Are you a good reader?

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That's very impressive. How was your reading comprehension, btw?

i read fast. i tend to slow down towards the end of a really good book though. just because i don't want it to end.

I am a pretty fast reader. It depends on the context, however. Material that is dry or uninteresting to me, or is written in massive textwall format, I can't get through so well. However, when the writing style matches up well with how my mind works, I can read a hundred pages a day or more. Sometimes in one sitting.

It's a skill you may be able to aquire by practice. The principles are quite simple, you can find single-page instructions on myriad websites. Trying it will probably improve anybody's reading speed unless visual problems or serious attention difficulties prevent him. It will probably not make you a 700+ wpm speed-reader though.

I read pretty fast but not really fast enough to be speed-reading, 400 words a minute or so? Comprehension is pretty excellent, but if I'm purposefully reading as fast as I can (because I'm in a hurry, or because the material is boring and I want to be done with it) there's often a gap in it -- just after I finish reading I couldn't tell you a single thing about what I just read. Foggy blank mind. A little while later after I've thought about something else and come back to it, it'll all be there, complete with the little comments I don't remember making to myself while reading it. I do not find this experience pleasant.

I do. I can spend half an hour on one page, because my mind is elsewhere. I'm not sure if it's ADD or not, but another problem I have is that sometimes I read a sentence and that's not enough, so I need to read it again.

You might want to look into getting tested for that as well then (read up on inattentive type ADD in particular). I'm not big on being medicated, but as far as I know, it's the only thing that can help. I know exactly what you mean about having to re-read sentences. I can read something 15 times and still get absolutely no meaning out of it... it might as well be a foreign language. I also get extremely tired the harder I try to concentrate on something. Apparently, none of this is normal. If you think this might be the problem, check it out. It's more than worth it for the pleasure of enjoying a good book in one sitting.

When I was 18-years-old a teacher asked me if I had ever been diagnosed with ADD, because my papers, according to her, were disorganized and missed the point. I've never been diagnosed with ADD, but even if I have that condition it can't be too bad of a case, since I always was a good student. Even in that class I alluded to, which I hated and had no desire whatsoever to do well at, I end up getting like an 80.

When I was in my early 20's I got diagnosed with depression and was given a small supply of antidepressants. They didn't help with my depression, but they helped with my concentration. While on antidepressants, I read very fast (by my own standards) and remembered a lot. So the moral to be learnt from this story is that my concentration could be better and could be enhanced, at least temporarily, with the right medications.

I'm not always that great at reading out loud but when I read to myself I can read very fast and efficiently.

I'm a compulsive reader. I read signs, postings cereal boxes anything with text if I don't have anything else to read. I can't remember not being able to read and I could read before I could tie my shoes. By the time I was five I had read the entirety of my parent's library, so it's not a big surprise that my reading vocabulary tested at the college level in 4th grade.

Reading has been my great salvation. As a kid, I always had a book in my back pocket, so I'd always have something interesting to read. That kept me out of trouble quite a few times. Authority figures never suspect the kid with his nose in a book. In 7th grade I couldn't deal with the crowds in Jr. High and I dealt with it by retreating to the school library instead of going to class. Strangely, school authorities let me "live" there for months. I found quite a few new authors that year.

In my younger years, I read mostly "hard" science fiction and a fair amount of fantasy works, but would read anything at hand. I much preferred authors who wrote good dialog, like Asimov, Simak and Heinlein. Didn't care for Bradbury, because there was far too much allusion and pretty prose.

Needless to say, I got to be quite a speed reader. I second time I read Lord of the Rings, I got through all three books in about 10 hours of solid reading. The first time was pretty slow going because I had trouble with the names and language.

These days, I don't have much time for reading and about all I have time for is tech reading.

I love reading! That's why I'm trying to be a writer!

I'm a good reader, but I end up getting bored halfway through the book and moving on to something else.

That's me to a Tee. And yet I manage to red quite a few books in a year. When I read out ot someone I am just performing and become clueless or lose track of the meaning. I have to red the sentence or paragraph again. I feel sometimes I am 'blindreading', meaning like her on WP. when there is too much of information it seems that my mind blocks and whispers...'no'. I look at words, skim through the sentence or paragraph, go back to the beginning, get impatient (I have ADHD too), then I resolve that I should read slower and make the text important to me.

I might eventually give up and cloase the book, sometimes I fall asleep over it, after 2 pages. I odn't know what it is, I also feel that I should finish a book, even if don't like it, jsut because I started it and I think it is maybe me who reads to slow and that the book is OK: But Nt friends say, they put a book down if it doesn't grab them from the first pages.

On the other hand I can remember and quote quite a few articles from newspapers I just read...my photographic memory helps me a lot in that. I do remember the details of the articles I read.

Last edited by Loborojo on 19 Oct 2008, 7:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

There are periods when I will have three books going at one time. I'll have one in the family room, one in the bedroom, and one at the top of the stairs. I read bits from each one, whenever I have the time. The most interesting one gets finished first.
There are also periods when I will do most of my reading, online. I open multiple windows, so that I can check out a handful of sites, back and forth.
I chalk it up to a hunger for knowledge.

Same here =/ If there's too many facts, or too much dialogue, or anything else that I can't picture being acted out in my head while I'm reading, I just can't take it in very well. Or sometimes I have the opposite effect, where a book will inspire me and set my imagination spinning, and I realize I've read several paragraphs while daydreaming and I have no idea what I read @_@

Otherwise I'm a pretty fast reader, I can read a few hundred pages in a few hours...I forget the exact number, but according to Brain Age, my reading speed (out loud) is about 5.4 syllables per second.



Mine only tested at 12th grade level in 3rd grade =(



I had a lot of trouble reading those books...especially the Two Towers I kept getting bored and/or falling asleep, but I told myself I would finish them before each movie came out. Then they had to go and extend the first movie past the end of the book(s)

Didn't have any trouble with The Hobbit, though...I really liked that one.

I am an avid, obsessive reader. I am trying to read a lot less and do other things. I learned to read at a young age, I was about 2 when my dad taught me. He was a teacher and he had a particular strength with helping kids learn to read.

You may have eye tracking or ocular pursuit problems. You can get tested and therapy for these.