my current reading pace of 1 book/mo at best is not sustainable, but also I physically cannot do a program that is trying to increase my productivity or my ROI, 401k or whatever. i hate hate hate hate it.
am 27 | furry & retro tech | very bi | operator of @UCVRCG
my current reading pace of 1 book/mo at best is not sustainable, but also I physically cannot do a program that is trying to increase my productivity or my ROI, 401k or whatever. i hate hate hate hate it.
I may have some suggestions but a question first: how long are you spending on each reading session? Are you reading on your phone or an ereader or physical books? Do you have dyslexia or adhd? Is English your first language?
I have found that most people who consider themselves to be slow readers are simply people who are not reading things they’re actually interested in but that doesn’t sound like you
thanks for replying! for your questions:
Yeah I definitely stick with stuff I like, I'm unapologetic about dropping things that aren't gripping me, especially for fiction reading/non-required reading.
Okay, it sounds like it’s an attention issue more than anything— speed reading is mostly, if not entirely nonsense and that’s why you’re seeing so much productivity bullshit. The people using those apps that beam text directly into your eyeballs don’t actually want the information, they want… some weird social cachet? Or something? It’s a mystery to me.
So no, there really isn’t a course out there.
Reading speed, when you’re focused, is according to our current understanding, mostly a combination of legibility, vocabulary, and just regular practice. I consider myself a “fast reader” and I absolutely cap out at like 100 pages of romance fiction an hour (or ~450 wpm of combined reading and skimming) and anything above like 200wpm is pretty normal I think, so if a 300 page novel takes you under seven hours to finish you’re doing okay!
There are things you can do to improve legibility, which might help if you’re struggling with your eyesight or eye tracking (I read faster with my glasses even though I don’t really “need” them, so you never know.) I hate OpenDyslexic with a passion but Atkinson Legible is another font option for legibility. My partner likes BeeLine Reader for eye tracking, and they have a little quiz on their website you can do to see if it helps. (There are also extremely old school things like physical colored overlays, but if whatever you’ve got going on isn’t obvious enough that your teachers noticed as a kid, they’re unlikely to be enough help to be worth the bother.)
Vocabulary is unfortunately not easy to practice other than just… reading more, as far as I know.
I’m going to assume that you’ve already tried anything in the category of “turn on music! Read comic books! Have you tried audiobooks??” but honestly if you’re finishing a novel every month and you’re reading 20 minutes a day it’s probably the falling asleep you’ll need to change to get to 1/week
Thanks, that's really insightful, and hopefully didn't take too much time to put together, but I appreciate the wealth of info and the alternative takes, since yeah I was definitely focused on speed rather than attention. I'll click around and try some things and see what helps :)