Day 126: Speed Reading

Is it real?

“Ankh-Morpork people considered that spelling was a sort of optional extra. They believed in it in the same way they believed in punctuation; it didn’t matter where you put it so long as it was there.”― Terry Pratchett, The Truth

Welcome to A Reading Journey. This is a blog about reading. Not books, book reviews, author interviews, or any of that good stuff. That’s for other blogs. This blog is about reading. I hope that by sharing my reading journey, you might find yourself reading more or differently.

Reading Tips

Tip 137: Speed Reading

In the late 1950s, school teacher Evelyn Wood became interested in why some people read faster than others. The story goes that one day she brushed her hand across the page of a book and noticed that she read the text more quickly and smoothly than she ever had before. She began teaching this as “pacing” at University of Utah. Her students must have experienced some success because a year later, in 1959, she established Evelyn Woods Reading Dynamics.

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In the program, she taught three techniques: skimming, scanning, and finger tracing.

Skimming involves visually searching the sentences of a page for clues to the main idea or when reading an essay, it can mean reading the beginning and ending for summary information, then optionally the first sentence of each paragraph to quickly determine whether to seek still more detail. Normal reading comprehension speed hovers around 215 wpm, but with skimming, you can increase it to about 700 wpm.

I read most news articles via skimming, but I feel it defeats the purpose of reading for most other applications.

Scanning follows skimming. Here you are filling in a mind-map that you formed while skimming.

I’m assuming the purpose of this is to make sure that you caught all the main points, because let’s face it, skimming can be hit or miss for that. I’m also wondering how much faster you’re reading if you’re stopping to make a mind map as you skim. I doubt you’re still hitting that 700 wpm they claim.

Finger tracing involves pointing to specific lines or areas to help you focus on the sentences being read or skimmed. It is supposed to reduce cognitive load and increase retention. Finger tracing was pioneered not by Wood, but by Maria Montessori. There is research showing that it does improve focus and reduce cognitive load.

I’ve seen finger tracing used in elementary school reading classes. It is supposed to enhance learning by combining tactile, visual, and kinesthetic input. There are claims it helps improve letter recognition, handwriting, and mathematical reasoning by reducing cognitive load and building muscle memory. Notice that none of this is claiming it helps you read faster.

I found one page that says, “Eye tracking research reveals that even skilled readers don’t move smoothly across text. Our eyes jump (saccades), pause (fixations), and frequently jump backward (regressions). These regressions — backward eye movements to re-read content — can consume 10-15% of total reading time in normal reading. For unfocused readers, that number climbs even higher.”

I could not find that research, although I could be looking for it in the wrong database. I did find some research that shows that eliminating regression caused reading comprehension to go down. I won’t be rushing to try finger pacing.

I found a review of the research on speed reading that explains the current belief of the experts. “The research shows that there is a trade-off between speed and accuracy. It is unlikely that readers will be able to double or triple their reading speeds (e.g., from around 250 to 500-750 words per minute) while still being able to understand the text as well as if they read at normal speed. If a thorough understanding of the text is not the reader’s goal, then speed reading or skimming the text will allow the reader to get through it faster with moderate comprehension. The way to maintain high comprehension and get through text faster is to practice reading and to become a more skilled language user (e.g., through increased vocabulary). This is because language skill is at the heart of reading speed.”

This seems to confirm that my use of skimming news articles is a legitimate use of speed reading techniques, but if I want to enjoy what I’m reading or have full comprehension of it, I’m better off practicing reading by reading more, just as I’ve always done.

What is your experience with speed reading? Have you taken a class or bought an app to help you with it? Let me know in the comments.

Today’s Reading

FICTION BOOKS

Leviathan’s Huntress by Ian Dunmore #Fantasy #SubstackSerial

Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune #ReRead #Death #Grief #Audiobook

Room on the Sea by André Aciman #SeniorRomance #Audiobook [completed #110]

One for Sorrow by Sarah A. Denzil #Thriller #Audiobook

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens #BookClub #Classic #Audiobook

Babel Tower by A.S. Byatt #Literature #PrintBook #TriggerDomesticViolence #TriggerCult #TriggerChildAbuse #TriggerSuicide #TriggerChildEndangerment

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo #BookClub #Audiobook #HistoricalFiction #Classic #France #Literature

SHORT STORIES

“Exterminators” by Matt Forbeck

NONFICTION BOOKS

The Daily Buddhist by Pema Sherpa, Brendan Barca #Spirituality #Audiobook

10 Women Who Ruled the Renaissance by Joyce Salisbury #GreatCourses #History #Audiobook

The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook by Martha Davis with Elizabeth Robbins Eshelman, Matthew McKay, Patrick Fanning #SelfHelp #Wellness #Print

POETRY

The Minotaur Joins a New-Age Self-Help Forum by Edryd Bowmer

ARTICLES AND OTHER NON-BOOK READING

Woman of the Day:

Mabel Vernon (September 19, 1883 – September 2, 1975) was an American suffragist, pacifist, and a national leader in the United States suffrage movement. She was a Quaker and a member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Vernon was inspired by the methods used by the Women’s Social and Political Union in Britain. Vernon was one of the principal members of the Congressional Union for Women Suffrage (CUWS) alongside Olympia Brown, Inez Milholland, Crystal Eastman, Lucy Burns, and Alice Paul, and helped to organize the Silent Sentinels protests that involved daily picketing of Woodrow Wilson’s White House.

INFORMATION GATHERING

Quotes

Uniformity is not nature’s way; diversity is nature’s way. — Vandana Shiva

Journaling Prompts

What aspects of nature inspire me?

Vocabulary

Dudgeon is typically used in the phrase “in high dudgeon” to describe someone who is angry and offended by something they perceive to be unfair or wrong.

The customer stormed out of the store in high dudgeon after the manager refused to give them a refund for their purchase.

“She was in high dudgeon because her expensive lunch was punctuated by noise from a child ‘a real menace’ whose parents, she said, appeared oblivious to the noise while staff … played with and entertained the tot. If the parents could afford the bill for a place like that, they could afford a babysitter, she snipped.” — Rachel Moore, The Eastern Daily Press (Norwich, England), 6 Feb. 2026

Dudgeon is today most often used in the phrase “in high dudgeon” to describe someone in a fit of pique, or more colloquially, in a snit: they are angry and offended because of something they perceive as unfair or wrong. The word has been a part of the English language since at least the late 1500s, but its origins are a mystery. Conjectures connecting dudgeon to a Welsh word, dygen, meaning “malice,” have no basis. Also, there does not appear to be any connection to an even older dudgeon—a term once used for a dagger or a kind of wood out of which dagger handles were made.

Thanks for reading with me today. I’d love to hear from you about your reading journey, and especially what you’re reading right now.