[vuciv1]

I have ADHD, so reading is painstakingly slow. I still want to and enjoy reading, though, so I have also looked for ways to improve my reading speed.

I’ve tried for years, and ultimately it has come at the detriment of reading comprehension and my enjoyment.

I am actively in the process of reading books lovingly. I am trying not to care how long it takes me to get through a book, and to just enjoy what I’m reading. It’s tough, but has improved the experience for me.

[arbitrage]

One thing that helps me when my reading ability wavers from time to time is to use ereader apps with auto-scroll functionality. This used to be much more common around the 2000 era, but has mostly died out because eInk doesn't handle it well at all.

I have a lot of learning challenges. I was taught how to read wrong. The list goes on. I sorta forced my brain to learn bounded-box read-ahead/behind scanning by turning on autoscroll and letting it rip. My brain parts figured out the trick. Eventually, I was able to strengthen my reading skills to the point that I can self-regulate my eye-scanning & page-perusing movements on my own.

From time to time, when I'm having a not-read-good day, I still use an autoscroll app to help me retain focus.

There are a lot of chunking applets and extensions for the web browser, too. Those helped immensely to teach my brain how to read better. Eventually, I figured out how to do multi-line chunking/processing that way.

It took me much longer to learn all the various skills that usually get lumped together under the term "speed reading" than I expected. It took years to fix my reading skills. I wanted it to take weeks. It also took so much more practice than I expected.

[jason_slack]

I too read books lovingly, however when I switch to school mode, my reading needs to improve. I am really slow at reading and taking notes. So much so that I am often behind in reading intensive classes.

If anyone has advice, I am desperately in need.

[vuciv1]

This happened to me too. I went to speak to a school doctor, got diagnosed with ADHD, and started taking adderall when I needed to for class.

It’s at least worth a shot. It has been huge for me and many others.

[jason_slack]

Thanks. I take 50mg Vyvanse daily now. It helps but I still have trouble keeping up with reading. The class I am in now has on average of 200 pages per week.

[vuciv1]

I also recommend learning to skip the filler words and really get the main points of the text that you’re trying to read.

I really tried to read everything in college, but I just couldn’t, and neither did a lot of my peers. I still learned a ton by learning the main ideas, through internet summaries, through discussions with my friends, and discussions in the classroom.

Don’t be so hard on yourself and continue to learn :)

Good luck!