That moment I realized I was speed reading wrong for 20 years

Been in a book club for about 8 years now. Last month we were discussing a dense nonfiction book on civil rights history. I kept getting details mixed up during the meeting. One of the older members asked me how I read. I told her I skim paragraphs looking for key words and move on. She looked at me funny and said that's not reading, that's scanning. She showed me how she reads every sentence out loud in her head at a steady pace. Tried it on the next book we assigned. Took me 3 extra days to finish but I actually remembered the timeline of events. Has anyone else been reading wrong their whole life and had to relearn it?

3 comments

3 Comments

simon_black2d ago

Did you ever get your eyes checked for tracking issues instead?

gonzalez.phoenix2d ago

My optometrist actually found mine by accident during a routine exam about 2 years ago. I went in thinking my vision was fine but she noticed my eyes were struggling to converge on the same point when reading. The thing is I never really lost my place or skipped lines like people talk about. Instead I would just get this weird mental exhaustion after 10 minutes of reading and find myself skimming for the main points without realizing it. My brain was basically trying to work around the physical strain so I started treating nonfiction like a buzzfeed article just hunting for the good parts. After vision therapy for 4 months the difference was wild I actually read full paragraphs now without that itch to jump ahead.

simon_chen2d ago

Small thing on the eye tracking idea. Usually that affects the physical act of moving your eyes across a page, not the mental process of how you understand words. Most people with tracking issues skip lines or lose their place entirely, not just skim for keywords.