Teaching Myself Speed Reading

When I was a kid I was fascinated by the commercials for speed reading. This was probably in the late 1960's, early 1970's. I loved to read and was somewhat hyper-competitive in terms of any sort of academic achievement. If there were people out there who could speed read...child or adult, man or woman...then I wanted to speed read too.

In the commercials the readers shown ran their hand over each page in a vaguely waving motion, kinda fast because this was, you know, speed reading, and then quickly turned the page. They could finish a whole book in record time. Why they wanted to read so fast was never discussed and it didn't occur to me to wonder about their motivation. I also don't know if it was ever explained what the swishing of the hand had to do with reading fast or if I just didn't listen to the particulars, but I did believe the magic waveswish had something to do with it. You could not speed read if you didn't use your hand.

So I started to train. I would get a book and buzz through it as fast as my eight year-old mind could go. Fast was the method. Read fast. I'd skim over small words. Who needed "the" anyway? "A", "an", "and" were for slow-poke readers. Words I didn't know? I'd think about those later. Not really knowing why I'd waveswish my hand over the pages absorbing maybe 60-70% of what I read. That was enough as far as I was concerned. It was an exhausting way to read but after a few months I felt gratified because I felt I had accomplished my goal of becoming a speed reader. I gave myself an imaginary certificate with a large fake gold seal.

It wasn't until years later that I learned there was a real method to speed reading. It was not just reading as fast as you could and their method was not dissimilar to my own. Skip the small words and concentrate on the bigger issues. And my unapproved method of speed reading definitely helped me in law school where we would have to consume massive amounts of written words although I had long ago abandoned the waveswish part. I find that even now, firmly in middle age, I still employ my technique even though I'm not in a hurry and have nothing to prove.

Next time: How the "bee" verbs ruined my life.