

Orwell - Improve your speed reading - robinduckett
http://robinduckett.github.com/orwell/

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tbrooks
I've been using Spreeder to read online articles and long blog posts for a few
years now. I'm amazed at how much information I retain from reading at 300
words/minute.

<http://www.spreeder.com/app.php>

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steadicat
300 words/minute looks awfully slow to me. I can speak faster than that.
Reading speed can be much faster than speech, especially if you get rid of
subvocalization ("speaking" words in your head as you read).

I don't see the advantage of flashing a word at a time. Reading works best
when the eye can scan a bunch of words simultaneously. If anything, I'd try
flashing a _line_ of text at a time.

~~~
boredguy8
300 wpm is average reading. Speaking at 300 wpm with clarity takes a lot of
practice, and most listeners require practice to comprehend that rate of
speech. Research shows that with compression (i.e. articulate speech sped up,
'contentless' gaps removed), people without training lose comprehension of
spoken word at about 210 wpm.

Unless you're talking with former debaters, I'd slow down that speech a
little. Even if you live in New York!

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jerf
At first I thought, "Really? 300 wpm is average? I tried that setting and it's
pretty slow." So I checked it out:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_(process)#Reading_rate> If anything,
that's the _high_ end of average!

Holy cow. I was getting bored and consequently losing focus at 300wpm. No
wonder "people" don't like to read, if a huge chunk of "people" can't even go
_that_ fast.

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boredguy8
The way you're calculating words per minute is wrong. You're calculating the
page change without taking into account how many words at a time are being
presented. So for instance, the refresh for show 30 / read 1 is the same as
the refresh for show 30 / read 30. Yet clearly, if 'read 30' is set, the
refresh should be substantially slower than if 'read 1' is set. Refresh in
seconds should be (words at a time / words per minute) * 60. Right now you're
just doing (60/wpm) and ignoring words at a time.

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robinduckett
I was waiting for someone to bring this up, it's because I put that
"calculation" in before I put in the variable read rates in.

If you know how I can fix that, any advice will promptly be implemented :)

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boredguy8
Not sure what you changed, but I set WPM to 60, show 1, and read 1. This
should refresh every second (1/60)*60, but it's updating very slowly.

~~~
robinduckett
Sorry, procrastination filter got me for an hour :(

And it's updated exactly as you said, and I timed it. "slowly" is exactly once
per second as far as I can tell.

<http://www.github.com/robinduckett/orwell> is the repo, take a look yourself
:)

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Gormo
Speed reading is great to remember isolated facts and data, but it doesn't
work to really _understand_ anything.

If I want to absorb a complex idea and integrate it into my base of knowledge,
I need to pause while reading, digest what I've read, figure out its
implications, and think about it in relation to what I already know and
understand. Speeding up the physical act of reading doesn't add any value
here.

When I try to use these techniques, I usually end up mechanically scanning the
text word by word without consciously comprehending anything, and having to
keep going back to re-read the same paragraphs over and over again.

~~~
dlnovell
Sorry, but that is absolutely not true. Notice that every statement you use to
back up your premise contains "I". You may not be an effective speed reader or
haven't been able to properly train yourself, but your blanket statement that
speed reading "doesn't work to really understand anything" is completely
absurd.

The goal of speed reading is to increase the rate at which you can
_comprehend_ what you read, not just increasing the number of words your read
per minute. My dad practiced speed reading while getting his PhD in business
management precisely so that he could read the mountains of dense, academic
research he needed to in less time. He can read and comprehend fully around
600 wpm. Try telling him that it doesn't work to really understand anything.

It's not something you can master in a week or even a month. It takes a long
period of dedicated practice but it can definitely help anyone willing to
commit to the training.

~~~
brokenmindsets
Hi dlnovell, I am trying to learn this skill. Any advice or book
recommendations? Do you speed read well also, or does your comment only
pertain to your father? Thanks!

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dlnovell
The program my dad used was developed by Evelyn Wood. It's old school, and one
of the main techniques is underlining each line of text with your finger or a
pen, so it doesn't really work as well for reading on a computer. However,
once you train with underlining on paper, your speed without it will still be
significantly faster than before. It would probably work normally on a kindle
or ipad.

I dabbled with it when I was in high school and had something like a 50% speed
up after a week, but I'm not a particularly disciplined student. I'm sure that
if I had kept with it I'd have been able to double or triple my reading speed.

~~~
brokenmindsets
Hi dlnovell, thank's for the response! I have a book on the Evelyn Wood
technique named The Evelyn Wood Seven-Day Speed Reading and Learning Program
which I believe was written by someone who used to work for Evelyn Wood rather
than by Evelyn herself. I haven't been able to get my hands on the original
Evelyn Wood training material as of yet. It is really great to hear feedback
from someone that this technique has worked for. Thanks again.

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mahipal
This is a cool idea. I suppose it would need some rudimentary analytics over
time to work as an actual training tool?

One suggestion: For me, at least, my reading relies on the shape of the
sentence. And I think for everyone they would be looking at the right edge of
the sentence as more words are coming in. So it's really jarring to have the
right edge jumping around, and it might make more sense to right-align the
marquee.

~~~
robinduckett
Added text alignment prefs, just refresh :D

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nhooey
This thing needs to move pixels at a time, rather than words at a time. It's
really hard to calibrate your eyes to the next word when the length of the
next word is unknown.

You lose the spatial cues of where each word's position is each time a new
word is shifted on to the screen. Something like a smooth stock ticker would
be much better.

Although, Spreeder looks much better.

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btilly
Cool idea, but I would prefer it if you calculated words as groups of 5
letters (that's how it was calculated back when I was learning to type), and
not as number of logical words. Because right now you're getting variable
length chunks of text but my eyes really like to scan in uniform length
chunks.

For instance suppose I am reading in 5 word groups. Some groups I read faster
than others. So even though my average reading speed is a bit above 700 wpm,
at 700 wpm in your application I have noticeable pauses where I've finished
the current chunk, and I have chunks I do not finish. It is very frustrating.

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steadicat
Did you consider smooth scrolling instead of adding/removing a word at a time?
The bouncing around due to different word-lengths is troubling me.

~~~
robinduckett
I hadn't considered smooth scrolling, I'll have a look when I get home.

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klochner
Cool project. Some ideas:

\- let users play with fonts/colors/spacing to find their optimum setup.

\- aggregate user preferences to find good defaults

Then you have an interesting blog post to write.

I think you should blow away the scrolling and have just two controls: chunk
size and speed. Personally I found chunk size ~50 to be ideal.

~~~
robinduckett
On the second point, how do you suggest I go around doing that?

As for the "blow away the scrolling", I made this to be configurable, sure
it's nice to be simple, but I made it so I could tweak it on the fly. You
wouldn't have found any chunk size to be ideal if I hadn't made it editable in
the first place :P

~~~
klochner
On the second point, how about:

"log in to save your preferences!"

As for "blow away the scrolling", I guess I'm channeling steve jobs: "This is
the right way to do it."

People _could_ prefer scrolling text, but from everything I know about
reading, they ultimately will read faster if they use chunks.

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robinduckett
Well it's forkable on github, knock yourself out, Steve :P

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klochner
if it's cool with you ... didn't want to steal your thunder :)

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wdewind
Cool

1) It would be cool if the up and down arrow keys would make it faster and
slower, or have some kind of gradual slider or something.

2) Doesn't speed reading have less to do with actual linear speed and more to
do with effective and efficient scanning of the page? (I've heard people talk
about moving from top left to bottom right)

~~~
robinduckett
I made this just to help me practice, which is why you can set how many words
show at once, and how many new words come in at a time :)

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conanite
Cool how sample text comes from the opening pages of 1984 that cover Winston's
absolute lack of privacy, describing how the Thought Police can "plug in your
wire whenever they wanted to". A topical choice. If only there had been a big
social website that would allow him organise a privacy protest group.

+1 for right-aligned text.

~~~
robinduckett
Hehehe :D

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RyanMcGreal
I seemed to get the optimum reading speed and fluidity at 300 wpm, 10 words at
a time, reading in 1 word at a time.

Edit: I also second mahipal's recommendation to right-align the text.

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robinduckett
Now right aligned by default, with a setting to change it.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
Beautiful, thanks.

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Jd
Show words 4 at a time, Read in 4 words at a time @ 500 WPM is the highest
comfortable reading speed.

Does this mean I actually read at 2000 WPM?

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bluemetal
that can't be right, but it seems I can do it too

EDIT: it seems to get a whole lot easier to read when i align the text left.
when it was aligned right i was wasting time getting my eyes to the always
shifting beginning of the new line

~~~
Jd
Ah. The periods are what kill me.

