Vocalization - the biggest hurdle in speed readingWritten by Melvin Ng
Very often, when perusing materials relating to improving your speed reading skills, you'll see comments to effect that vocalization is biggest hurdle in speed reading. Moreover, if you do happen to be one of those people who vocalize when you read, you'll need to overcome this practice if you want to significantly increase your reading speed.All of this is a roundabout way of saying that those of us who vocalize our words when we speed read have not perfected our speed reading skills. Having said that, what is vocalization - and why is it seen as being one of biggest hurdles in speed reading? Vocalization explained "Vocalization", or subvocalization as it is sometimes also known, is practice of pronouncing/speaking words out aloud, albeit under your breath or even in your head, as you read materials. The argument goes that this is a common flaw in most people's reading skills as it is a habit adopted from our formative years, when we were encouraged, by our teachers, peers and parents, to speak-out words we were reading. The net result of all this is that we place a limit on our ability to speed read if we vocalize words as we read. This is because part of our brain needed to vocalize words being read has to be activated. Vocalization - cons The overwhelming reason why vocalization is seen as negative is fact that it inhibits your ability to speed read - it slows you down! Here, empirical observation seems to suggest that those who vocalize are unable to read more than 300 words per minute - and are likely unable to exceed 250 words per minute. Although reading at a rate of between 250 and 300 words per minute would make you an average reader, speed reading techniques should help you to reach at least 500 words per minute. Furthermore, opponents of vocalization argue that rather than helping a reader to comprehend text being read, vocalization is a barrier to such comprehension; therefore, vocalization is a hurdle not only to speed reading, but also comprehending what is being read. Vocalization - pros Proponents of vocalization who argue that vocalization is actually a good thing, base their counter-argument on two principles. First, they argue that most people are able to speak faster than they can read. Vocalization, where you speak as you read, therefore enables us to read faster - not slower. Second, vocalization is a process that involves repeating what one has just read. Thus, by repeating something we have just read we are far more likely to be able to retain that information in our brain than would be case if we merely only read material. Both of these are strong arguments: they both lead to a logical and persuasive argument that vocalization equals a better understanding of text that we are reading.
| | Can Anyone Improve Their Reading Speed?Written by Melvin Ng
A question that is often asked of speed reading trainers is whether or not anyone can improve their reading speed. The simple, straightforward, answer to this question is “yes”, they can. However, this is not to say that leaner will not have to provide some input of their own: after all, all learning is a form of trade-off. In this regard, following are seen as four essential elements that a student of speed reading will need to bring with them if they want to learn to speed read:1. A desire to improve Strange as it may seem, not everyone is willing to accept that there is a better method of reading than one currently being used by student. Most likely, student has learnt their current reading method at a very formative age – probably on their mother’s knee. As a result, it can be hard to try and convince students to adapt to new methods of reading, a skill we see as so fundamental, none of us is really willing to accept that we do not know how to do it, and do it well, already. Therefore, a real desire to improve your reading speed is first essential element you’ll need to bring with you to class. 2. A willingness to accept new ideas Another concept that we learn in our formative years is to sound out our words (technically called subvocalize) as we read them. In part this is done so that we learn how to pronounce word, not read it! However, in later life this habit can be extremely difficult to break. But, if you want to be able to improve your reading speed, it is a habit you will have to break. In addition, most of are taught at some stage in our life that if we have not comprehended, or understood, what we have just read, to go back and reread passage. Again, this is a habit which speed reading courses see as a no-no. You will have to discard it if you want to improve your reading speed. However, it’s not easy to do. Finally, whichever of speed reading methodologies you select to learn, it is likely that you’ll need to learn to read large chunks of information at same time, or to skim read. As children we are taught that these practices are not good for us – we will likely miss information, or misinterpret it.
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