How fast do you read (in your head)?

[McEwan]

I hope this is the appropriate place to post this.

I would like to ask how fast you read fiction. I read a lot for my work and I also frequently read non-fiction. Often I find I can read quickly and grasp the main points, sufficiently to do my job and be informed. However, when I read fiction, I find if I read literary novels in a similar way, I don’t grasp the story, and I have to go back to re-read passages. Do you find you have to slow down when you read fiction, and if so, how much? Do you ever read at “talking pace”? Interested in how others read

I got 358 wpm with 64% comprehension. But i consider mtself to be a very slow reader so i think i rushed that.

@KizzyWayfarer

I tend to skim read, but enjoy rereading books and feel like I go a bit slower then, I’m not in a rush to find out what happens next and can pick up the details I missed the first time.

Same! I actually love it because I get to discover new things when I re-read. Just little things, like a particular turn of phrase. It's great!

I got 787 which seems about right-I do read fiction in particular very fast. When I’m away I always devour the random shelf of second hand novels in the holiday home
I used to reread novels loads before DC and the ever present distraction that iPhones provide - but now I don’t read nearly as much as before.

I got 641 and 82% comprehension (but it’s late, I’ve been working with numbers all day & the G&T beside me isn’t my first!). Not sure it’s a great test as it’s not very interesting & if numbers weren’t involved (& it was facts for instance) I would have retained more.

I used to easily finish a book in a day, not so much since having kids, so that’ll be 17 years now, as I’m rarely left uninterrupted for long enough! I’d say I read fiction faster as I don’t ‘see’ the words, it’s more like a film in my head - with non-fiction there are more facts or concepts to understand so it takes longer to sink in, plus without a narrative there is no ‘film’ in my head I guess!?

960 and 89% comprehension which is probably about right, I've always read crazy fast and taught myself to read just before 3.

We had a book reading comp at school and no one believed how many books I'd read til one of the teachers tested me on them.

I tend to take in all of a paragraph in one go like a picture rather than reading each individual word/sentence.

I tend to take in all of a paragraph in one go like a picture rather than reading each individual word/sentence.

That's fascinating!

I'm nowhere near as fast as that but I also had the whole "well you obviously haven't read it all / read it properly" as a kid. Lots of answering quiz questions!

I am finding this whole thread so interesting. Wish I was cleverer and had a science background, I feel like it would be an amazing research topic for a PhD or something. Want to get you super speedy ones hooked up to machines and make you read stuff so I can see what's going on in your brains!

Hearing a voice in your head when you're reading is called subvocalisation. I remember doing a study skills course when I was doing A levels and the tutor said that it slows down your reading if you do it. If I 'turn it off', which I find hard to do, I definitely read faster, but I absorb less of the text. When reading difficult stuff that I need to fully grasp I actually prefer to read out loud as it goes in better.

I looked into it recently and I am a visual reader. Which means I don't 'hear' the voice in my head. I look at the word and know the meaning but don't read it as such.
Apparently this way of reading bypasses the part of the brain associated with auditory processing. Which makes complete sense for me as I have auditory processing issues! I watch tv with the subtitles on even though I can hear fine as it's easy for me to read than listen!

@QueenofBrickdon

I looked into it recently and I am a visual reader. Which means I don't 'hear' the voice in my head. I look at the word and know the meaning but don't read it as such. Apparently this way of reading bypasses the part of the brain associated with auditory processing. Which makes complete sense for me as I have auditory processing issues! I watch tv with the subtitles on even though I can hear fine as it's easy for me to read than listen!

My adult DD has dyslexia and auditory processing issues but is an avid, rapid reader. She reads in a similar way to @QueenofBrickdon but has limited strategies for decoding unfamiliar words - she will try to use analogy and her knowledge of basic Latin. When she was doing her History degree, she often had to use read aloud functions or ask someone to say the word aloud so that she could make the connection.

@zafferana

Hearing a voice in your head when you're reading is called subvocalisation. I remember doing a study skills course when I was doing A levels and the tutor said that it slows down your reading if you do it. If I 'turn it off', which I find hard to do, I definitely read faster, but I absorb less of the text. When reading difficult stuff that I need to fully grasp I actually prefer to read out loud as it goes in better.

Subvocalisation is known to support reading comprehension.

I find it harder to turn off the voice in my head than I used to. I wonder if it's because I spent ten years as an English teacher, and then the next few as a new mum, so I have been doing a lot of reading out loud for the last fifteen years. I am sure that I didn't have such a clear inner reading voice when I was younger, and I think I read faster then. I find now I can only really get it to switch off if I'm reading something where I desperately want to find out what happens next.

Who knew reading was so complicated?!

Standard chick lit paperback takes me about an hour
Maybe 1200wpm or so

I read very fast, I once did a reading speed test at a work group training session and the trainer didn't believe the results, until I completed the following comprehension piece. I think it's because I've been an avid reader from an early age. I always had at least two books on the go, and I still read at least four or five books a week, often more. I work in a library, which feeds my obsession!

I skim-read that first link and got1002 words a minute, and then went back and read it properly. Still got 558.

Blimey - I knew I'm a fast reader, but not that fast!

I tend to take in all of a paragraph in one go like a picture rather than reading each individual word/sentence

I do that too. Can't quite describe how I do it, but I think my eyeline reads in zig-zags, I look at two or three rows at once, and let my brain sort them into order... something like that anyway.

I love MN when you click on a random thread and discover something you never knew. I am just like SirSamuel, Bettafish and the other poster who doesn't picture things and is also tone deaf.
I remember in Yr7 we were doing Danny the Champion of the World which I had already read twice and having to draw a picture of some bit of the story without going back to the text and being very confused at the number of my friends who could do detailed pictures when mine was very simple.
I've started reading much more crime fiction in lockdown and many are ones DH has already read. He reads much more slowly than me. By about page 150, he'll be asking me who I think it is, by 250 he'll be saying surely you know by now but I'm often surprised when the killer or whatever is revealed. I think it's because he is reading slowly enough to pick up the clues and approaches it as a challenge whereas I am skimming it so missing those.

By about page 150, he'll be asking me who I think it is, by 250 he'll be saying surely you know by now but I'm often surprised when the killer or whatever is revealed.

I'm like this too. But also the same with film twists, rarely see those coming, so maybe I'm just not a natural detective!

I read too fast I think. I often skim over description and get the general idea of the book very easily, but I forget it easily too. I read a book a few years ago, and had nearly got to the end when I realised I had read it the year before!

Can't quite describe how I do it, but I think my eyeline reads in zig-zags, I look at two or three rows at once, and let my brain sort them into order... something like that anyway.

Saccade. It's how most people read, even if they're not aware of it and think they're reading word for word in an entirely linear way.

My reading speed is about 600wpm, going by that test, but it was a pretty dull piece. I think I would be quicker on paper rather than my screen. I am hyperphantasic, so "see" the images I'm reading easily, and I hear the different voices I'm reading in my head. We didn't have a TV till I was 14, so I read all the time, and I still read a lot, so I agree a lot is down to continuous practice.

I read different things at different speeds, though. There are quite a few work mails I just skim and file/bin, but will read others in more depth after a first skim. I can read fiction quite quickly, but it depends on the writer. I am currently reading a non-fiction book which contains quite a few dates and facts and figures, plus some industry-specific terms I'm not so familiar with, and I also look at some of the footnotes, have stopped to look at a map and so on, so progress is much slower than with light fiction. But I'm not usually reading as a speed exercise, so I don't mind.

I read so slowly. I got 284 on that test! I got 82% for comprehension, but so I should when I’m reading that slowly! I definitely have a ‘reading voice’ in my head. I read fiction constantly and like to take in every detail, which I’m unable to do if I skim.

I'm a superfast reader - I can read upside down faster than most people read normally, and a fiction book is around 2 hours for me. Around 1200-1500 WPM with high accuracy depending on the test. My mum and her mum were fast readers, and my ds is fast too. Kindles made going away a lot easier! I can read technical papers fast too, but it depends on how complex and whether they are the sort of thing you need to read, put down, contemplate what its said in a paragraph, and pick up again

@SpikeWithoutASoul. - not slow, just above average (238wpm)

digest.bps.org.uk/2019/06/13/most-comprehensive-review-to-date-suggests-the-average-persons-reading-speed-is-slower-than-commonly-thought/

@CMOTDibbler I do that with reading upside down
My old boss once queried if I had read a bulletin as apparently I had read it too fast. I quoted it back to him and he never asked me again

People who go "are you actually reading that?" annoy me. No, I'm just turning the pages to look clever

It was a sad day when my manager realised I can read upside down and back to front. New manager doesn't tend to use paper anyway, and we haven't been in the same place with shared docs for a year, anyway.

I do the paragraph thing too. I am pretty fast-649 words per minute with 82 percent comprehension.
I can finish a book in a day if I get time to myself
I find listening to audiobooks a very different (but enjoyable) experience as I never read all the description and detail if I am reading to myself!