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Speed Reading Basics: Eliminating Subvocalization
Home » Test Preparation » Speed Reading » Speed Reading Basics: Eliminating SubvocalizationFast readers process information from the written page much more quickly than they could absorb it by listening, for example, to a book on tape. This is because they read more quickly than the book on tape talks.
Average readers, however, read at about the same rate that they and others speak -- around 250 words per minute. This correspondence arises from the way that average readers read. Many average and slower readers mutter to themselves or move their lips while they are reading. This habit, which speed reading instructors call "vocalization," slows reading down and makes it impossible to read faster than you can speak.
Although vocalization puts people who need to read a text quickly at a disadvantage, it is a time-honored tradition among human readers in all languages. In fact, before a certain point in history it was unheard-of to do anything else. Reading meant reading out loud. Because reading out loud was so much the norm, Saint Augustine of Hippo marveled at his teacher Ambrose's ability to read quietly to himself. Augustine wrote: "When Ambrose read, his eyes scanned the page and his heart sought out the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still... often when we came to visit him, we found him reading like this in silence, for he never read aloud."
Unlike his contemporaries, Ambrose knew that vocalization slowed his reading, and he managed to avoid it. However, no one knows whether Ambrose was able to avoid "subvocalization" - the next habit speed reading courses teach their students to quit. Unless you are already a very fast reader, you probably "subvocalize" words as you read them, "speaking" them silently inside of your head, so that you can listen to them as you read. In the same way, your brain can hum or sing a song to itself, without you ever moving your lips or tongue.
Subvocalizing can slow down your reading as much as actually vocalizing the words. Once readers become aware that they subvocalize, they can often increase their reading speed simply by concentrating on taking in the words without sounding them out subvocally.
Other speed reading techniques, such as those involving motion, can also help people to eliminate their habit of vocalizing or subvocalizing.
Related Speed Reading Articles
- What Is Speed Reading?
- Speed Reading Basics: Eliminating Subvocalization
- Speed Reading Techniques Involving Motion
- Other Principles of Speed Reading
- Improving Your Reading Comprehension