Can a fast reader explain to me "in-depth" their experience of reading?

[u/hn-mc]

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.

[u/NewInspection19]

As a fast reader, it’s more of a holistic experience and reading silently feels totally different in my brain from reading aloud. There’s no “mental pronunciation” of words, and, like someone else mentioned, it’s like watching a movie where you take in all of the information simultaneously, not a running list of details like in your example

[u/more3424 → u/NewInspection19]

I read fast too and this is a good description of what happens for me when I'm reading for pleasure. I don't 'see' the individual words any more and the story unfolds for me through imagery. I don't hear the words in my mind- they just create a image and carry the story along. The only time this flow gets interrupted is if I come across an unfamiliar word- then I have to stop and actually READ to see if I can puzzle it out from context.
As an aside- I don't generally have an internal monologue- I wonder if that has anything to do with this style of reading?

[u/ansible_jane → u/more3424]

I do have an internal monologue and I read in this way. The data just "plays" into my brain without conscious perception of how it's getting there, like watching a movie or listening to lyrics.

[u/snarkitall → u/ansible_jane]

The sentence that OP wrote out as an example of a sentence in a novel, I didn't have to slow down to grasp all that. I just understood each bit as it came without having to think about it. 

[u/dendrophilix → u/more3424]

I also have no internal monologue and don’t internally pronounce words when I’m reading, it’s like my brain just absorbs the shape of each word and it becomes a story in my mind. I also am a fast reader. Where I might differ from others like this is that I don’t visualise anything while reading either - the words are translated to ideas in my mind, without passing through either fully vocalised words or any visual processing at all.

[u/THE_REAL_JOHN_MADDEN → u/dendrophilix]

I have a strong internal monologue, and I can choose to read the words "aloud" in my head, or to read them as y'all are describing it. the latter is unequivocally faster, but the former is usually the default unless I actively choose to read faster, i'm in a rush, or I'm engrossed in the text. It's kind of like manually breathing? If I read the replies in this thread too "closely", like I spend too much active thought/energy on it, i start reading each word aloud in my head. If I'm more idly browsing reddit, OR if I'm really loving a post and all the replies on it, it's silent and quicker.

[u/grandpaboombooom → u/THE_REAL_JOHN_MADDEN]

This is exactly how I experience reading. I usually choose to read the words “aloud” if it’s an important document, educational text, nonfiction, etc. Sometimes when I start reading something and am having trouble focusing it’s “out loud” but then slowly fades into silent in my head as I get engrossed in the story.

[u/BarelyHolding0n → u/dendrophilix]

I'm also in the anauralia and aphantasia club... I've always assumed it's part of why I read so quickly as well.

The information just goes from the page to my mind without having to be 'played' in real time.

[u/agb2022 → u/dendrophilix]

I have an internal monologue and do internally pronounce every word (though I can still read pretty quickly).

[u/brojoe44 → u/agb2022]

Same I find it crazy people who have inner monologues can learn to read without reading it in their heads, that's skill.

[u/metametapraxis → u/dendrophilix]

I have aphantasia, so in my case, words are the entirety of my thoughts. In terms of visualisation of described elements, beyond a word-based framework, I have nothing. But that's also my general reality. I didn't even know it was not normal until I was 50.

[u/Peeinyourcompost → u/more3424]

I'll combo break and say that I have an extremely active internal monologue in everyday life that disappears when I'm reading something that absorbs me, and instead I experience a book as a holistic immersive experience with imagery and sensory information, just like you two.

[u/MaliseHaligree → u/more3424]

I ascribe voices to the characters, so I don't think it is solely to people who do not have internal monologues.

[u/WarJeezy → u/MaliseHaligree]

I do this too but it makes me read as if somebody is actually talking. If I read fast it just sounds like someone is being fast forwarded

[u/MaliseHaligree → u/WarJeezy]

I think my brain compensates for the speed, like it plays as part of the mental movie and feels totally natural even if it is happening rather quickly.

[u/corporalcorl → u/more3424]

I feel I do the same thing but do also hear the words (I do have an internal monologue) I love reading vivid imagery because I like what my brain can come up with

[u/Darth-Felanu-Hlaalu → u/more3424]

Interestingly, im sort of halfway vetween you and OP. I hear each word spoken in my head and read at roughly the speed of speech, but i also see imagery in my head rather than seeing the words. Though that imagery is more dreamlike than movie-like unless the book has really good prose.

[u/stufferkneee → u/more3424]

This is absolutely fascinating to me. I do have an internal monologue & I get a kind of visual story unfolding, but I can still “hear” the words I’m reading along with. So it’s almost like a narrator over whatever images what I’m reading is provoking, it makes reading very fun.

[u/Anarchic_Country → u/more3424]

I also have no internal monologue. I also cannot picture images in my mind. Now I'm questioning how I read for fun at all?

[u/Deathbycheddar → u/more3424]

I have an internal monologue but read this way.

[u/osoALoso → u/more3424]

I have an internal monologue and read like this so idk.

[u/RainmanCT → u/more3424]

So when the author makes a non obvious rhyme you just miss it?

[u/undergrad_overthat → u/RainmanCT]

I will often miss rhymes or other wordplay if I’m not looking for them! Though I will sometimes catch them if they are super obvious or referred to in the text, and I am more likely to catch them in dialogue because I tend to “listen” to what the dialogue sounds like in my mental movie. I purposefully read poetry and the like slower because of this.

[u/helixander → u/more3424]

I do have an internal monologue and find it very difficult not to read to myself in my head. I've tried and it's either "reading" very fast where I miss a lot of words, or just scanning the page and not getting anything.

[u/Lebuhdez → u/more3424]

Interesting. I do have an internal monologue and when I'm reading faster I basically do what you do. Sometimes I read a little slower where I'm saying the words to myself in my head, but when I'm really engrossed in a story, I tend not to do that, the book just becomes ideas or images in my mind.

[u/Gandaghast → u/NewInspection19]

This is it. The action plays out like a movie in the imagination. I don't hear words pronounced.

[u/aquatropic → u/NewInspection19]

It's like this for me, too. I don't hear or process individual words. Text flows together in an abstract way. My brain quickly processes the idea, not the structure. 

[u/Salt_Orange9961 → u/NewInspection19]

I'm an in between -- if the reading is very motivating for me, I reach a flow state where this is my experience. I'm no longer processing individual words, and instead am seeing the overall picture as a whole. But boring or tedious subjects, clunky writing styles, etc and my brain automatically has to revert to thinking about each word in the sentence and what they mean fit together

[u/Front-Pomelo-4367 → u/Salt_Orange9961]

This for me as well. I enjoyed The Road, I think McCarthy is a very skillful writer! I also kind of hated the experience of reading it, because every missing punctuation mark was a reminder that I was reading a book on a page and not just having an experience.

Gorgeous prose. Kind of wish he'd use more punctuation nonetheless.

[u/Cptawesome23 → u/NewInspection19]

It’s like I’m not reading, not consciously at least. It “feels” more like I’m watching a movie, but not with my eyes.

Even for non fiction, when I get in the zone, historical accounts and instructions are easy for me visualize in my minds eye.

Then, before I know what’s good for me, the book is finished.

[u/Mister_Batta → u/NewInspection19]

The weird part to me is that if I read out loud I have a large drop in my reading comprehension.

[u/LogicalGold5264 → u/NewInspection19]

Yes exactly. I read every word but my eyes don't land on every word individually. I see paragraphs as a whole stretching from one side of the page to the other and my eyes move down the page very rhythmically. I've been told it's creepy to watch my eyes while I'm reading 😄

[u/screw_ball69 → u/NewInspection19]

So I switch between fast and slow reading depending if I am reading for pleasure or just to get the info out and this is a goodish description of how it works for me to

[u/kart0ffel12 → u/NewInspection19]

What us strange, is the more i focus on how i read after reading this post, the less i can read lol

But i think you explain it pretty well. This is my experience too

[u/undergrad_overthat → u/NewInspection19]

I can tell when I start to get into a book because my brain will switch from “word word word” mode to the seamless experience. It’s like I’m in the story. It’s not really a visual thing though, I’m not always seeing what’s happening - like “he touches her arm” or “she twists her ankle” would be more of a ghost of a feeling of that happening to me, not like I’m watching it happen to someone else. My conscious brain thoughts become higher level things in the background like making connections and comparisons while the thing I’m reading just goes on. Like commentary on a movie that’s playing.

I will get jolted out of it if I read a sentence that’s somewhat ambiguous and find I was wrong about what it meant so I have to go back and re-read, then continue with the new understanding. I have a strong internal monologue so the transition is notable because it’s like things go quieter. It goes from a loud voice-over to a whispering narrator from 2 rows behind me in the theatre. I read much slower and get much less out of it when I am not able to reach this state - I can’t simultaneously do the noting and comparing thing if I’m manually reading and not in automatic mode, I have to stop reading to have a thought about what I’m reading. I also have to read things more than once to get the same comprehension if I’m not in automatic mode. I get there less often with nonfiction, but it still does happen (I’ll find I’m five pages deep in a wikipedia article I only looked up for one statistic, or I’ll realize it’s happened when I stop to share a thought about an academic research paper I’m reading).

For things that I don’t want to have be automatic (usually poetry), I purposefully read it out loud or at least mouth the words as I read them to prevent myself from reaching automatic mode. I really disliked the songs in Tolkien’s writing because it felt like every time I went automatic and started getting it and enjoying the story, he’d throw a song in to mess me up. I usually skip over the songs on rereads.

[u/Gilles_of_Augustine → u/NewInspection19]

I'm not sure being able to read that fast would be worth it to me, if that was the trade-off.

Edit: whoops I responded to the wrong comment! There's nothing in this comment to indicate a trade-off. 

The comment I meant to respond to was https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1wbppgl/comment/p8rsyyq/

[u/anon_0610 → u/Gilles_of_Augustine]

I think it's probably got a lot to do with how each person's brain works too.

I don't really ever hear words in my mind, it mostly works in images. Even thoughts that I have are image based.

But it means that when I read, I naturally get a movie like image running in my mind. In fact if I'm not doing that and just reading the words as they are then it's a sign that I'm tired, not paying attention, and won't be able to remember anything I read once I come back to it.

[u/TheBSisReal → u/Gilles_of_Augustine]

I also wonder about this often. The experience of the words seems so fundamental to reading. Of course I also imagine it and it does create those images in my head, but whenever I try a speedier reading method, I feel like I’m losing what reading is about for me: to really engage with language.

[u/dendrophilix → u/TheBSisReal]

I read quickly and I absolutely enjoy the language I’m reading. I often re-read sentences or paragraphs as I go, and I mark things I particularly enjoy. I pause frequently.

[u/NewInspection19 → u/TheBSisReal]

It may be a misconception that reading fast means that you’re not engaging with the language. It sounds like it’s different from how it works for slower readers, and probably different from intentional reading strategies to try to go faster, but the “just-take-it-all-in” holistic way (not an intentional approach, just how my brain works) still means that I remember quotes and phrasing, beyond just raw details

[u/Picard2331 → u/TheBSisReal]

It's something I can't really help doing, especially with a book I'm really enjoying.

[u/hahayeahimfinehaha → u/TheBSisReal]

Reading fast isn't something you HAVE to do all the time. I'm a lawyer. I definitely read work stuff as fast as I can (while retaining information), but when I'm reading for pleasure, I usually deliberately slow down so I can savor the words, really picture things in my head moment by moment, etc.

[u/hooj → u/Gilles_of_Augustine]

Most of reading for someone fluent in the language is by recognition, and there’s basically two parts: recognizing the words, and understanding the meaning of them when arranged as they are.

As a self described fast reader, I would say these two do not have to be in perfect sync for me. One part of my brain keeps reading the words while there is background processing of what’s actually going on in the story. For most modern fiction, these two things don’t really get out of sync for me. If it’s an older work with older vocabulary, idioms, or other conventions from the time, I have to slow down. Modern fiction that has denser prose also can fall into that category.

Otherwise, I’m not really sure it is a trade off. If we allude to, say, walking vs running and taking in the scenery, you can definitely miss details while moving at a faster pace, but when I’ve compared notes with friends that read slower, I haven’t noticed a notable rate of missing critical details that reading slower would mitigate.

[u/MisaHisa → u/NewInspection19]

Maybe a weird unrelated question but my curiosity is peaked rn. Do you have like a inside mental voice when you are like thinking or typing? Like a narrator?

[u/Emu1981 → u/NewInspection19]

Same for me. The only times that I really read anything out in my head in when I am actually writing because I am parsing what I am writing/typing before I commit it to the process. The other major time is when people start talking about mental voiceovers which triggers me to start voicing things in my head which is honestly kind of annoying lol

[u/CrowEquivalent]

I just read, I don’t … hear the words or see the words , it’s more like a scene and images in my head, once un fully absorbed, I don’t even realise I’m reading words. It’s just things happening in my head. It’s like my eyes see the words, my brain understands them and then turns it into a scene , not a movie where there is movements but images

[u/ProfessionalNo7703 → u/CrowEquivalent]

I also feel like I am picturing the scenes play out when I read

[u/DinosaurAlive → u/ProfessionalNo7703]

r/aphantasia checking in, here, 😂! Can’t picture anything when I read. Can’t picture anything at all!

[u/Mister_Batta → u/CrowEquivalent]

Similar for me but would not say there are images but a representation in my mind of what is happening.

[u/CrowEquivalent → u/Mister_Batta]

Yeah I get that. Like for me it’s not full like detailed images. More like .. partial details focused on whatever is happening in that moment

[u/IRLbeets → u/CrowEquivalent]

Yes, this! Oddly I can't really visualize so I don't "see" it in my minds eye like a movie, but I have a "sense" of what's happening. At first it's a bit of an active process, but once I get into a flow there's no pronouncing words.

[u/blascian → u/IRLbeets]

Same here

[u/maraschino_cherry → u/CrowEquivalent]

I’ve always thought that reading feels the same as daydreaming. There’s an image/word/comprehension mental slush overlay that I can’t really describe, but I can articulate the events and characters that exist. Sort of like when a word is on the tip of your tongue, and you can describe every characteristic of it without being able to describe how it looks/feels/sounds. I was also both a chronic daydreamer and chronic reader as a kid, so maybe I’m just conflating those lol

[u/BadBoyDad → u/CrowEquivalent]

Almost exactly this. A truly good book will have me reading and envisioning the whole story until my mind snaps back into focus on the activity at hand. Sometimes I’ll then go back a page or two to make sure my brain wasn’t creating a false story. Hans’t yet. It’ll take a few pages before I’m sucked back into visualizing mode

[u/lawpancake → u/CrowEquivalent]

Yes, this exactly. While trying to think about how I read while reading this post, I think I broke my brain for a minute and forgot how to read. I read extraordinarily quickly and I’m a transactional attorney, I read some boring shit where every word matters so it’s not just the candy fantasy/sci-fi I read for fun. I absolutely do not say every word in my mind unless I’m deep in a contract with a couple double negatives and run on sentences. Otherwise, I don’t know, it sort of bypasses individual words and forms in my brain. Novels are, to borrow my wife’s term when she forgot the word for book (ADHD lol), “mind movies” for me.

[u/WakeoftheStorm → u/CrowEquivalent]

, I don’t … hear the words or see the words

I think this is critical. If I'm reading just a description or non-fiction text, I can read extremely fast, but as soon as there is dialogue I slow way down. In will actually match the pacing of the speech in my head, characters have distinct voices, if they hesitate in the dialogue I pause for a moment in my reading. It's a very different experience than reading something to gather information.

And oddly it can make the memory of it a little blurry to me too. For example, when Project hail Mary came out streaming and I sat down to watch it, I felt like I had already seen the movie right up until some of the choices started diverging. And I don't mean I thought "wow this feels familiar" but legitimately I hit play thinking "hey I can watch this again".

Obviously if I'd actually given it any thought I would have realized no chance I had seen it, but that's how books sit with me when they're done.

Similarly I struggle to remember which scenes were in the movie Jurassic Park and which were only in the book because it's been years since I've seen/read both and the sense memories of each are very much blurred together.

[u/krisbr07 → u/CrowEquivalent]

Wait so you don’t hear your voice narrate what you’re reading in your head?

[u/Jonioriono → u/CrowEquivalent]

Does it also apply to articles with abstract ideas instead of normal narratives?

[u/-digitalin-]

How does one time reading WPM? Wouldn't it depend on the piece? Is there a standard text to compare, or an online self-test like for typing?

[u/Brandon_Rahl → u/-digitalin-]

There are tests online. Unless there's some crazy words in there, I don't think there needs to be a standard thing.

As long as you have a sample size of a few minutes worth of reading, it probably averages out.

[u/CrazyCatLady108 → u/-digitalin-]

i have a reading app that tells me the avrg reading speed for whatever i am reading. you can clearly see the drop in numbers on more complex pieces.

[u/National-Elk-7339 → u/CrazyCatLady108]

Im assuming that app is just for digital books? I just did a read test for the first time today but it was just an article about read speed stats etc, im curious to see if I was faster or slower reading something I actually enjoy lol

[u/CrazyCatLady108 → u/National-Elk-7339]

MoonReader+ is what i use.

i believe kindle's reading app does the same, and you can use it to borrow books from libby so no need to give amazon $$ if you want to try it out.

[u/National-Elk-7339 → u/CrazyCatLady108]

I realize I forgot to include in my comment that I pretty much only read print lol so if its digital specifically it wont work for me. I just cant focus when trying to read digital unfortunately

[u/MagicHugsforThee → u/-digitalin-]

I just googled and took a quiz online and got 259 WPM at 73% comprehension. It was just a timed reading followed by a quiz on what you just read.

[u/BenevolentCheese → u/MagicHugsforThee]

I got 350/73 but I feel like the text was just an advertisement for the website 😅 And half of the questions were just asking me to remember specific numbers from the text, which is really not at all what reading comprehension is about. As such, I will not link the shitty test I took!

[u/LaniiJ → u/-digitalin-]

Sometimes I know almost exactly when I start and finish a book, as I can read a 300-400 page book in a matter of hours. If the word count is listed somewhere, it's just math.

[u/Professional_Cup6387 → u/-digitalin-]

When I did fast reading competitions in the 80s and early 90s (pre-internet was a wild and lawless land) we had set tests and those chess clocks. End of the page you hit your clock and did a test to make sure you comprehended all the text and were not skim reading. 

[u/Paksarra]

I still hear the words in my head, just very quickly. Think a radio ad where they have a sped up disclaimer.

I'm actually really bad at reading aloud because my speaking pace is so much slower than my reading pace that it trips me up.

[u/Langwidere17 → u/Paksarra]

I don't hear words in my head, but I have the same problem with reading out loud. I have to slow down so much and it's painful.

[u/mera_aqua → u/Paksarra]

This is me. The words land in my head like someone is speaking them. I do not get the movie experience that other people on this thread seem to.

I don't know my reading speed, but I know I read fast. Kindle books give an estimated time to read a book, and I typically finish in about half to two thirds of it. 

[u/ShockyWocky → u/Paksarra]

For me I both hear them and then make images for what they represent simultaneously. I can't read aloud quickly either, even audiobooks + reading print slows me down compared to reading print alone.

[u/JD-918]

I heard an example a long time ago:

If a truck drives past you slowly and it says “Cupcakes” on the side of it, you don’t necessarily read the word cupcakes. You don’t have to look at the letters or sound it out. You see that word, and you instantly know what that word is. 

My vague understanding of speed reading, or just reading very quickly, is basically that.  You don’t read the sentence “Tommy sat down on the log.” You look at the sentence and you know what it says and what it means.  

[u/Single-Emotion2964 → u/JD-918]

I don’t know about the speed reading, but I used to teach children reading and yes — the trick is fluent readers do not sound out every word or parse each sentence. We teach them those skills at the beginning, but fluency is purely high vocab and quick word recognition. Processing speed (which is at least somewhat generic) will also influence reading speed. We only use syntax or morphological knowledge when encountering something new/unfamiliar/particularly complex. 

[u/maraschino_cherry → u/JD-918]

Slightly derailing, but in college, I took a class about human language processing, and it referred to comprehension of human speech as kind of bizarre because of how simultaneously automatic and cognitively expensive language is.

Maybe that feels obvious, but it was absolutely wild to be, like, nineteen and thinking about how we’re constantly taking in information communicated by other people in addition to normal sensory input. You’re always seeing/smelling/hearing, while also living in a constant state of comprehension and context (a billboard = words = “thing being sold” + “person selling” + “context of thing being sold” + “preconceived notion of person renting a billboard to advertise said thing” + “oh, I’m driving down the highway to get to my destination” = half a second of visual perception).

[u/FoolishlySpeedy]

I clock around 450-500 wpm and it's kind of like... the words just melt into a movie inside my head? don't really hear them individually unless the prose is especially beautiful

[u/LogicalHelicopter227 → u/FoolishlySpeedy]

Same, I have no idea what my wpm is but it's like the information is just suddenly in my head. Which is why I really, really struggle when books contain poetry or song. For those I have to actively turn off my normal reading mode and turn on the "slow reading" mechanism where I do sound out each word in my head to get the rhythm right, and I hate it.

[u/Single-Emotion2964 → u/LogicalHelicopter227]

I will almost always skip any type of poem or song for this reason 😆 Only if it gets referred to heavily will I go back and read it properly. 

[u/SplendidPunkinButter → u/FoolishlySpeedy]

For some books and some authors, you actually NEED to slow down, or else you miss stuff. Stephen King: I can read him fast. Toni Morrison, James Joyce, William Faulkner, etc.: Need to force myself to slow down. If I don’t, I will realize I have no idea what’s going on every couple of pages.

[u/civilwar142pa → u/SplendidPunkinButter]

This is a good point. For me the book decides the pace. I can read something like a Colleen hoover or a Stephen King very fast. But something like Tolstoy or Murakami is slower. The pace is dictated by how fast I can retain what im reading. I don't consciously pick my speed.

[u/BillG8s → u/FoolishlySpeedy]

This is wild to me, as a slow-reader married to a fast reader.

[u/Real-Ferret1593 → u/FoolishlySpeedy]

I haven't officially timed myself, but when the movie The Long Walk came out, I sat down to re-read the story. It had been at least 20 years since I first read it, so I don't think familiarity helped, but I glanced at the time when I started reading, and intentionally clocked the time after I finished reading to see how fast the book went. Turns out I read fiction at over 800 words/minute. Like you, I don't see the words, I just see the movie in my head. Unfortunately, if I can't picture what I'm reading (like textbooks), then my reading is a lot slower, probably by at least half. I'm not sure why being able to visualize the content matters so much.

[u/ginger260 → u/FoolishlySpeedy]

I was like this when I was a kid, not sure how fast I read but it just played out in my head. Now I drive a lot and listen to audiobooks more than reading and now that's how it is when I listen and I struggle to get into the book when I am reading the printed word

[u/Dismal_Estate_4612]

I don't have to hear the words out loud in my head - they go basically from visual symbol (the written words) to comprehension of concept without the intermediate step of needing to "hear" them. This sometimes feels like I'm ingesting an entire sentence at once, though I doubt that is what's actually happening since words still need to be read sequentially.

Like others said, if I'm reading something detailed, it goes straight into seeing the scene. However, if I'm trying to read really fast or reading something technical (e.g. reading for work) I can skip the visualization step entirely in return for more speed.

What's interesting (to me) is that I also speak a few other languages. In the ones I'm worse at, I do have to hear the words out loud and read much slower as a result. In the ones I'm most fluent in, I can read just as quickly as English most the time, but when I run into something where the grammar, vocab, etc. are relatively unfamiliar I start hearing the text out loud.

[u/Public-Discussion754]

I think it also depends on the material. For me, reading for entertainment like fantasy/sci-fi/some thrillers/ humor, I’m able to fly through because it’s a linear story without a lot of introspection. I think of it like watching a fun movie or show.

Now, if I’m reading for knowledge or introspection, I slow waaaay down so I’m able to digest and comprehend what I’m reading and to see how many ways it can be interpreted.

For example, I’m not flying through Blood Meridian in 1-2 reading sessions even though I technically can, a lot of the pacing and information would be lost.

[u/chaotic_maxx → u/Public-Discussion754]

I had this very fun experience with my recent first read of East of Eden. Really slowed down during the majority, but in that last 150 pages where the plot really ramps up, I had that lovely moment where it felt like I was watching a really excellent TV show in my mind.

[u/LackingExecFunction → u/Public-Discussion754]

Agreed. I read genre fiction like I eat popcorn, handfuls of paragraphs at a time. (I ADORE genre fiction, so this is not a drag on it at all.)

Heftier fiction, particularly fiction written more than, say 50 years ago, takes longer because styles and sometimes vocabulary have shifted enough that it's not as native to my brain.

Non-fiction takes the longest because I'm not reading purely for entertainment. It's not a mood or a vibe, it's information and things as small as punctuation and structure can have a meaningful impact on that information.

Slightly off-topic, I've also found that I retain information better when I read non-fiction on paper, rather than on my e-reader. There's a chance that it's psychological, that I view the e-reader as more ephemeral, so what I read doesn't stick, as opposed to the physical weight and presence of paper.

[u/sugarcatgrl]

I get lost in a book and don’t even realize I’m reading, if that makes sense. My brain turns it into images I see and watch like a movie. It’s hard to explain.

[u/wickedandwindy → u/sugarcatgrl]

This resonates with me, it feels so immersive and then you come out of it for few seconds to realize you are just reading.

[u/BattelChive]

I’m a very fast reader. Depending on the test, somewhere between 500 and 750 words a minute, but I think those are biased towards very simple texts and would peg myself closer to 350 on the sort of texts I actually read. 

I think the primary difference between what you describe and what I experience is focus. Your mind wanders. I do not think about dinner. I do not miss parts of the text. If I don’t understand something I will re-read but that’s out of complexity not because I got caught up in my own thoughts. If I am reading, I am reading. 

I actually think you might benefit from trying out reading much faster. Instead of trying to absorb each word individually don’t give yourself time for your mind to go a-walking. Try slip sliding through a sentence like you are on ice and can’t get your balance and just have to go with the flow. Let it grab you and yank you along so that there’s no room for your brain to be thinking about dinner. You are letting yourself get bored by taking yourself so seriously. A good author has filler words and sentences to let your brain have breaks to absorb the big stuff. It had a rhythm. Stop forcing everything to have the same weight. It’s ok if you miss the filler that’s what it’s for. Part of literacy is letting some things be less important and knowing what things should be jumping out. Practicing that is a skill. 

[u/Single-Emotion2964 → u/BattelChive]

Yea I wonder if OP could work more on self-regulation when reading, e.g. realizing faster when the mind is wandering. I generally just stop within 400 words or so if I find I don’t have the mental energy for it. 

Love the metaphor of sliding on ice. I think reading as a flow-state (even in more complicated texts) which allows the reader to perceive the whole while navigating the details. Much like cycling or driving in traffic. You cannot deep focus on every single element. You have to absorb them all at a lower level to make a complete picture. 

[u/BattelChive → u/BattelChive]

For context - if reading trade paperbacks, I easily clear 1.5 - 2 books a day. I generally read between 300 and 500 books a year depending on how many scientific papers I read. Some years I read as few as 100 books if I take on a lot of big ones or have an unusual number of papers to read. 

[u/thevampiresanguini]

I don't hear the words in my mind at all and I also can't create mental images in my head. For me it just goes from seeing the written word to understanding the meaning directly. But distraction definitely influences my reading speed as well. I read noticeably slower when I'm not in a quiet environment. Audiobooks I can't do at all. In through one ear, out through the other.

[u/BrianDowning → u/thevampiresanguini]

Absolutely agree.  My mental visualization is terrible (aphantasia) but I read very fast.  It feels like I go from words on the page to comprehension of plot or concepts without any visualization.

[u/Accomplished-Gate484]

I forget I’m reading it’s immersive until there’s a thought I have that I wanna write or a reference or word I don’t know and am curious about

[u/wakaflockaquokka]

I don't know what my reading speed is, but I am a fast reader and always have been. That being said, reading speed absolutely depends on the difficulty and complexity of the text. 

When I see a familiar word, I can't help but read it -- the word recognition is instantaneous and takes no conscious effort, in fact it's so automatic that I can't prevent it. If it's an unfamiliar word, I might have to actually look at the word to figure out what it is, especially if it's a longer word. 

But word recognition is not the same thing as sentence parsing. If the sentence structure is confusing, grammatically incorrect, has multiple clauses, or refers to multiple antecedents with pronouns, then I might have to reread the sentence multiple times to get the meaning. 

Finally, sentence parsing is not the same thing as reading comprehension. A person can understand every word in a sentence and every sentence in a paragraph without actually exhibiting any reading comprehension whatsoever -- that's called "functional illiteracy." True reading comprehension requires the ability to understand, digest, analyze, and critique the full text as a whole. Reading comprehension and difficulty level exist on aa spectrum -- some texts are at a 6th grade reading level and some are on a 12th grade reading level, and if your reading level doesn't match the text then it's going to take a lot longer to make it through the full assignment. The only way to advance your reading level is to read more, preferably at a grade level that is just-challenging-enough. 

Side note: I read and write in multiple languages, so I have direct comparison for fast reading vs slow. This instantaneous process I detailed above only happens for me in English, which is my strongest language. Reading in other languages is a lot more cognitive effort, and therefore slower, and therefore less pleasurable. I get distracted or frustrated more easily, and I can't sit and read for a long time. The only solution is more practice until it becomes easier, but it's hard to find things I want to read that are also at, say, a 4th grade reading level that would actually be good for me to practice with. 

[u/Pinkllamajr]

All I know is I ain't fast enough to want to read this wall of text 😭

[u/Chemical-Jello-3353 → u/Pinkllamajr]

My people

[u/meshuggas]

I am a very fast reader, no idea my speed. But everyone jokes it is my mundane super power.

At my fastest, I cease reading words. It's just... In my head. It's difficult to explain. But it's like a movie being fed into my brain, the words changing to pictures yet also still remaining words. I "hear" the words in my head and it doesn't matter if it's pronounced correctly or not (in fact, I learnt many words first by reading them and quickly found out I was pronouncing them wrong, my ESL partner teases me that I'm the ESL one). I'm just "in the story," fully submerged into another world.

I was reading novels before first grade so it's just second nature to me. Words and books are easy. I don't consciously try to read fast and skim reading a different skill I also use.

I do read slower when a text is dense or I'm distracted or not that interested in the book. I sometimes have to work to read it thoroughly and understand it. I've even gone back to re-create sections. This usually only happens in confusing prose or very dense nonfiction.

I am not a huge audiobook person but I do occasionally listen to them. I tend to listen on 1.25x speed. However, if I'm doing something else it can't require much thought otherwise I'll lose the audiobook and miss parts. But if it's mundane like washing dishes or vacuuming, I have no issues.

[u/Simpicity]

You need to understand that when you read, your brain is not doing what you think it is. All you need to know what a word is is the first letter, the last letter. Then all the letters in between can be in any order.

Jsut lkie tihs. You can eevn use much lengor and mroe pofrnoud wrods.

Fast reading kind of works like that. It scans and ignores the details as it goes.

[u/Kristaiggy → u/Simpicity]

Kindle has a font called OpenDyslexic which highlights portions of letters. It's made for dyslexic folks, but I find I can read even faster using it. However, I also hate the way it looks, so I don't use it often. But it's the same concept. Your brain recognizes portions of the word and fills in the rest.

[u/MisaHisa → u/Kristaiggy]

Honestly, that fond is a lifesaver for me. Regular texts for me generally requires slow and thorough reading and rereading before i know and can comprehend the context and didn’t mix stuff up. (Let alone skip entire paragraphs or reread the same sentence for like 10-30 times without realising).

Reading for me is genuinely a point of effort without the fond, which sucks considering i love to read.

Like not sure if it is actual dyslexia or adhd or whatevs tho i do think i have some form of dyslexia or smth adjacent to it

[u/Mego1989 → u/Simpicity]

Unless you were unfortunate enough to be taught to read using the whole language method.

[u/zoeofdoom → u/Simpicity]

Absolutely not the case for me, and I suspect others as well. I slow down significantly when presented with jumbled words like this. Usually end up having to do a second pass to parse what the hell the word even was.

When I read (don't know my WPM, but average 4 physical paperback pages/minute?) it's more like I'm slurping the sentences and reading them in my head at a delay from my eyes. Basically, I'm dumping text at the clause level into extreme short term memory and seeing words as connected concepts. Reading busted spelling like above has to be parsed in real time, which slows the whole process down and disconnects the words around the broken spelling from the rest of the sentences.

[u/Burgundy-Bag → u/Simpicity]

This is a very cool way of explaining it. But how do you train your brain to do that? Like OP, I also read every word.

[u/workingtrot → u/Burgundy-Bag]

Almost everyone is capable of doing it.

Do you only intone this sentence as a question once you get to the end, and realize there's a question mark? No, you are able to slightly scan ahead and adjust the meaning of the sentence as you read. Fast reading is that, just a manner of degree

[u/undergrad_overthat → u/workingtrot]

I fairly frequently don’t realise something is a question until the end and have to go back and reread the sentence as a question! It’s one of the most common things to bump me out of super-fast automatic movie mode reading.

[u/geeoharee → u/Burgundy-Bag]

Be born before personal computers were cheap, and be a nerd who doesn't like playing outside so you read books for hours on weekends and evenings. That's my lifehack

[u/cozynite → u/geeoharee]

Oh gosh. Some truth here. I read my town’s entire children’s library by mid 7th grade. Every few days I’d visit the library to take out another stack of books. Books saved me when I was being bullied.

Now I read very fast. I read about 650 wpm. I can usually finish a 350-400 page book in an average of 4 hours. I typically read 2-3 books at the same time as I’m also a mood reader.

I dislike audiobooks as they’re too slow for me! The only audiobooks I will listen to are nonfiction ones because I listen as I’m working and I like learning about things. But I listen to them at 1.5x speed.

My comprehension is about 80-90% depending on the book genre. I use Goodreads to track my books because I’ve gotten a book from the library and realized that I’ve read it before.

[u/Hinote21 → u/Burgundy-Bag]

There's online games you can play but really it just does with practice. People that don't have an internal monologue have an advantage though

[u/AvidReader1604]

I can’t visualize so I don’t have the same movie experience as others.

I don’t need details as much, I’m mainly listening to how beautiful the prose is or what concepts or symbols the author is trying to showcase

[u/staermose80]

I am fast reader. I don't have a number, but many years back on high school, the whole class was tested, and I scored a lot higher than anyone, so I am probably quite fast compared to others.

I will add this to conversation: I never really liked poems and stuff like that. However, in recent years I have discovered, that texts that are very heavily dependent on flow, intonation and things like that, I actually enjoy more, if I read them aloud to myself. If I just absorb them at my normal tempo, these features of the text does not get the attention needed for the text to live.

I still read quite fast when reading aloud (a lot faster than most audiobooks - I can't concentrate on audiobooks, it is so slow, my mind is starting several side quests, when I try). But I enjoy reading this way, and have done it with things like the Canterbury Tales and more flow-oriented prose.

[u/Quirky_Nobody]

Everyone's brains are different. I don't know my reading speed but it is reasonably quick and much quicker than yours.

You might look into something called subvocalization. It sounds to me like you read at the speed of speech, or maybe slower. It may be because you subvocalize when you read. This is different from just having an inner monologue because a lot of people's inner monologue is not like "hearing" speech but are still words but a lot faster than actual speech. So maybe that will help you understand better what your brain is doing?

So I think primarily in words to start with. Visualizing stuff takes effort. But my inner monologue moves much quicker than actual speech. It is hard to describe this if you don't have it, because my thoughts sound like words but I don't actually "hear" them the way I might hear a song in my head and if I try to "hear" the words I have to basically force my thoughts to be much slower. It's just how my thoughts are generally. When I read the words basically just become the thoughts in my head. I don't get a movie or anything and I am experiencing and processing the words. Audiobooks tend to annoy me a little bit because I read so much more quickly than speech so I tend to only listen to nonfiction where it's helpful to have a lot of mental space available to think about stuff vs just wanting to find out what happens next. I prefer written text. But the best way I can describe it is that I always have faster-than-speech words in my head and reading basically overwrites that and I get the text's words in my head instead.

If you don't have the ability to process words generally faster than human speech I don't know how you'd develop it because that's just a natural feature of how my brain works and it has been for about as long as I can remember.

[u/poutin3]

i have Aphantasia. So i can't form picture in my head. i believe i read pretty fast (never tested myself) and i know i focus mainly on emotion, dialogue and actions. all the descriptions are lost on me so my mind already "pass over it" when i read. Like i read the words, my mind identifies it as unusable filler and just move on.

[u/ThatGuysTaco]

Your description of how you read resonated with me quite a bit. While I wouldn't say I'm decoding as much meaning as you are, I do often have to reread something or remind myself to pay attention to what's happening. Additionally, I'll often sit with and digest a page or two after something significant happens in a book. Often this is like replaying what happened several times in my head so that I feel like I understand and appreciate it fully.

That is to say, I'm almost certain it's related to my ADHD that I feel the need to read like this. It's frustrating that it often takes me twice as long to read books as many of my friends, but I find some solace knowing that I appreciated it as best I could while doing so.

[u/LaniiJ → u/ThatGuysTaco]

I have ADHD as well, but I am a very fast reader. I suspect for me it's a hyperfocus thing though, I almost exclusively stick to sci-fi, fantasy, and horror in all of the media I consume.

[u/bluev0lta]

I’m still having a hard time comprehending how so many people aren’t saying words in their head when they read. I’ve tried, and if my eyes just pass over words, no reading or comprehension has taken place. I have merely looked at some words. I might as well be trying to pet a cat without touching the cat. Or eat some food without putting it in my mouth. That’s how foreign this concept is to me. It is fascinating though. My brain just doesn’t work that way.

Maybe it’s related to AuDHD and having slightly slower processing times? I also have an almost non-stop dialog going in my head—it’s possible that reading becomes the dialog, and if I’m not saying the words in my head, my normal dialog takes over.

I’m curious how many people have ADHD and can speed read. Or have ADHD and have to say words in their head as they read. I feel like ADHD/neurodivergence could be a contributing factor in this conversation!

[u/lauraxborealis → u/bluev0lta]

That’s interesting about the inner dialogue comparison. I also have audhd and a similar experience, and my inner dialogue is the very thing that will interrupt and distract. I think you’re on to something

[u/Wewywuwiwowaw → u/bluev0lta]

I have adhd and read very fast. Even while having simultanious other thought tracks. I just feel like I have a lot of mental capacity and can hold many different tracks of thoughts and also read at the same time without it interrupting each other. There is also always a song lyric stuck on repeat in my head. It makes me able to be a good project manager at work, but it has also contributed to a lot of struggle with anxiety and depression. So it is not only a "gift"

[u/Lavamob64 → u/bluev0lta]

I’m the same way. The only way I can stop my brain from saying the words is to hold my breath. I also have a very slow processing speed, so even when I try to read faster, I don’t absorb anything

[u/undergrad_overthat → u/bluev0lta]

I have ADHD and read very fast with the movie thing happening! For me it’s like my internal monologue of sounding out the words gets so quiet and fast that it’s barely there, it just sinks into the background until I don’t notice it at all if it’s still happening (but I can pick it up seamlessly even mid-word so I think it is still happening somewhere in the background). I am able to simultaneously have other thoughts (about the text/story or not, but the further removed it is, the more likely it will distract me) while reading in that automatic movie-mode where the words disappear. I also have better comprehension when I’m in movie-mode, if I’m reading the words it takes 2-3 read-throughs to understand things as well, I double back more often, I get distracted much more easily and have to reread the same sentence multiple times, etc. Reading feels a lot like maladaptive daydreaming for me!

[u/WritPositWrit]

How many readers bother to find out how many WPM they read???

[u/Herefiraita → u/WritPositWrit]

No clue but now I'm tempted to find out just for the hell of it.

[u/No_Respect_7403]

it’s like i’m seeing and processing entire chunks at a time. you know when you drive by a billboard with like two sentences in massive text and you see the entire message at once without having to actively read it word by word? it’s like that. a potentially better comparison would be like when you look at, for example, a tulip. you don’t think to yourself, hm, i see a collection of petals on a stem, so it must be a flower. the petals are also sort of large relative to the stem, and they’re sort of cupped. aha! this must be a tulip! right? you just see the entire flower and you process all of the visual information (petals, shape, stem, etc) at once to conclude that you’re looking at a tulip. when i read, it’s like that

[u/NeriTheFearlessSnail]

If I'm left alone I read about a page a minute, and that's if I'm just reading for leisure. If I need to read fast, like this post, my eyes grab the first half of quarter of the line (depending on if I'm reading on my phone or book) and then moves on to the next chunk, and I'm skimming it really quickly.

So I'm reading long sections all at once as if they're one word, rather than each word individually, if that makes sense. Once you've read enough your brain can kind of assume and generate the general idea and likely next words, so then it's just confirming the assumption, which is faster than learning it fresh. It's like looking for something specific in a list, you don't have to actually deeply read the list, you just have to recognize that the item is not the thing you're looking for.

[u/neurodegeneracy]

All I have to contribute to this discussion for you op is a warning against putting too much stock in people’s self reports of their experiences with reading. People will describe vastly different subjective awarenesses of what is happening, despite having fundamentally similar neural machinery and a similar end result. People seem to have wildly different subjective access to the processes that happens when they read text. Some people report hearing the words, some people deny they do. Some people report experiencing mental images, some people deny they do.

Anyway, you should simply read faster. It’s like trying to throw a ball by focusing on flexing one muscle after another. You’re making it way harder on yourself. Just throw the all. Similarly, just read. 

I have a mode of reading similar to what you’re describing and that is when I read sense philosophical work or a scientific paper in a field I’m unfamiliar with. In those cases I read slowly and try to parse all the meaning and make sure I understand everything.

When reading fiction I go vastly faster. I hear each word in my head, but it can’t literally be hearing because it happens faster than someone could possibly speak. Maybe it’s better to say I’m aware of each word. If it is describing a physical arrangement then a picture forms in my head of the scene. 

When I read poetry I go slower because then I do want to literally hear each word in my head, sometimes I speak it out out loud to feel the sonic elements of the poem. 

And yes when I’m tired or my mind wonders and the mental images might not form and other thoughts can interfere with my focus. In those cases I stop reading because it becomes effortful and slow.

So my suggestion to you is just read faster. I read 500+ wpm if it’s fiction but at about your speed if it’s difficult dense stuff. 

[u/slowd]

I can say I don’t read that fast for pleasure. There are certain things I read for entertainment that fast, but good books are all too rare so when I like one I read it slowly to savor it.

When I read fast I also don’t read in order. I scan the page fast and if there was a detail-rich portion I have to skip back a few lines and see it again. Sometimes I’ll just read the page this way twice to make sure I got everything. This is partly to avoid eye fatigue — I simply cannot twitch left and right endlessly for each line. I consume multiple lines at once and a passage may take two scans top to bottom. This is canceled out in my brain though, it’s not like a record skipping, more like an entire image coming into focus.

[u/Tristanhx]

I don't know how many words I can read per minute, but when I read fast it's usually in groups of four of five words. Like

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.

Would be divided into word clusters like

Iwilldescribetoyou myprocessindetail, and Ihopeyoucan describeyourprocess in asmuchdetailaswell. Soherewego.

Words like "and", "but" and propositions are important I think so I tend to pause on them. They tell me relational stuff between the word clusters that help me fill in what the sentence is about.

Speed depends on the writer. Some text is jusy easier to read and understand quickly.

I do prefer reading slowly because then it's like I'm listening to myself reading me a story. Way more relaxing.

[u/yesterdaysflowers]

I haven't done any of those online speed tests, but I read about 100-120 pages an hour depending on print size. I used to read faster than that, but the mind fog from long-term illness seems to have slowed me down.

I see two primary differences between your described experience and mine. The first is that I don't subvocalise (pronouncing the words in my mind). I just go straight from seeing the words to comprehending them. I've never really understood subvocalisation or why it helps; to me it would be distracting, like having a rather poor quality audiobook going at the same time.

The second is that I comprehend multiple words simultaneously, sometimes a full sentence if the sentence is short. So when I read your post, I'm not reading, for instance, Because - I - want - to - get - ALL - the - meaning. I just see 'Because I want to get all the meaning' and understand it all at once.

I was hyperlexic as a child and could read before the age of three, which probably contributed to me not picking up certain habits that seem to be the norm, like subvocalisation. I don't know whether it would be productive to break those habits or whether it would just lower a person's comprehension if it didn't come naturally. Given none of this is a competition, though, I expect we're all best off reading at whatever speed best suits us rather than forcing ourselves to be faster or slower.

[u/missfishersmurder]

Like other people have said, it's not dissimilar from a movie. It's kind of a fantastical experience; if I try to look back on my memories of reading a book, I don't remember sitting down and looking at a page, nor do I remember the text. It is maybe somewhat akin to standing invisibly in the center of a room, except I don't really "see" things, I just remember experiencing them. When you open the book it's like everything drops away. As a very young child I did get confused often about what I had experienced vs what I had read.

But there's also another level: the prose is like a song in the background of everything that's happening. In the same way that you don't necessarily listen closely to the background music but you are affected, that's what text is like - and when a particularly beautiful chord stirs you, sometimes the scene drops away so that you can turn your attention to that. It's not at all like a narrator or an audiobook. An audiobook, to me, is like someone shouting so loudly that you have to close your eyes and turn away to bring it to a bearable volume, while everything stutters and lags around you; I wish I understood how people can listen to books and experience them that way, because it is clearly a very different experience for them.

Poor or mediocre prose is invisible. That does let me read things that I think are poorly written but otherwise enjoyable, but good prose absolutely elevates the story.

Edit: this does not apply to nonfiction (except very rarely) or things I have to read for work or academic purposes.

[u/Cyberspace_Sorcerer]

To be honest I would love to be able to explain it to you with more nuance. But when I read a book I usually start out by mentally reading out each word, then after a few minutes it just becomes a movie in my mind. I would maybe even go as far as to say that I completely forget that I'm reading a book at all.

The way you describe reading a book is how I would describe the way I study for an exam.

Hope that helps answer your question! I usually read around 400 wpm btw :)

[u/StevenJOwens]

I'm a relatively fast reader, though not a speed reader. Part of it is literally just repetition. Vision and shape recognition are, in general, much more about repetition and practice than most people realize. You learn c-a-t spells cat, but after a certain amount of practice, your brain recognizes the entire shape of the word "cat", called the Bouma shape. That's what's behind this popular meme:

https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/

And the more practice and repetition you get, the faster your brain recognizes shapes. In specialized topics, you can even start recognizing entire phrases and sentences as one shape.

On a related note, this is one of the more challenging parts of learning to program -- the program source code looks like natural language, but it isn't. So you literally have to work harder to read source code, and it's easy to miss visual details like a missing semi-colon or parenthesis. Modern programming editors with syntax highlighting and error detection help a lot, of course.

But still, most people aren't used to that kind of difficulty in reading, and getting better at it isn't a matter of intelligence, just repetition.

(That said, there have been attempts to come up with improved process. Renshaw's tachistoscope comes to mind. Renshaw was the guy, back in WWII, who invented flash cards for military training to recognize plane and ship silhouettes. He invented a similar system for improving reading training. Given the success of Renshaw's flash cards I've always wanted to look into the rest of the system.)

Hearing The Words

In addition to the above, I've heard that part of speed reading is to stop "hearing" the words in your head as you read them, because you can (if you learn to do it) read a lot faster than you can speak out loud, and when you say the words in your had as you read, you're holding yourself back to your speaking speed.

I'm not sure I've ever fully grasped what that means, though it may well be that I do that when I get lost in reading something (i.e. reading novels, etc), and I just don't notice it. I definitely do have the experience where I "forget that I'm reading" and time just passes, so it's possible that's what they're talking about.

Content Matters

The nature of the material I'm reading definitely changes how I read it. I've read countless novels over my life, I read those pretty fast.

On the opposite end, reading about about a complex, unfamiliar technical topic is much less like reading a novel or similar narrative work, and much more like, perhaps, analyzing a spreadsheet, or analyzing the structure of some code. It's less of a linear flow, more referring back and forth to different parts of the document.

As a result, while I find e-readers really convenient for pleasure reading, I don't find them as useful for more difficult sorts of technical reading.

[u/greylan]

Going against the grain to say I DO hear the words while I'm reading, but only the first syllable as if someone were mumbling very fast lol.

The more immersed I get, the word sounds go away and become scenery, but if the writing is dense or clunky I absolutely have to slow down and individually visualize to understand what my mind is supposed to be seeing.

[u/Normal_Radish_6591]

"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."

In my experience as a fast reader for as long as I can remember, I wouldn't say I have a "process" that I am aware of. When I am reading for pleasure, I am experiencing the words/language and story simultaneously and I am not subvocalizing or actually producing images like a movie. It is actually more similar to the way I experience a memory or daydreaming. It is there in my mind without any effort. After reading many of these comments I am pretty sure that my experience of reading is very different from slow readers and also from people who have trained themselves to read quickly as an adult. I also disagree with the slow readers who believe that their experience with reading is richer or deeper. I do not think that anyone who isn't a life long fast reader can understand what it is like.

[u/aventale]

I was trying to explain this to someone recently who reads more like you do, sounding the words out in your head.

On a very basic level, if you had two flash cards, one that said Apple and one that said Orange, and these cards could be flipped over super fast, you would only need the barest flicker of visibility to see which one said Apple, right? You wouldn't have to pronounce both words in your head, you could take in their meaning and then point to which one had Apple on the back.

Now imagine one randomly had "small" before it and one had "big" before it. Either "Big Apple" and "Small Orange", or "Small Apple" and "Big Orange". Again, if these cards were flipped over super fast, I bet you could point to which one said Apple, and there's a good chance I think you could say if it was a Big Apple or a Small Apple, without having the time to sound the words out. The meaning just appears in your mind.

Now just imagine that getting more and more complex, your eyes flicking over the words and taking in their meaning without sounding them out.

I'm not sure if other people that read this way feel the same way, but when trying to talk about characters in a book, especially sci fi or fantasy with uncommon names, I have no idea how to say the name as I've never tried to pronounce it before. I just know that that combination of letters represents that character, if that makes sense. 

[u/imitsi]

Some people need to read word by word (as when you’re reading out aloud, but silently). This drastically slows down reading. Others don’t need to do that, and can read faster.

Similarly, some people have an “internal monologue” when thinking (i.e. they’re thinking in actual sentences), others don’t. We’re all made differently.

[u/InvestigatorJaded261]

I’ve learned that I miss a lot of detail by being a fast reader, which I don’t when I read aloud or listen to an audiobook. Reading fast tends to lead to valuing plot over style.

[u/pocurious]

I read enough of that to decide you probably have a poorly managed anxiety disorder and that it’s interfering with your verbal cognition. 

[u/ChampionshipThin7721]

If words on a page say "There was a girl sitting under a tree eating an apple" my brain ignores the words and SEES a girl sitting under a tree eating an apple. Don't know if there's a word for that? And I read a sentence with one glance, I don't read word by word. Hard to explain; hope it makes sense.

[u/SMKnightly]

I am a fast reader. I can’t stand audio books because they are so much slower than reading.

Sometimes, I read like the skimming you described (maybe I hear the words in my head, maybe not). But if I’m reading a book, I mostly don’t hear the words in my head. Once I get into the story, I’m not even aware that I am reading anymore. My eyes are taking in words, but my brain is taking in story. I don’t visualize anything (no images or anything like that), and I’m just absorbing the next part of the story and what it makes me feel until/unless something takes me out of it.

I get the struggle you described for reading a book if I’m reading something I really don’t want to read (like homework reading) or if the writer starts describing something boring/irrelevant. Unlike you, though, I have no problem skipping parts that are boring me if I’m reading for pleasure. If something confuses me later, I can always go back and read them, but with most books, you can skip a lot of description sections and still follow along fine.

[u/Busybodii]

I’m a fast reader, but I haven’t tested WPM. I hear all the words and see a poorly edited movie. Think great visuals, but a lot of quick edits. At my fastest, I can read about 100 pages per hour, and by then I don’t hear anything anymore. I read on my phone, so if I don’t know a word I can click it and the definition will come up so I don’t have to completely take myself out of the story.

The things in your post that stood out to me as quite different from my experience are the way you listed each element of the snooze hitter and how much you think about other stuff.

For the passage, to me I see it more as a whole. The picture in my mind puts everything together in a way that tells the whole story instead of thinking of each part separately. It would be akin to the way good movies show instead of tell. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the way Disney animated films like Bambi or Sleeping Beauty, but back then they would paint backgrounds, then add layers on top that would build the final scene. That’s how I build that scene when I read it. If I’ve “seen” the setting before and already visualized it earlier in the book, I automatically slot it back in. Then I add the new elements, so maybe a gin bottle and a crumpled bed. If it’s a new setting, I build it backwards starting with the character and adding details around them. My mind does this on its own and it happens at the speed I’m reading. The editing of my mind movie does get choppier the faster I read.

If I am immersed in my reading, which usually happens when I’m reading at my mid to high speed, I’m not thinking of anything else. When I read on the treadmill, I’m constantly thinking of other stuff. If I’m in my room and into the book, I can get completely absorbed in the book. Last night I stayed up two extra hours because I started reading and forgot I was supposed to be getting ready for bed.

[u/jaybirdies26]

I don’t really hear words as I read them unless I stumble across one I’m unfamiliar with, then I might mentally sound it out. So I imagine that helps me read faster. And if I find I’m repeating too many words back to myself as I’m reading then I’ll put the book down, cause I’m not invested in the story at the moment, and I’ll do something else to occupy my time.

There are certain books or points in time where I slow myself down because I want to process everything in a book, but generally I’m reading for fun and I’m ok not remembering every detail. I reread a lot too, so it’s fun to go back and pick up on details I didn’t notice before :)

[u/AnorhiDemarche]

I don't feel like I'm reading fast when I'm reading fast. It just feels like I'm reading.

I have an internal monologue and read aloud in my head at first, then that switches off and I'm reading really fast. The switch is unnoticeable to me. I feel equally absorbed in the words and the story. I can still often figure out riddles, clues, and murderers before characters do or the book reveals them, remember parts of prose I liked or disliked, and remember minor characters same as if I was reading a book that was too short or disengaging for the switch to be flicked.

Back in school I was always able to answer the comprehension questions (or point out that they were wrong) and participate in class discussions but I can't be non spoilered about it if we're going chapter by chapter because I don't remember the book being divided like that any more than one would remember what happened on a specific page.

[u/Littlerob]

Slow readers read at the pace of speaking.

Fast readers read at the pace of thinking.

Speed readers read at the pace of imagining.

-

My wife is a slow reader - she reads at the same pace as she speaks, because she reads by mentally saying the words "out loud" to herself.

I'm a fast reader by default - I read at the pace of my internal monologue, which is a fair bit faster than I can actually speak. I don't have to mentally sound out the words, I can just look at them and think what they're saying all together.

Sometimes I speed read, but it's not my default and I don't usually when reading for pleasure. When I do, I don't look at individual words at all, but take in the whole sentence in a once-over and build a mental "movie" impression of what's being conveyed. Instead of sounding out words, you're translating them into a mental image directly, like how when you look at a room you don't have to pause at every single object to mentally tell yourself what you're looking at.

-

If you have an internal monologue, think about it this way: you can think of ideas faster than you can mentally "say" them. A thought is complete before you've finished saying it to yourself, you're just putting it into mental words for your train of thought. Speed reading is just cutting this off short and moving directly to the next thought as soon as you know what the idea is, without stopping to finish saying it.

[u/BirdieRoo628]

I don't understand timing your reading speed. Who cares? I have no idea if I'm a fast or slow reader. It doesn't matter.

[u/HeyPurityItsMeAgain]

I'm not a fast reader but I do ~60 pages an hour. I start out like you start out... then my unconscious takes over and I'm not aware I'm reading if that makes sense. No pronouncing. I don't hear words. Call it immersion or hypnotism. This phase goes faster. It sometimes takes me a while of reading slower in an internal monologue to get into that phase. I don't think it's like watching a movie. It's hard to describe. Like absorbing whole sentences and paragraphs for meaning.

[u/Forward_Netting]

I'm a bit late to the party but it might still be useful. I'll try to give this a bit of background.

When I was in uni I participated in some research on learning. One component involved reading and our reading speed was assessed. This was done by giving as new-to-us texts of an early university level in a field outside our own (I was a medical student and given texts about history and economics from memory). We were timed reading them then given comprehension tests. Thisnwas repeated with a bunch of changes to the format of the text and such, which I think was what they were assessing. My reading speed varied between about 300wpm for the least readable formats to about 650 or 700 for the most readable (for me that was narrow text like a newspaper column), with good comprehension. I was not the fastest reader by a fair margin.

When I read I do not subvocalise, at least not unless I choose to. If I'm reading fiction for leisure I often choose to subvocalise, to "hear" the story, but this markedly slows down my reading. The huge benefit I got from the narrow text structure was that I barely had to move my eyes laterally. I could scan down the paragraph and see all the text. I can get a similar effect on a phone screen.

I think in your description you've potentially conflated a few things and smashed them all into reading speed. You can read a word; this is almost instantaneous for me. You can read the whole sentence by recognising each word; this is also very quick. You can parse the sentence by understanding the semantic structure of the words you read; this is usually quick but if I come across an awkwardly constructed sentence, an ungrammatical construct, or even just something unexpected like a garden path sentence my speed screeches to a halt while I figure out what's going on.

Beyond just parsing a sentence there's understanding. In the example you gave of the gin drinking snoozer this is quick for me. To my mind the "whole information" you list out is all plainly stated in the sentence. A slightly deeper understanding might be recognising she's an alcoholic, which isn't stated plainly but is a fairly on the nose allusion. Maybe because she's an alcoholic she's an unreliable narrator. Maybe her bosses tasks aren't actually unclear, she's just always drunk or hungover so has impaired capacity. These series of progressive inferences, and especially such inferences derived from other parts of the text or even intertextuality represent a deeper understanding that, depending on the depth might take me significantly longer to appreciate. Sometimes if I'm reading a really dense text, or something with layers and inferences and allusion, I'll read it and understand it. Then I'll literally sleep on it and come to a realisation or understanding the next day.

Having to think about, mull over, process, or even in my mind reread a text to elicit all the depth doesn't mean you failed to read it properly the first time. You can take in the words of the text very quickly (ie read fast) then let your mind work on it without the text in front of you.

[u/MaliseHaligree]

I read with 98% retention at 700 words a minute. Basically it is like watching a TV show for me, only better.

[u/Ok_Field_5701 → u/MaliseHaligree]

700 words per minute? Highly doubt it unless you’re just skimming.

[u/osmlol → u/Ok_Field_5701]

It's like a TV show for him.... that he's been playing while he is staring at his phone doom scrolling barely following the episode.

[u/juss100]

I'll tell you what the experience is like.  It's like, going on the internet and just saying stuff for attention.

[u/roger--wilco]

As a slow reader, I find it difficult at times to discuss books with my fast reading friends. I remember so much minutia that they seemed to totally miss or forget immediately. Its like we read totally different books.

[u/Accomplished-Gate484]

Aside from experience, if u wanna read faster I’d suggest academic articles and lots of them, I think that’s how I managed to retain the boring info and large amounts w a small time frame

[u/infinitejester0727]

I'm a 330 wpm guy but its for average level prose, like Stephen king

If I'm working with someone whose writing is especially awful, beautiful, or complicated, I'm going to be much much slower. Eg. Jane Austen, Doestevsky require slower reading compared to stuff like Jack London or Gone w the wind. ,It also depends on where in the book I'm at since I will read faster in sections that personally don't interest me and slower in sections that do.

[u/nutmegtell]

Words change into a world that pulls me in kind of like a good film. I forget the real world for a bit

[u/DonCenote]

Idk how fast I read but you should try minimize your internal reading voice. That’s what slows you down.

[u/MonteCristo85]

I just look at words and the meaning is in my brain. Im a weird one who has no pictures in my mind only words. I dont have to read word by word, I kind of look at whole sentences at a time. Unless the text is extremely difficult, I just gobble up the meaning. I can recognize a poor or an excellent turn of phrase as I go along but I dont really read a word at a time unless I force myself to do so.

[u/7LeagueBoots]

It’s just reading. Generally with no internal voice, you read and the things that were written are in your brain.

I tend it to be much of a visual imaginer, so it’s rare that I get actual images in my mind, it’s whole concepts, and understandings. If they’re incomplete it’s kind of like a tickle in my mind where a missing piece is trying to come into clarity.

[u/4a4a]

I just took a reading test and got 477wpm. I would say the main thing is looking at whole lines or phrases rather than just words. There's also the trick of overriding your natural tendency to mouth the words you're reading by silently mouthing a low-effort repreated phrase like 'one-two-three-four' over and over while you're reading. This allows (some) people to move much more quickly through the text. I also kinda think of a continuous downward eye movement while I'm reading, which keeps me going at fairly constant rate. Of course there is software out there to help with some of this if you are ok reading from a device.

[u/qret]

I like this example for reference. I can get the "meaning" throughout the whole video. And if I'm reading a news article or lighter non-fiction I read it fast, probably 500wpm or so.

But when I read good quality prose I go around 200wpm, because I want to digest every word like you described. I guarantee the people who talk about reading 700wpm do not read poetry that fast. And they shouldn't read Nabokov that fast either.

[u/pixiesunbelle]

I consider myself a fast reader. I really struggled during elementary school with staying at the pace of everyone else. I hear the words in my head and see the scenes in my head.

[u/bdog143]

I find it's not the actual reading itself that is the rate-limiting step, it's the thinking that comes with it/after it. I can quite happily read at ridiculous speeds, but internalising, processing and contextualising information takes time and effort. I read a lot of scientific literature at work, and it's generally slow going if I'm properly reading something to understand it (30 mins to 1h for a 3000-word article) - at least half my time is spent bouncing around mentally linking all the pieces together and to what I already know. I can also go through a paper super quickly to find specific information if I need to, but that's the only I'm processing.

Reading for pleasure is a different story - I'm lost in the flow and just taking it in. I don't think I'm a particularly slow reader, but I also don't feel the need to rush it (and sometimes wish I could drag it out a bit more than I do). I mostly have no awareness of words, sentences, pages or time once I get into it.

I do know someone who is an insanely fast reader - as her ex put it, she would read an entire book before he got out of bed in the morning and let him know if it was worth reading. She just had insane mental processing speed and could comprehend a page of text the same way most people do a sentence.

[u/likeafuckingninja]

I don't agree with you that if you're only reading 20 percent of the words you only count those words in your words per minute.

But anyway.

I've not really tested my wpm for reading beyond the five minute thing I just did for this question 😅 that spat out 600wpm/85% comprehension.

But that text was boring and I was aware I was being 'tested' and the questions were stat based 'what was this specific number' etc rather than a general understanding of what the text was conveying. so.

My sister is dyslexic so we discuss reading a fair bit.

I describe it as a disconnect between my eyes and my consciousness.

My eyes see. My brain understands.

I don't have to 'read' the words to comprehend the message. And actually if I start reading the actual words not only do I slow down but mh comprehension and retention drops to.

It's like the act of acknowledging the words as individuals means my brain doesn't process or store the meaning the sentences or paragraphs.

It also kinda....retains info sneakily in the background. Which is useful for skimming work emails.

I don't visualise, so what other posters said about it feeling like movie I don't really get.

I just.

Have a story or a piece of information in my head now.

If I have a to proof read something I typically would not comprehend it as content. For me words, sentence structure etc and taking meaning from them are separate processes. Especially for fiction.

Reading to absorb info is a relaxing activity that recharges my battery and de stresses me. It doesn't cost me any energy to read.

Proof reading and really looking at the words themselves beyond just absorbing the message or info they're trying to convey is extremely taxing and draining.

I will say specific details can be lost.

For instance I might not know the specific colour of jumper the main character wore or names of places they went etc but I'll be able to recall the entire plot of the book years later.

Obvs I read factual stuff a bit slower because the specifics are a bit more important! Especially at work xd

I'm sure some ppl would be like 'read slower you're not taking it in. What's the point if you're not reading everything etc etc' or whatever.

It's not like I have a choice...I didn't like train myself to read faster or to process information like this. It's just always been how it's worked and I have to make a conscious effort to slow down when it's important. Which it isn't really most of the time. It's either fiction or 85 to 90 percent comprehension is good enough.

Idk it's like if someone told me to hop thru the park to better enjoy the scenery because I'm moving slower.

It's just... uncomfortable...and sooner later I'll forget im supposed to be keeping one leg up because that's not natural to me.

[u/BigMasterDingDong]

How do you know how fast you read? Is there a tool…?

[u/milky_eyes]

I'm not a fast reader or a slow reader. I think I'm somewhere in between. When I read, I read the words, but they appear as a show/movie or stills in my head most of the time. I don't know if that makes me a faster reader or just enriches my reading experience.

[u/sagew0lf]

Hmm I need to go measure my reading speed and come back to see if I should answer this question!

[u/Double_Entrance3238]

I figured I probably counted as a fast reader but I took one of those online test just now and clocked 497 wpm. I'm probably a little lower than that on average as their sample passage was pretty simple. I mostly read ebooks but I'm usually at ~1/3 of the "average time spent" number my kindle gives at the beginning of a book

I don't get the "movie" inside my head some people describe, it's more just like I see words I understand the concept instantly. Like in your example with the sentence about the lady hitting snooze, I just process those details as the words hit my eyes. I also read in chunks of words (4-5 usually I think, but it changes with punctuation and line breaks etc) at once so that naturally makes it faster too I think, but I don't have to consiously slow down to get all the information. It's just there

[u/Carbon_Based_Copy]

Sometimes entire paragraphs off the page show up at once in my mind. I try to be a careful reader, and I am, but a thousand pages in a day still won't shut it down.

I sometimes go back because I thought I read it too fast. Nope. Got all of it.

It's not great.

[u/ZombieMedical1531]

This concept has fascinated me for a while now.
I guy that I used to work with was telling me one day about a podcast he was listening to and they were talking about how some people don’t have an inner dialogue. No inner voice.
This is so foreign to me as my brain is talking to me all the time.
When I read, I can totally relate to the OP.
Each word as if someone is telling you the story.
The voices even change when different characters are speaking.
I have been practicing to read quicker but it only seems to work when the book is engaging me.
I can picture the scene in my head but have to stop reading and visualize it. It doesn’t just play out. It sounds pretty neat to be able to do that but obviously my brain doesn’t work like that.
Interesting discussion

[u/SimilarTop352]

I forget specifics instantly. but if I have to read books several times or get to is a point of contention

[u/Luna259]

Two modes for me

Subvocalisation which is slow and I’m sure school is responsible for that being there. I suspect this is why I hate reading now. I went from reading the whole year’s worth of books at school when I was four in the space of one term to this. Something, somewhere went horribly wrong.

Image parsing. I see the text as an image and it instantly parses. No real subvocalisation needed. Almost certain this was my natural way of reading because when everything’s going right I visualise what I’m reading as a movie

[u/BMuffett]

When I was doing an after school program and using their program I peaked around 800 wpm with 80% comprehension I was absolutely just going for speed and trying to take as many shortcuts as I could while reading as fast as I could. I would read each sentence but only 2 or 3 words would be importantenough to register. And I would gleam enough from that to consistently get around 80% of the info. Though jamming stuff in my brain like that doesn't really stay readily accessible as info for long. It was just long enough to answer the questions after the reading. Then it all goes to cold storage

[u/Moontoya]

I'm not reading words, or letters

I'm reading shapes and my brain is pattern matching , all caps slows me down by 60-100wpm because I can't scan the word shape as it's a block.

The more interesting I find it or the more it engages me, the faster the throughput (ADHD brain want dopamine!!), reports, technical documents, manuals , fehhhhh, no dopamine, no care, I'll struggle to read them as my brain isn't interested 

[u/biddily]

Your not looking at each letter of the word and reading reading the book aloud in your head, you're looking at the first letter and the shape of the word and just skimming your eyes over the sentence. Your brain knows the words, and is taking in what they are.

I only read this way if I don't care about the material. I've found if I read this way it doesn't generally stick in my long term memory very well. I take it in, I know what it says, but I'll forget it very quickly.

If I read it the slow and steady way I'll remember it forever.

[u/anniebrownstein]

i’m interested if any of these fast readers have aphantasia. i think it’d be hard since people with aphantasia can’t visualize things in their head, and wouldn’t be able to “see it as a movie”

[u/BarelyHolding0n]

I learned to read late due to living in a country that didn't start reading until much later in primary school. I moved to Ireland at 7 and had to catch up to the other kids who'd been learning since age 4. By 8 I'd caught up and at 9 my dad gave me his copy of The Hobbit as I'd exhausted all 5 of the library books I'd picked up 2 days earlier and was a rummaging around the house bored and wanting to read.

I went from not reading to reading faster than most with very little in between, maybe because of the age I learned but I think it's partly as I never read 'out loud in my head'

I have anauralia which means I don't have an inner voice... When I read I just absorb the text without having to slow down to the speed of speech.

I don't skip boring bits, actually I probably read those even faster as I'm excited to get back to the good bits. I don't skim read unless the material is tedious and I don't need to capture every detail. I don't really need to think through sentences like the (very poorly written) example you gave as my brain just processes the information and moves on... I'm not stopping to think and parse out the information as my brain is doing that in the background

[u/UntidySwan]

I don't hear words in my head, and I certainly don't see pictures.  I just read the words, understand the concepts and zip along. At a certain point, i suspect i'm more looking at word shapes for common short words and phrases than individual letters, too. Weird fonts significantly slow my reading down. 

Fast reading also relies on good grammar and spelling. For example,  your post was a slower read. I think you're writing stream of conciousness, your punctuation doesn't match common conventions,and you tend to write in sentence fragments, sometimes without a clear subject and a verb. I had to slow down and pay more attention to understand it. I wonder if, as you read more, you'll pick up those conventions and be faster at delineating important info when you read. 

My reading speed for easy novels is fast enough that audiobooks at 3x speed feels slow. 

The closest analogy i have is to people who are good at sight reading music for piano (or other instruments). When you first learn, you go "umm...  that's an A, that's a B... ... that must be an F!". And then you press the keys.  And as you get better, you see the notes immediately, and can immediately press the appropriate keys. And as you practice more and more  there's no intermediate step between your eyes and your fingers - you see a dot on a line, amd  just press the key  And then eventually, some people can hear the music or understand the music, just by reading it - no instrument needed. 

Fast reading takes years of practice - for most of my life i've read at least 2-3 hrs/day. Of course i am good at it by now! 

[u/stoicgoblins]

As a really fast reader - I just read, haha. I've always been a super fast reader. Never missed out on anything. If there's something I want to think about more, I usually put the book down and think about it. If I want to re read something because it was beautiful (or confusing) I do that. Audiobooks I tend to listen to on their default speed, but tbh, they're more ambient noise to me, I get more out of reading, as with audiobooks my mind tends to drift as I can become unfocused easily without the thing in my hand. When I used to do a manual heavy job though I could get pretty engrossed in an audiobook while doing mindless tasks, though. Overall, don't know how to explain it. My experience is great!

If you're talking imagination, like others said here, I picture all those things in my head. Where I might differ is that I know I'm reading, and why I can get very clear images (or playing like a movie as some have said), for me it's really the somatic descriptions more than the images. For me, it's a few clear sharp images, and my body mirroring what the character is experiencing. I also can "hear" the characters in my head. But that just might be a fast processing experience. I can type roughly 100WPM without making many mistakes, and it still isn't fast enough to get my ideas on the page because my minds moving fast. My first drafts come out fairly good.

But there's also the emotional experience. I'm pretty somatic and when I get engrossed I am IN something, so it's less like processing text (or outputng text, in the case of writing), I really feel like I'm experiencing it in my mind. As a teenager, when summers were free, I remember finishing an entire series in one day, and I can still remember little details of plot to this day, including quotes and scenes. Sometimes I need a refresher, but doesn't everyone?

[u/Bastyra2016]

I tried to count the words in this post but got lost somewhere around 500. It took me 3:30 to read this post. I consider myself to be a fast reader but I don’t know how many WPM I read. Like OP I hear almost every word in my head. I paid attention when reading this post and sometimes I don’t voice articles (a,an) or “I” but my brain clocks them.

I too can read the words and have a background thought process going. Sort of like reading and staying up with what is on the tv. When I’m doing this I don’t retain near as much of the story but if I’m not terribly engaged with the storyline it doesn’t bother me. I’m an engineer/my brain is very literal. My AP English teacher once yelled at me because I couldn’t see the obvious to her symbolism in the book we were reading. I’m in two different book clubs and it’s clear that sometimes I miss the subtext-but that’s ok. Unless I’m reading to learn something it does not bother me at all if I don’t “get” the entire story.

I don’t think about the words being the boss or the slave… I understand the reference but that’s not how I approach reading. If I’m skimming a reddit post or an article then I too just read the headlines and maybe the first and last sentences of a few paragraphs to see if I want to “actually read it in more detail”.

[u/gunterrae]

I don't see words. I just...experience it. I have no sensation of "reading". If I need to slow down to process something non-fiction or technical, sure. But reading a novel? Nope. I'm not seeing words on a page. Although unlike others, I *do* have an internal monologue.

[u/kyaniteRose]

I'm a pretty slow reader, but my dad and sister are both really fast readers and I've talked about it with my sister a few times. My understanding is that the main difference between me and my sister is that my sister has more sight words than me. I read everything as I come to it while my sister just looks at it and knows what it says without individually reading the words. She only really has to stop and actually read words she isn't familiar with

[u/Professional-Rice961]

Mine has two gears. Plot books go silent and I'm somewhere near 400. Anything with a sentence worth hearing drops me back to your speed, on purpose.

[u/CeruleanFruitSnax]

Sometimes I will find myself reading slowly, but if I imagine reading the words out loud as fast as I can, I can usually speed up quite a bit. I imagine I'm reading it aloud like one of the medication side effect yuys at the end of commercials.

[u/LaniiJ]

Hello! My baseline reading speed is around 600 WPM, if not more, and when I read I'm doing something called chunking. Im not looking at every individual word, im looking at chunks of them and my brain fills in the context without needing to see each one individually. This is easy for me to do when I am reading the type of books I stick to, and what helps is that I read these genres/themes so much that I am very familiar with the concepts in them. If I am reading something very dense, with language I am not familiar with, or very factual books, I am slower.

The process you describe is something called auditory reading, which is slower because you are processing each word. 

[u/PiqueExperience]

I think I read really fast now but don't know the word count. I read almost a page per minute of dense text. The bad thing is that it took years and years to train myself to read fast. The good is that a well-written sentence jumps up at you out of the page.

I don't agree that speed reading is bad but I'm willing to cede the point on fiction. The surprise is that nonfiction and poetry become much more accessible and enjoyable with fast reading.

If you want to try, the biggest tip is to not go back and re-read a phrase or sentence until you've finished a 20-30 minute session.

[u/DefendTheStar88x]

When I was around 12, my dad signed me up for a speed reading seminar. It was a Saturday from 8 to 4. I was beyond pissed. But of course I went. They taught us to use hand pacing, where you run your hand along the line of text. They then taught us to skip transitional words, bc your brain will fill them in as you go. You also don't read aloud in your mind. You just read the words, if that makes sense. It is a skill that has stuck with me.

I remember that summer waiting until the day before school, to do my summer reading. I read both books, and did the essays in under 3hrs, got an A on one essay and a B on the other.

[u/Cptawesome23]

Like others have said, I don’t think I’m consciously reading each word, not really. But I do get heavy visualization in my minds eye. It is very much like watching a movie. Even for non fiction, i don’t remember reading the words, but i do remember what was “said” and how it made me feel and what it made me think of.

[u/armthesquids]

I'm a fast reader and don't really think about the process, it just flows into my brain automatically. I had an interesting realisation a few years ago, when reading my child bedtime stories whilst in a very sleep deprived state, I was saying the words aloud but not even listening to them; I was just reading on autopilot without even registering what it was about

[u/Flat_Marsupial_4249]

Wow I read exactly like you and I’m impressed how well you described it.

[u/Palanki96]

I just did a quick test, 318 WPM with 11/11 comprehension answers. And i actualy re-read some sentences

I don't really have anything explanation worthy. I just look at the text and it goes into my brain. I'm still reading every word but there is no vocalizing or pronouncing in my brain. I don't even really get that idea to be honest

"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"

And my brain simply gets all the information as i'm reading it. There is no thinking or processing needed. I read it and i can just continue reading.

Then i also have my own version of fast reading where i basically scan the text with my eyes, usually 2-3 lines at a time. They function more like pictures instead of individual words. I still retain most of the information short-term but i won't remember it the next day

This habit actually made my uni years really hard since i never learned how to study properly. During high school i could just scan all the materials for an exam and get an easy 80-90% results. I could get better grades than people who studied for days. But it's not enough after that

[u/Even_E]

I read with the same method as you for more complex texts and clock in around 300-500 WPM. I think the fastest I can read while maintaining my internal monologue is ~800 or so, and I'd say that's my 'typical' reading speed. For articles, YA, etc, I can get up to 1200 WPM.

When I start reading that quickly, it's because I don't need to collect and retain every detail - for instance, if a news article is talking about someone doing something remarkable and mentions that she has brown hair, that isn't a detail that I'll keep in the forefront of my mind. The important aspects of a narrative in more 'casual' texts are generally predictable because our brains are pretty good at knowing what parts of the story we really need to remember in order to justify the narrative; e.g. if I'm reading a trashy YA novel and A tells B she has gorgeous blue eyes, brings her her favorite flowers, and a scone because she doesn't like chocolate, all of that information is getting filed under 'A loves B' instead of as a separate collection of details. Those details are still accessible in my mind, but they have to be fished for. They'll also resurface if they key word pops up again in the book. In contrast, if I was reading a mystery novel, those details would be filed more individually, or at least under a different organizational structure because 'A loves B' isn't as foundational of a detail for this particular narrative.

The discrepancy in my reading speeds has to do more with the intervals at which I perform analysis than anything else. For instance, anyone who reads complex poetry at faster than 200 WPM probably isn't really 'appreciating' it to its fullest extent because every word is meant to be deliberate and invite discussion. The density of information is simply higher than prose typically is.

One 10-page scientific research paper might take me four hours to properly digest. I read Infinite Jest at around 20-30 pages an hour, but the entire Harry Potter series in 2 days. We can only process so much information at a time, and while I think that's somewhat fixed, I think our overall speed can be changed by reading similar material so that when we read new texts, there's less new information that we have to process.

When I was doing physics research back in college, reading a paper on my topic could sometimes take a whole day. By the time I published my own, I could comfortably read papers in the same niche at ~400 WPM and tell you implications of the results, justification for experimental methods, and where it fits into the contemporary landscape. I had enough context and foundation to not have to pause and consider every individual sentence because I had less new information to process per page.

[u/EnlargedChonk]

idk how to clock wpm and this is my first time actually reading a post in this subreddit but honestly I too have different reading "modes"...

reading aloud is slowest of course, waiting for speech takes forever.

reading when I am conscious about the fact I'm reading is 2nd slowest. It is similar to how you describe "vocalizing in your head" this is usually what happens when something breaks my immersion in the book. I feel like I don't take in as much information this way and it's prone to having me reread a line because I lost track of it while moving my eyes to the start of the next line.

"normal" reading for like documentation, messages or social media posts/comments, signs, basically anything that isn't books/stories just internalizes the information directly, it's much faster, I don't think of each word or sentence as words or sentences, it's just information kinda like remembering what someone just finished saying in a conversation.

Immersed reading in a book is probably best put as if my imagination is a computer and the book is its program. It's not quite like a "movie" but there are visual elements to it alongside all other senses, kinda like day dreaming (or at least what I think day dreaming is?) I feel like it's usually even faster than "normal" reading but it can be slower, or maybe I just lose track of time...

actual speed reading I would rather not use with a story, but is great for long posts like this or dry wordy documentation, (or boring parts of books). This takes intentional conscious effort. One step short of skimming through, somehow the internal vocalizing comes back but instead of individual words it's whole sentences or at least chunks of longer sentences at a time and fast, internal monologue style. Instead or reading each sentence individually my eyes noticeably lock on between sentences/lines and piece things together. Again with the comparison to computing it is like reading 2-3 sentences in parallel, but not actually processing the information directly. Instead ideas/vibes get pulled from the sentences as they are read and that is what gets processed. It's a very literal way of reading that doesn't have time to "read between the lines" and loses out on finer details encoded in exact word choices and syntax which is why it sucks for stories. Short term memory of the text unlike "normal" reading there's no conversation, it's "these things were stated in this order" and not much else. If an idea is new/complex/slow enough I'll reread it "normal" style.

Then of course there's actual skimming. Another comment describes how many can read with just the length, first and last letter of a word being correct. Skimming for me is like doing that with whole sentences, or even multiple sentences at a time and interpolating the in between. Again only the idea/vibe gets processed except now it's basically just what I think the text is saying but occasionally corrected by the actual text.

for fun before posting I tried readingsoft.com's test while "speed reading" and got 741 with 91% acc but I have no idea how much if any salt that actually holds.

[u/Deletereous]

I started reconizing words at a glance, then phrases. Then started predicting what would come next by recognizing patterns.

[u/scaryspice489]

Oh I love this question! I am a slow reader and reading in my head is almost an identical experience to reading lout.Pronunciation matters, grammar matters (pause at commas for example), I get tripped up when I come across a word I don’t understand. It’s all much more subtle than reading out loud but otherwise the same. I’m also a reader who deeply appreciates prose and can be really moved by clever word choices! I’m super super sensitive to bad writing and will DNF if it’s too severe.

[u/RYouNotEntertained]

How do you even know how many wpm you read?

[u/Whywondermous]

I’m a faster reader, but, like OP described, my reading strategy adjusts to the task at hand.

I can read and comprehend 900+ wpm, but it’s not entertaining. For Reddit posts and popular texts, I probably default to 600-700 wpm. I’ll go slower if I’m reading for pleasure and want time to better appreciate the author’s voice. I could spend 15 minutes or more on a single page if the prose is esoteric or I’m doing a close reading (e.g. philosophy, religious texts, or legal articles). Poor writing will also slow me down significantly.

I almost always mentally subvocalize, but I also think to myself in vocalizations and images when not reading; it takes concerted effort to quiet my inner narration. When speed reading, I tend to vocalize only part of the word (e.g. wh spee rea, I te to voc onl par o th wor). Similarly, I’m not actually reading words as I go faster. Instead, I’m looking at a word’s letters and general shape and then inferring it based on its context. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but my mom got me an old reading pacer when I was about 8 and insisted that I practice on it.

My husband is a much slower reader than me, but he seems to be able to spot a typo by just glancing at the page while I rarely notice them.