established.
That's what I was thinking.... I just wonder now, have some Johnson mastered it? Have you?
I strongly agree. 👍🏻
> my WPM jumped from *450* to 830
From how much? 450 without any speed-reading?
Tell us your secret
Great Channel
I don't remember the name of the study, but I am sure there was a study in University of Nottingham that concluded that 300 WPM is the fastest speed an average person can achieve without sacrificing comprehension.
No, it is the oral not the written .
This needs to be practiced.....
Hey, as a huge follower of your channel I would like to offer you a help on this topic. I used to pass speedreading test with 1.1k words per minute and a certificate. It took me 10 months of practice 6hours per week to get there from 160 words per minute. I see a few misconseptions in your video and would like to help you to make a follow up video with how to improve your reading. Let me know if you are willing to work on it and how I can contact you.
sonNy Woh! That's impressive man. I would love to hear your tips and what works for you! Feel free to message me on our twitter/facebook page (links in the description). Excited to chat more!
I've sent you a message on FB.
Care to share those thoughts here?
@@sonNyET Kindly share here
You have 10 close friends?
Nicholas cage