[spocked]

This is from personal experience - works for me, may not work for you.

I have found that people who enunciate every word they read in their heads read a lot slower than those who can pattern match (without reading out the word in their head). I belong to the earlier category and have friends who belong to the latter. No matter how fast I tried to read, I could never finish a novel in a night (like the others did).

It's really easy to see which one are you - try and read a line of text making sure you do not read out the words out in your head. If the line makes absolutely no sense to you, you are like me. The text pattern needs to be converted into audio, which then links to meaning. Maybe its just the way our brains are arranged.

What has worked very well for me is listening to books on audible. I can easily listen to most books at 2X (and sometimes 2.5X) the speed of narration. A typical large book (like the recent one on Elon Musk) is about 14 hrs narration. I could successfully finish the book in less than 7 hours - something I could never do if I was just reading it. I also feel like I retain more, although I cannot be sure of this without more data.

[ju-st]

I'm one of the guys who can pattern match. But for me this works only for novels and other "light" literature where remembering details of the story is not very important.

If I really want to learn/understand something it's much better to read the text in my head, so I have the opportunity to think more about what I just read. Or I pause after each paragraph.

Audiobooks didn't work for me at all - my mind always wanders away. Maybe I should try 2x speed.

[aliencat]

A lot of people(including me) who tried to learn speed reading spend much effort on trying to eliminate "reading out loud" in their head, instead of actually spend the time to read some book.

It's great to hear the experience from someone who actually knows speed reading techniques. I guess "reading out loud" isn't so bad after all. thanks for you input :)

[spocked]

I get very distracted at 1x. There is a speed of maximum efficiency that works for me - generally around 2X. When information is thrown that fast at you, as long as you can catch it, there is no way to get distracted (unless there is a physical distraction).

Try listening at 2X or 3X while lying down with your eyes closed. Apparently, your brain will start to engage your visual cortex for listening and the speed becomes quite manageable.

[jimsojim]

I agree with your point on audiobooks. I have been doing it myself for a while too, but I always find myself wondering afterwards how this is not helping me to be a better reader.