Reading Books in 5 Hours - Question

[kyphysics]

I've seen various articles say that a typical person can read a book within five hours. These are presumably non-academic textbooks and things like biography, non-fiction, etc. The page length cited often is 300 pages.

Sure, I think I've done that occasionally, but I'm a slower reader than that usually. I probably need a bit more time. But, for those who can do this regularly, how much retention of facts/points do you have afterwards? I like to highlight/underline when I read, which slows things down. I also like to stop and think about important points (also slowing things down). Can you read that 300-page book AND remember all the crucial details, have a good grasp of the meaning, and also maybe have some of your own critical analysis of things?

Feeling slow and jealous of people who can read fast...but wondering if that "reading" is quality reading to be done within five hours??

 

[fresh_42]

I'm an extremely slow reader. I often read a few lines and then start thinking which leads me anywhere, but not back to the book. I also repeat entire paragraphs after that had happened, or if something else disturbed me. The attraction to a book is rarely stronger than my reaction to changes around me. I can read without reading what was written.

 

[Klystron]

Yes, some people read faster than others. We can train to improve both reading speed and comprehension.

Offered with all due humility: As a 6 year old tot when tested with then current reading machines at Stanford, I broke the machines at their highest spool rate with over 90% information retention.

In college 8 years later our music professor also trained us to scan entire paragraphs while reading the central line of text among other 'speed-reading' methods. One pre-scans the lines below the subject line and post-scans the already read text above the subject line. The brain learns to process and post-process for maximum comprehension and retention. Similar methods help read music scored on multiple lines.

Last day of this class we tested using paperbacks at our fastest speed. We counted the words we had read IMS (if memory serves). Then we wrote an essay to assess information comprehension. I was assigned a Western by Louis L'Amour titled "Reilly's Luck". I read the entire novel and scored 98% comprehension.

Here is the kicker: Ten years later as a radar engineer I walked into an Air Traffic Control center where fellow techs discussed a Western novel they enjoyed during overnight shifts. Glancing at the cover "Reilly's Luck", trying to be friendly, I related the plot and commented on the characters and the resolution of their various struggles.

Confused by their shocked expressions, I explained L'Amour's closing reference to "Anatomy of Melancholy" and joked that, along with the main character, I found Burton hard to penetrate. That one test was my only exposure to that book and author up to then.

 

[kyphysics]

Last day of this class we tested using paperbacks at our fastest speed. We counted the words we had read IMS (if memory serves). Then we wrote an essay to assess information comprehension. I was assigned a Western by Louis L'Amour titled "Reilly's Luck". I read the entire novel and scored 98% comprehension.

Here is the kicker: Ten years later as a radar engineer I walked into an Air Traffic Control center where fellow techs discussed a Western novel they enjoyed during overnight shifts. Glancing at the cover "Reilly's Luck", trying to be friendly, I related the plot and commented on the characters and the resolution of their various struggles.

Confused by their shocked expressions, I explained L'Amour's closing reference to "Anatomy of Melancholy" and joked that, along with the main character, I found Burton hard to penetrate. That one test was my only exposure to that book and author up to then.

Is this level of memory common for you overall? Or, was there something about being tested on Reilly's Luck or having found it an interesting book that made you remember the details 10 years later?

 

[Borek]

I don't read that much these days, but 300 pages per evening with a reasonable retention (enough to able to discuss plot afterwards with family members) for a fiction sounds about right, that's more or less how I was reading in the past.

 

[kyphysics]

I'm an extremely slow reader. I often read a few lines and then start thinking which leads me anywhere, but not back to the book. I also repeat entire paragraphs after that had happened, or if something else disturbed me. The attraction to a book is rarely stronger than my reaction to changes around me. I can read without reading what was written.

I get distracted when there is access to the internet. I can't read for hours non-stop like I did in the past.

 

[Frigus]

I recently watched this video and the technique he told to read fast is so good.
This video is worth watching.
The first tip will make you quick reader from slow reader.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Google tells me the average novel is 90,000 words. (I guessed 120,000) That means 5 hours is 300 words per minute (and 120,000 would be 400). There is a wide variation in reading speed among adults, but 300 is certainly in the ballpark.

If you read aloud, average speaking time is 150 wpm, so that would be 10 hours.

 

[Klystron]

Is this level of memory common for you overall? Or, was there something about being tested on Reilly's Luck or having found it an interesting book that made you remember the details 10 years later?

Good questions.

Looking at family: my mother and her closest cousin were avid daily readers. Only my eldest sister reads for pleasure AFAIK but all can read rapidly. My daughter and granddaughter are committed readers. We used to enjoy weekly trips to the library when both, in turn, were children. So, probably genetic components coupled with nurturing influence. FTR my father rarely read literature but drove me to the library almost every Saturday afternoon and discussed my book choices.

No doubt "Reilly's" stuck in my mind likely due to the intense nature of the classroom test and the compelling nature of the narrative. I read Tolkien's "The Hobbit" for pleasure the same week, mas o menos, without remembering quite as strongly. I read Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" around that time and could probably paraphrase the entire novel from memory.

I like Heinlein (science fiction) very much, Tolkien (fantasy) not as much and L'Amour (Western) so-so.

Sometimes with little effort I can see book pages in my mind. As a baby I sometimes repeated adult conversations verbatim including idiosyncratic accents before I could fully understand the meaning, leading to some contretemps. I lost some measure of these abilities from injuries and age but remain a committed daily reader.

 

[WWGD]

Sometjing that may be beneficial I believe is to do first a fast, somewhat-cursory read followed by a somewhat slower read around a week afterwards . After the first cursory read, material is being processed subconsciously. This cuts down on the amount to be processed on the second read. This parallels the cases where material read years, months prior " suddenly" makes sense and is clear.

 

[Mark44]

I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.

 

[Vanadium 50]

So, when I was young - 6th to 8th grade or so - I was the subject of some experiments on reading pedagogy. My reading speed was measured, using a tachistoscope followed by comprehension testing. I was eventually able to top 2000 wpm at 100% comprehension of 12th grade reading level material.

This is real reading. Not speed reading, not skim/scan. The tachistoscope enforces this. You get one look at a word and that's it. Comprehension was measured by a quiz on the passage.

My opinion based on this is that 2000 is close to the limit. Close in the sense that 50% faster might be possible, but 10x faster is not. Also, this is very tiring. I don't believe I could do it for an hour without a break. Reading a novel in an hour is not something I can do (but can read one in an afternoon). Just because people can run a mile in under 4 minutes doesn't mean they can run a marathon in an hour and a half.

More typical (and sustainable) times for me are in the 600 wpm range Maybe a little faster in cases. The difference between 600 and 2000 is the difference between having a hot dog at a baseball game and competitive eating.

 

[kyphysics]

In college 8 years later our music professor also trained us to scan entire paragraphs while reading the central line of text among other 'speed-reading' methods. One pre-scans the lines below the subject line and post-scans the already read text above the subject line. The brain learns to process and post-process for maximum comprehension and retention. Similar methods help read music scored on multiple lines

I don't remember where I read this advice from (I HOPE it wasn't in Mortimer Adler's, How to Read a Book), but some time around my freshman or sophomore year in college, I read a quasi-"speed reading" advice guide that said you can read the first line of each paragraph and focus intently on it and then skim the stuff underneath it and then focus intently on the last sentence of that paragraph.

I think the logic was that many and/or good writers will use the first sentence of a paragraph typically to introduce its main point and the fill in the middle with supporting arguments and details and then close with a summary sentence at the end of the paragraph.

I have no idea how frequently that happens, but I have a feeling it's not that true. I remember trying the technique and doing quite well with it for a while and then realizing I was going too fast at times and missing some really key stuff in the middle sections of paragraphs. I vaguely recall that this cost me some points on a test once (history class, I believe).

I don't know if it Adler's book or that weird advice piece I read, but the point about "actively looking for" a "main point" in a paragraph/section seemed helpful. My brain had a "conceptual goal" when reading, which is different from being a passive reader (just letting the author take you wherever he/she wants the way that they want). I was actively trying to catch the main point, which then makes all the other sentences in the vicinity have more context and easier to understand/fit together.

 

[kyphysics]

Can anyone speed read a philosophy book and claim full understanding (including recreating the structure of the arguments)?

I find philosophy a bit more difficult subject to speed read (vs., say, history, political science, sociology, biography, etc.).

 

[gleem]

I've seen various articles say that a typical person can read a book within five hours. These are presumably non-academic textbooks and things like biography, non-fiction, etc. The page length cited often is 300 pages.

What is meant by typical? Average? in the US about 50% of adults read at an 8th-grade level or less. About a third could be called competently literate. One could assume then that probably half the population does not read very much. This borne out by a study by the National Endowment for the Arts which found that only about 47% of adults did a literary reading (novels, poems, plays) during the year.

A recent study determined that the average reading rate was about 240 words /minute. In the English language, there are 4.7 characters on average for every word. Thus 240 wd/min comes out to be 1128 characters a minute. A typical novel manuscript has about 25 lines with 60 characters including spaces per line. This is around 45 printable characters in each line. So there are about 239 words per page which give about 1 minute per page although two minutes a page seems to be sometimes quoted.

But there are other considerations in reading material other than processing words. Thinking about the intentions of the author or the characters for example. The implications of the wording or the imagery that the author is trying to convey. You can definitely read fast but can you appreciate the manner in which the words are put together the way the author intends? Some literature is not meant to be read fast such as poems and plays.

For a nonfiction book, one can get 35 or more lines per page with 50 characters per line. These may use new or less familiar words or words in unusual ways that require more attention to what is written. If you are reading for developing an understanding of a new topic then this definitely slows you down and sometimes way down if you have issues with the authors' ideas and conclusions. You are developing new synapses for the development of the understanding and until the understanding occurs you are at a disadvantage in continuing.

 

[WWGD]

What is meant by typical? Average? in the US about 50% of adults read at an 8th-grade level or less. About a third could be called competently literate. One could assume then that probably half the population does not read very much. This borne out by a study by the National Endowment for the Arts which found that only about 47% of adults did a literary reading (novels, poems, plays) during the year.

A recent study determined that the average reading rate was about 240 words /minute. In the English language, there are 4.7 characters on average for every word. Thus 240 wd/min comes out to be 1128 characters a minute. A typical novel manuscript has about 25 lines with 60 characters including spaces per line. This is around 45 printable characters in each line. So there are about 239 words per page which give about 1 minute per page although two minutes a page seems to be sometimes quoted.

But there are other considerations in reading material other than processing words. Thinking about the intentions of the author or the characters for example. The implications of the wording or the imagery that the author is trying to convey. You can definitely read fast but can you appreciate the manner in which the words are put together the way the author intends? Some literature is not meant to be read fast such as poems and plays.

For a nonfiction book, one can get 35 or more lines per page with 50 characters per line. These may use new or less familiar words or words in unusual ways that require more attention to what is written. If you are reading for developing an understanding of a new topic then this definitely slows you down and sometimes way down if you have issues with the authors' ideas and conclusions. You are developing new synapses for the development of the understanding and until the understanding occurs you are at a disadvantage in continuing.

Ir would be great if you could personally somehow rate books and implement your reading according to familiarity with the topic, skill in the area, etc.

 

[gleem]

Ir would be great if you could personally somehow rate books and implement your reading according to familiarity with the topic, skill in the area, etc.

Are you referring to me personally? If so I do not understand how to respond to your request.

 

[Evo]

It would depend, are you reading for pleasure or reading fast to just get through the book? If I am just reading for pleasure, I may stop and reflect on something I just read, I might go back and re-read a piece.

I don't understand the point of trying to read fast unless you just HAVE to read the material fast for some reason, like at work, I would often have LOADS of new written material I had to learn and test on, so reading fast was something I just had to do. If you enjoy reading fast, read fast, if you enjoy reading leisurely, read leisurely. I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[JT Smith]

I love the Woody Allen quote. There is an inverse relationship between speed and comprehension.

But like Evo just said, is it enjoyable to read fast? Would you watch a movie on fast forward? Eat a meal without chewing? Have sex in 3 minutes? Oh wait, maybe that was a bad example!

 

[Klystron]

I have seen the Adler book but do not use that method, paragraph intro--core idea--conclusion, for reading but do employ a similar technique for speed skimming, commonly work related documents. One can learn to skim just shy of the maximum scanning rate of your eyes, picking out keywords and deciphering core ideas.

As you locate desired or requested information, you slow down to speed reading, absorbing key ideas and establishing context. At this point you could begin underlining key passages, if that is your method, and slow to study speed, re-reading until you internalize the required information.

I experimented with underlining but found it cumbersome. Some consider underlining as defacing the text for future readers. Alternatively, one can write notes to aid memory and provide later study materials, presuming a textbook or technical note.

I learned to read by following my father's finger on the text while he read aloud. Having older siblings in grammar school also helped. One day the paragraph lines (squiggles) became text.

I only learned about letters and spelling later in grammar school; but I still read paragraphs as described above. Speed reading classes teach this method with a moving finger but once you learn, a finger obscures too much text. Lately post scan; seeing the line a second or third above the subject line being read; helps me resolve longer words that become difficult to see clearly with age.

The pre-scan resembles coming attractions. The brain sees the line(s) below the subject line and conditions you to anticipate the upcoming information.

 

[DaveC426913]

Gotta agree with Evo. I read only as fast as my imagination can fully build the world I'm reading about - what would a good book be without the sights, sounds and even smells that blossom from a good author's succinct but well-chosen words?

 

[gleem]

I'm retired so I do not have to read very much quickly except perhaps for a timely response to threads in Physics Forum.

Much of my recreational reading is to try and savor that which it can offer.

 

[Klystron]

The more I enjoy the text, the faster I tend to read it. Oh, I agree with Evo and Dave. I stop and savor certain paragraphs, re-reading and dissecting beautiful prose, looking for hidden meanings, innuendo and visible 'rhymes' by true wordsmiths. Then zing! Like the Road-Runner and his friend Speedy, I cruise back to my comfortable speed: roughly 500-600 wpm depending on several conditions.

For years I chose literature based on author but also thickness, to make the effort of checking out the book worth my time. Now ancient and doddering I am reading thin novels that I once disregarded; very enjoyable but they do not last long. The trick at any speed is to love reading. I often envy regular readers who can enjoy "Shogun" or "Moving On" for an entire Summer instead of a week.

 

[DaveC426913]

The more I enjoy the text, the faster I tend to read it.

Now that you mention it, realize I swing both ways. Often, during scenes of action and tension, I read like a man possessed.

 

[Evo]

Now that you mention it, realize I swing both ways. Often, during scenes of action and tension, I read like a man possessed.

During action scenes, especially violent or upsetting parts, I will also read very fast, maybe even just skimming or skipping through.

 

[WWGD]

Are you referring to me personally? If so I do not understand how to respond to your request.

Sorry, meant in general, not just you. Considering the context. Is it a technical book? Literarature?, etc. If technical, are you familiar with the material?etc , and using this to decide on the best approach if interested in optimizing for time , retention, etc.or or just reading casually if that's the preference at the moment.