Still Speedy after all these years

Thirty years ago I taught myself to speed read. I bought a book on it. It had some of the same tips as in this paper.

I was inspired to do so by reading that President Kennedy had long ago become a speed reader and it changed his life. He became President.

I just read a book expounding the theology surrounding a certain view of Eschatology that I wanted to explore. Not exactly a pop read. After reading the book on the train into Chicago I wondered, gee, a hundred pages goes by pretty quickly. How fast do I read when reading something pretty heavy?

I did a word count on a few pages and did the math. About 550 WPM when I want to know what I'm reading in detail. That would be my slow speed. Most people read about 2-300 WPM.

I know when reading a novel or a newspaper I run about a thousand words per minute with decent comprehension. I actually use the words to form pictures. Like a movie of the mind.

If I am really interested in getting the "Jist" of a book or article but may not want to invest the time, I do what's called block reading. Dividing up pages into 3 or 4 blocks, commanding it, and moving on. It's not skimming. There's a system. Comprehension goes down but I can consume 3oo pages in an hour. That's about 2-3000 words. I do this with books I don't care much about. Sometimes those are gift books or a book who someone says, you just HAVE to read this.

On the other extreme, sometimes I purposely slow way down to 2-300 WPM for depth. Not often. When there's great emotion or pain in the topic. I savor the words. Shakespeare, certain poetry, words to a song, the word of God.

I mention this because I suggest that if you never have trained yourself and developed the discipline of Speed Reading, do it. It will open your life up more than you can imagine.

That's my tip for the day.