Clarity Despite Speed

We once learned to read slowly and thoroughly, deciphering words letter by letter. But we no longer need this approach, as we can now also grasp words visually. Thus, slow and thorough reading is rather counterproductive, as our brain can work better at higher speeds.

Better comprehension at a higher reading speed initially sounds like a contradiction. But if we consider that our brain can process more than we allow it to, a different picture emerges.

What happens when you drive slowly?

Your thoughts are not fully focused on driving. You're on the phone, talking to your passengers, eating something, or (hopefully not) playing with your cell phone.

But when you're driving at 220 km/h on the highway, where are your thoughts?

100% on driving. All your attention is required, and there's no room for distractions.

Often you forget what you have read because your brain was under-challenged. It looks for another activity when it is not adequately utilized, and thus your thoughts wander. Boredom leads to a higher potential for distraction.

When we consciously increase the reading speed, our brain classifies this activity as important. It must now devote full attention to this activity to do it justice. Focus increases and text comprehension improves, as more units of meaning are grasped at once and semantic understanding increases. The individual topics and contents are closer together, so that their linking can be more effective. Our ultra-short-term memory stores everything we perceive within 2 seconds. If the next unit of information follows immediately, the subsequent information connects better.

Why do we forget what we just read?

We forget text content because the information was absorbed too slowly, and one has already forgotten the beginning of a unit of meaning before reaching the end of it. Text comprehension is impaired. If we now read faster, we eliminate this impairment.

Reading should be considered a psychomotor skill, like playing the piano, dancing, and riding a bicycle. We cannot improve these skills by simply continuing as before. Just reading as we are used to does not lead to an increase in competence; the skill merely consolidates, but does not improve. Targeted technical training can help us go through a text faster, easier, and more effectively. An athlete also performs targeted isolated technical training, such as pure tee shot training in golf. Similarly, individual aspects of reading can be trained separately to become more efficient overall.

If we are now able to feed our brain through our eyes faster, we benefit from higher focus, increased text comprehension, improved memory, and time savings. The increase in speed thus serves as a prerequisite for improving text comprehension and text retention.