[wpietri]

As somebody who grew up a very fast reader, for me "improving my reading speed" has meant slowing down. Because my goal isn't finishing a book faster, but having deeper understanding.

Things I've used there: notetaking, underlining, pausing and/or putting the book down at the end of chapters, talking with people about the book I'm reading, and actively subvocalizing.

That last one requires a little explanation. For me as a kid, reading was a visual process. I did not hear words in my head. This let me go way faster, but I missed out on things. Puns, for example. It's also not good for appreciating poetry and the like; at 11 or so I remember reading the Lord of the Rings and being just irritated by the blocks of poems or song lyrics. I didn't really appreciate poetry until I started listening to poets recite their own works.

Eventually I realized that a lot of prose was better appreciated at a slower speed, either because of the rhythms of the writing or because if I was going too fast I wasn't thinking about the content enough.

There's plenty of stuff I'll still read very quickly, though, up to the edge of skimming and beyond. But it's sort of like driving past a neighborhood on a busy street versus taking my time walk through it. The faster I go, the more I miss, especially of the subtle stuff.

[RheingoldRiver]

> Things I've used there: notetaking, underlining, pausing and/or putting the book down at the end of chapters, talking with people about the book I'm reading, and actively subvocalizing.

Yes, PLEASE!!! If you're reading a nonfiction book (that you own, obviously), the whole idea of "don't write in the book" is complete bullshit. Consider the book a somewhere-between-$20-and-$200 replacement for a college course. The college course is a consumable. The book, then, also, is a (very cheap, in comparison) consumable.

If you can improve your retention of something that can be reasonably compared to a college course by 20-100% by writing in a book I'd argue it's disrespectful to your time investment to NOT do that. Write in the goddamn book. If it makes you feel THAT bad, then buy a second copy, find a way to donate useful books to people who can't afford them (consider a subreddit for your local college/community college) and do that.

The buried lede here is that if you're reading nonfiction that can't be compared to a college course, it may not be worth your time in the first place :)

[nbaksalyar]

> If you're reading a nonfiction book (that you own, obviously), the whole idea of "don't write in the book" is complete bullshit

I'd argue that it's applicable to fiction books, too. :) I love pre-owned books with notes and comments, it feels like you share the experience of reading with someone you might not even know.

[bitxbitxbitcoin]

Had a similar experience (speed)reading LOTR as a kid.

[the_only_law]

I remember in elementary school, the administration would have scheduled 1on1 reading sessions.

It took me no time at all to learn that if I just read it as fast as possible correctly, it would impress the evaluator.

OTOH I can see what they did it, I was a senior in HS and people still read like they just learned how, having to sound out every word and with awful flow/pacing. These weren't "dumb" kids either. Straight A students in fact.