Misunderstanding Stuff When You Read

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I like to read, but I have to do it very slowly, and I often misread things. I try to be careful, but it just makes reading seem so laborious to me. No wonder it makes me tired. I don't need glasses, and I'm not dyslexic. This seems to me to be more like when I miss a physical object I'm looking for when it's in plain sight. It also seems to me to be similar to face blindness (which I think I might have a little bit, given the times I've mistaken one person for another or not recognized someone I've met and had conversations with several times before) and other ways of not processing information or not processing it correctly that I've experienced.

One example of what I mean is that I read a magazine article that had the word "composing" in it. But every time I went back and read the article again (because I liked it so much), I read the word as "composting", even though I knew I'd misread it before and what the correct word was. It didn't matter if I read it again immediately or after some time went by. I always made the same mistake. This type of thing has happened to me many times.

Another example is that I sometimes miss little words that can make a big difference, such as "an". This only happens occasionally, but it can cause a lot of trouble. When this occurs, even if I see the word, I might somehow discount it. No thought involved; if I see it at all, it's as though I only notice it the way I'd notice a stray mark on the page and immediately move on. It means nothing to me at the time. In fact, a stray mark would get more of my attention for actually not belonging. Later on, when I find I've made an error in understanding, I might remember seeing that word, but then I realize it just didn't register at the time.

I'll give you a third example. I've been reading The Best Kind of Different, by Shonda Schilling. In the foreword, neurologist Peter B. Rosenberger, MD, tells of testing kids' ability to be aware of the thoughts of others by describing a situation to them in which what someone thinks is opposed to what is actually the case and asking what the kids think is going on. Here's the one he calls the classic, just as he tells it in the book: "Sally has a basket; Annie has a box. Sally has a ball in her basket. Sally leaves the room, and while she is away, naughty Annie takes the ball from Sally's basket and hides it in her own box. Sally returns to the room. She wants to play with her ball. Where does she look for it? A normal child will respond, 'In the basket.' Why? 'Because that's where she thinks it is." A child with autistic spectrum disorder will answer, 'In the box.' Why? 'Because that's where it is, silly.'" I hope I typed all that right. Anyway, I read it and somehow thought both children were saying Sally would look in the box - one because Sally thought it was there and one because it was actually there. I know I misread it twice, because I found my mistake after reading it to my girlfriend to see what answer she'd give. Both times, I'd read "basket" as "box" in the place where the neurotypical response was given.

I find this frustrating and embarrassing. I'll never forget the time when I was about 18 and was reading a series of words out of my pocket rhyming dictionary for someone at a poetry group. There I was, surrounded by women who were mostly around fifteen to twenty five years older than I was, and I didn't recognize the word beehive. I read it with the accent on the wrong syllable, even though I otherwise pronounced it correctly, because it didn't look at all familiar to me at the time. It's not as though I'd never seen, heard, or said it before, and I know I'm not stupid. But I sure felt stupid when everyone laughed at me.

I think this might be behind some of my math issues, as well. Does anyone else have this problem?

I’ve posted many times on these forums about my reading difficulties. Here I tried to simulate for others what reading is like for me, and here I asked if anyone else reads out loud like I find myself needing to do.

Sorry, I don't have that problem. I do know it is not really associated with face-blindness though. I am somewhat bad with faces. It takes me a lot longer than most to recognize faces. Decoding faces and words are totally separate things. I actually have the opposite problem: I will read things too fast and sometimes I have to back up and re-read something to make sure I understand it. I never really remember learning how to read and I have always been good at both that and math.

Ah, Jory! Exactly! Thanks for the links!

It's late, but I think I'll look up Irlen Syndrome tomorrow.

I actually find it somewhat hard to read aloud. I tend to skip a lot of words if I am not careful and I have to force myself to slow down. I end up talking way too fast. It is frustrating because it is as if my mind is trying to race ahead on the page and I can't keep up, even though I am talking like crazy. Also I can't seem to do voice inflections correctly. I also must read differently than others because I never "sound words out in my head" which is the way some people describe it. I remember being able to read when I was in first grade (my earliest) and I have always been fascinated with words and numbers too. My biggest problem is that I will mispronounce words that I have read and clearly know the meaning to.

I speed read until the article breaks into opinion or conversation, then stare at the conversation for a while wondering why there's such inactivity.