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[lilraylewis]

I just finished perusing an article on reading that condemed subvocal reading. However, I am still somewhat unclear on what the author meant by 'subvocal.' Did he mean silently moving your lips as you read, or hearing words in your mind as you read, without any lip movement?

Personally, I read most things by hearing the words in my mind. Is this abnormal? Do most intelligent readers read some other way, without hearing the words in thier minds at all? Since most of you guys are reasonably intelligent I thought I'd get a little feedback from you. So please, if you will, tell me how your read so that I may gain a little insight into the problem.

edit: I would just like to apologize for using the word 'perusing' on an internet message board. I know it makes me sound like a blowhard, but it sounded to awkward to say "I just finished reading an article on reading that condemed subvocal reading."

 

[Wolfy]

Depending on what I'm reading, I usually try to 'hear' the words as I read them. If i'm crunch reading, like for an exam or something, I usually just try and break through the text as much as possible without really concentrating on anything specific.

 

[beerbelly]

Hearing words in your mind is absolutely normal. In fact I think most people do it.

 

[gofreak]

Heh, never paid too much attention to it, but yes, I do "hear the words" when reading. I'm all freaked out reading now. The brain is truly amazing..

 

[lilraylewis]

Heh, never paid too much attention to it, but yes, I do "hear the words" when reading. I'm all freaked out reading now. The brain is truly amazing..

I understand what you mean. What is even more odd is if you try to recognize the voice that is speaking the words in your head. I don't know about anyone else, but the voice I hear in my head doesn't sound like my voice, or any voice at all really. Yet I still recognize that I am 'hearing' words as I read.

 

[BigGreenMat]

Can you point us to this article lilray?

 

[lilraylewis]

The article in question is actually part of a book I'm reading. It's a fairly well-known book. It's called How To Read A Book by Mortimer Adler. I've actually read it before (the 1940 edition) but it has since been rewritten (sometime in the '70's), so I decided to give it a second reading.

 

[Dagless M.D.]

Apperently the fastest way to read is with a pointer (about the size of a pencil) in hand tracking the words on the page, from left to right.

 

[gofreak]

This is quite interesting, because I've never paid too much attention to the actual method/skill of reading a book. When you think about it, it'd be quite useful to know the best way of going about it (not just from a speed perspective, but from an information retention perspective aswell)...I guess it's different for everyone, but if there are general guidelines, I'd love to hear them. I'll have LOTS of reading to do in the next year.

 

[Loki]

I just took a psycholinguistics course, which dealt with how we perceive, process, and produce language, be it the written word or speech.

There was a small bit on the function of such "subvocal reading" (i.e., faintly saying aloud what you're reading), but I don't recall it at the moment, as it was a very minor point in the scheme of things. I'll try to dig it up later; my best guess would be that it simply serves as either an additional method of input, or as a quick check on output and processing.

Viewing such reading aloud as a second method of input (phonology--->lexical access), we can see that the convergence of phonological (i.e., sound-, or phoneme-based) and orthographic (i.e., visual perception of the physical characteristics of written letters) encoding by the brain will likely produce much stronger and more reliable lexical access, which will result in better retention. If we view it as an early check on output (as sort of a feedback loop), we can see that the verbal utterance of words can serve as a check on the soundness of our orthographic encoding and its resultant lexical output; if the phonological encoding differs from the previously processed orthographic encoding and output, then we can revise our output by using either averaged values, or, in the case of connectionist (i.e., parallel-processing) models, by comparing both outputs (that resulting from orthography, and that from phonology) with the previously learned, culturally accepted form of the word, and then choosing the one which best corresponds to this representation.


Sounds complicated (and, as a course, it was pretty complex as far as psychology goes), but realize that the above processes and dozens of others take place on the order of milliseconds, which is why you're not consciously aware of such things.

 

[wandering goat]

I don't think I sound out the words when I'm reading in my mind. However, I often associate a certain voice with a character's dialogue. I dislike speed reading; when reading for enjoyment, I think you get much more out of it going at a slower pace. Not exactly related, but I also like to drink while reading (not much, usually one "large" drink). It helps me to relax a bit more while reading leading to a bit more enjoyment.

 

[Felidae_Khrall]

I read random words on a page until I've read them all, and then I try to piece it all together like a giant word jumble.

 

[The Fronde]

I took a reading course and they were pushing this chunking technique on me for faster reading. Basically, instead of reading one word at a time, you look for "meaningful" groups of words, like a verb phrase. Then you focus on the center of the group and see the other words towards the edge with peripheral vision. Then basically you say the phrase quickly in your head, like normal reading. It sounds complex and is very unnatural at first, but you make only one eye fixation per group rather than one for every word, which saves time. I was a really slow reader before, now I'm only kind of slow.

 

[Chrono]

Did anybody try this:

http://www.photoreading.com/

self-study courses are about 245 dollars so I won't be getting it, but if somebody here tried it and it helped A LOT then I just might. Their message forum has a lot of success stories but then again it's their forum.

 

[Dice]

I HATE speed reading. I can do it and remember everything just fine, but it just seems so pointless to me. Books/papers/articles are an expression of human thought as much as any other form of communication is. I like to take my time, read it at the pacing I perceive the author would say it and sense their heart in it. Generally I kind of subconsciously track ahead of where I am, but only so that I am reading in proper context (question, proposition, tense placement, 1st/2nd/3rd person, etc).

 

[Dilbert]

I'm a speed reader, although I've never been trained -- just happened naturally. I don't sound out words in my head, as you might expect.

However, when I read poetry, I've learned to force myself to slow WAY down and try to "hear" the words in my head in order to get those aspects of the poem which are communicated through sound and emphasis. Otherwise, you can miss some important things.

 

[Loki]

I'm a speed reader, although I've never been trained -- just happened naturally. I don't sound out words in my head, as you might expect.

However, when I read poetry, I've learned to force myself to slow WAY down and try to "hear" the words in my head in order to get those aspects of the poem which are communicated through sound and emphasis. Otherwise, you can miss some important things.

How do you consciously stop yourself from mentally sounding the words out? Or did you just never develop that tendency for whatever reason?

Although I'm a fairly fast reader (50-80 pages/hour depending on the material's familiarity and difficulty), I just tried your method for the first time (it never occurred to me to do so) and it does make reading faster, though it was hella difficult to suppress my natural tendency to (quickly) say the words in my head as I read them. Interesting.

I also wonder about retention with that method, though I'm sure that improves with practice as it becomes second-nature. Your seeming reliance on visual as opposed to phonetic input, and your facility with this, might also somewhat explain your physics ability, as those who tend to store/process information as images as opposed to propositions also tend to perform better on spatial tasks.