Apparently my natural reading speed is a little over 750 words per minute

BLOT: (03 Feb 2014 - 08:13:31 PM)

Apparently my natural reading speed is a little over 750 words per minute

I consider myself a fast reader, though of course that term doesn't mean much in-itself. Reading involves different texts, contexts, sizes, states of mind, comprehension levels, preparation levels, and so forth.

One time in college we were studying Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and one student—who was, like many in my class, a better pure philosopher than myself—said he loved it, because he couldn't absorb it, and so it meant he could go as slow or fast as he wanted to read it. That seems pertinent, here. Reading is an organic act, and reading fast or slow is as variable to internal and external energies as running or walking fast or slow, of cooking and cleaning shallowly or thoroughly, of dressing well or going slobbish for the day. We treat it as a metric, but I'm not sure we should, because it some ways it trivializes the least important aspect of reading—the pace—and leaves out all of the best parts: the joy, the erudition, the escapism, the finding commonality with humanity, the isolation, and so forth.

I am, though, it must be said, a bit self-conscious about my reading speed, because while I recognize I am a fairly fast reader, I feel I am not fast enough. Sure, I can chunk through a book and have managed to read 1000 page books in about five or six hours [which would be my upper limit] but most of the time that is simply not how I want to read.

When I saw a saw a reading speed test on Staples.com [which manages to go somewhere between marketing research and advertisement for ereaders as you pay attention to the page around you], I figured I'd give it a go, though the first pass through was kind of a sham since I just sort of clicked through to see what's up. Once I had the hang of the UI, though, I went back and set it to a comfortable font size (size 14, oh my aging eyes*) and then read the longest possible stretch [it recommends for more accurate results] and got 766 words per minute. I did not attempt any fancy speed reading tricks, or force my brain to read faster—an act that sometimes tangles up itself—and just went for a relaxed, natural speed. 550-750 words a minute feels about right, and looking at the chart it seems to fit my rough category of reader. Too bad the test is limited to three texts and they are all things I have read before and all in the light entertainment camp, because that throws some stuff off. Hell, I could have clicked The Wizard of Oz after barely glancing at the page and still got the questions right.

But, even knowing that I did fairly well, I can't help but look at those damned speed readers, and wonder about feeding them to the lions. The bastards.

* Interesting, I took another one, with Wizard of Oz, at a much smaller font size and only got 500ish, meaning that even though I can see more text at once, my brain starts to have some issues...because of my old man eyes. When I tried with a larger text, 20 I think it was, I got 827 words a minute. Damn, I need to go the eye-doctor, huh?

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