Speed reading

[al-Chemist]

hi,everybody..here i jusk wana that anybody knows about SPEED READING? and is it SPEED READING can assist a Science student? because as we know, Science and Art subject are not the same.Science more need to be understand,imagine and etc otherwise Art require someone to more memorizing:confused: . Therefore, is it SPEED READING approach can be use to studying Science?

[ydoaPs]

Speed reading is bunk.

[DrP]

You divide the distance travelled over the time taken. ..errrrr.... OK I finally get it - you mean reading a book fast, not velocity measurement!

 

Depends - you may get a snippet from a research paper if you need to scan it quickly to see if anything interesting is in it, but I doubt you can pass a degree buy being lasy enough to just speed read through a text book.

[iNow]

When someone speed reads, they don't view every word, they instead look at certain key words and basic sentence structure and mentally fill in the gaps.

 

 

Like... watching a movie... we see frozen frames presented quickly and interpret as motion, or like this image:

 

 

 

 

You get a "sense" of the sentence, and fill in the rest on your own. The problem doing this in science is that you miss key details, and you don't always already know the facts.

 

 

Speed reading a Harry Potter book is fine because you know that the wizard is going to do such and such to the dragon and that harry and his friends are the good guys and are ultimately going to win. You can fill in the gaps quite simply and effectively.

 

 

Speed reading a science article or description is not the same, because much of the information is novel, and you don't necessarily know the outcome in advance. Plus, when reading science, details actually matter.

 

In Harry Potter, I don't really need to know his shirt was blue to understand the story, but in science I need to know the methods and settings, etc. very precisely.

[doG]

I would not recommend speed reading for study. The material needs to sink in instead of flying by.

[plant lord]

i dont think i would do it unless i did it really fast enough to read it like 20 times i think that way you could absorb all the info but ofcorse if you did that wat would the point of speed reading be it would take to long

[DrDNA]

It is dribble as far as I'm concerned. Another promised free lunch....kind of like taking pills that make you skinny but never getting off your butt.

 

I had a one semester "speed reading" course in the 7th grade as an elective. Then I spent YEARS trying to unlearn it.

It trained me to skim texts very quickly, and read blocks of words, not individual words, at one quick, steady pace; never slowing down to ponder anything.

Using their "speed reading" techniques, I was able to turn pages very quickly, but never actuallly understood the concepts or got anything out of what was written on those pages.

I believe that sleeping with a book under your pillow gives similar results. Except sleeping with a book under your pillow does not teach you poor reading habits....how not to get anything out of what it is you are reading.

 

But, individual results may vary.

[CharonY]

Essentially I agree with what the others said. Information gained by forced speed reading also tends not to stick into long-term memory.

Reading regularly will increase your reading speed anyway. I heard that it might be worth to avoid regressions (involuntarily rescanning already read words), though. This on the other hand can also be achieved by regular reading.

[Mr Skeptic]

Speed reading may be effective in separating relevant research articles from completely off-topic ones. You might consider skimming over (which is effectively what speed reading is) portions of a textbook that are unimportant or mostly familiar. If you are in one of the "soft" sciences, speed reading might be of use. Speed reading might be a good method of refreshing your memory for a test. However, I strongly advise against speed reading as a primary study method.

 

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I've heard a claim that people who speed read a book remembered stuff better than people who read it more slowly. Does anyone know if that is bunk, or due to some other factor (less time to forget the first part, more concentration to maintain the speed, focus on only the more important parts, etc)?

[Psyber]

I experimented in speed reading in my Uni days. I read a friend's Psychology text book for the year in two hours once some years later and got a good enough overview to be able to discuss issues in it, but already having background in the topic to hang it on helped.

 

It can give you an overall impression of the thrust, but I agree it is less applicable in Science where you need to digest the details thoroughly.

 

It can be useful with novels or for assessing a book or article about a topic you are familiar with. I used to speed read texts to get an overall shape, then go back and read in detail.

[Dr.Evil]

Speed reading may be effective in separating relevant research articles from completely off-topic ones. You might consider skimming over (which is effectively what speed reading is) portions of a textbook that are unimportant or mostly familiar. If you are in one of the "soft" sciences, speed reading might be of use. Speed reading might be a good method of refreshing your memory for a test. However, I strongly advise against speed reading as a primary study method.

 

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I've heard a claim that people who speed read a book remembered stuff better than people who read it more slowly. Does anyone know if that is bunk, or due to some other factor (less time to forget the first part, more concentration to maintain the speed, focus on only the more important parts, etc)?

 

I've heard this as well I think it involves other training on top to increase your memory and focus not the speed reading itself. Speed reading is something I've wanted to look in to but I'll proced with caution thanks to you guys