
Ask HN: How have you increased your reading speed/comprehension? - avindroth
After Alan Kay&#x27;s AMA, where he claims to have read 20,000+ books in his lifetime, I have been interested in how one can read without losing comprehension. Enhancing the learning algorithm is crucial for absorbing more information.<p>All methods, both technical and non-technical, are welcome. Some methods I am playing around with are Spritz and the method espoused by Tim Ferriss[1].<p>[1]: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;fourhourworkweek.com&#x2F;2009&#x2F;07&#x2F;30&#x2F;speed-reading-and-accelerated-learning&#x2F;
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alankay1
A start here would be to see if your reading of the AMA resulted in an
accurate memory. For example, did I actually claim to have read "20,000+
books"? What did I actually say? No amount of speed is going to help if the
recall is so noisy? And, something to ponder, it would have been easy to look
to see if what you attributed to me was accurate? Why didn't you? And so
forth.

~~~
avindroth
My mistake, I should have looked! I now recall you saying that your friends
have read more than that.

I will practice more thorough accreditation. Thanks for taking the time to
point this out!

~~~
alankay1
Here is something for all to ponder. Remember when someone switched the TV
channel into the middle of a movie you haven't seen for 20 years. How long did
it take for you to recognize the movie? And how often did you have a good
sense of what is next? Most people report "a second or so". Think about this:
when you saw the movie you were not trying to remember it, you did not know
you would be tested 20 years later. One way to think of this is that it is
highly likely that memory is not the problem to be dealt with, but that
_recall_ is.

~~~
swah
Do you take notes while/after reading a book?

I suppose that would increase recall, and you could always re-read your notes
to remember the most interesting points.

~~~
alankay1
I don't take notes. (It's worth pondering whether taking notes is really an
aid to internal remembering...) In any case, what I was trying to point out
was that it could be the case that we actually remember almost everything, but
have real difficulties in recalling our memories without cues. (It's also
worth pondering just what it is that "autistic savants" might actually be
doing ...)

~~~
avindroth
Aren't we reading, in part, for recall of insights (during conversations,
brainstorming, or otherwise)?

If we take notes, our eyes are away from the text itself, practicing a simple
exercise in recall. In a sense, you are "chunking" the concept.

In addition, the commonplace book become your second brain, an accumulation of
cues that will trigger the chunks. A semi-permanent digital repository of
knowledge that you can tap into on need-basis.

Whizzing through a book without necessary stops for chunking seems to put to
question why we read in the first place.

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mswen
I went through a phase in late teens where I read a couple different speed
reading books and tried out the techniques as well as actively practicing and
pushing my eyes and brain to move faster.

After going through that phase I backed off and don't really try to push
myself to read fast - but those efforts helped set a different pace and I
still read faster than most people around me.

Some things that I think are important: (just one guy's opinion)

1\. Try to be broadly curious - an interested brain remembers better.

2\. Develop your vocabulary. Particularly if you are reading something outside
of your field. Textbooks often have a vocabulary section in the back of the
book. Take some time to read through that before tackling the book.

3\. Comprehend the structure before diving into reading. It is useful to read
through the Table of Contents before starting to read a non-fiction book.
Having a sense of the structure in advance helps you with memory and context
for specific facts.

4\. Read every day.

5\. Read lots of different kinds of materials.

6\. Allocate your time and attention. Give yourself permission to speed up and
even just scan when it feels appropriate but also permission to slow down and
focus on comprehension and integration with what you already know when you get
to parts that challenge you or feel particularly important.

~~~
alankay1
I think these are good advice. A few additions and complements:

What seemed to work for me: 1\. I started reading very early in life, and like
early sports and music learning, I think this made a difference.

2\. Most recall and understanding is relative to existing knowledge, so the
more you have to link up to (and the more you read with linking up in mind)
the better.

3\. I've found that association (2.) works better than trying to understand
everything while reading (the understanding is generally there the next day).

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eswat
I haven’t fully read _How to Read a Book_ by Mortimer Adler, which is likely
to be referenced in another comment, but I do something that’s referenced in
that book: syntopical reading.

When I read stuff I usually grab a few books on the same subject and read
through them, using a mix of ebooks, physical books and audiobooks, so I can
fill in dead time in different contexts with reading something on the same
topic. I’m able to compare the ideas of the books and that seems to collate
them better in my head.

Other than that I’ve given up and consciously trying speed reading tricks like
using peripheral vision to read or reading stuff one word at a time. I’m sure
there’s more gains for those techniques but I just don’t have the patience to
put them in muscle memory at this point.

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baccheion
You can look into PhotoReading and Mental Photography. The ideas sound
"scammy," but if you look at what's being said generally, it'll help you
(centering your mind, entering the alpha state (you can even use brainwave
entrainment until you can do it naturally), suppressing subvocalization
(repeating the words in your mind), scanning the table of contents and pages
of the book to get a "big picture" sense of what it's about, "activating" what
you've read (after taking a nap) by summarizing it out loud, etc).

Also, you can try taking supplements that help with concentration and
maintaining awareness. Things like (N-Acetyl) Semax (Amidate) + N-Acetyl
Selank + PhenylPiracetam Hydrazide.

If you ask questions, keep your mind active, and engage in what you're reading
(visualizing, questioning, etc as you go), then it becomes easier to pick up
on things, keep the pace, and fly through it all without even noticing.

Moving your eyes faster is really basic and almost stupid, but the idea of
keeping your eyes moving (to prevent backtracking and spacing out) makes
sense.

Also, if you have the choice, then it's better to read from a crisp-screen-
having tablet, such that you can adjust the font size, width, and spacing of
what you're reading, and can have software automatically scroll through the
text (and show just the right amount of text at a time, to allow you to digest
quickly without having to move your eyes).

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brudgers
For me, the more I read the more I think I understand. Also, the more I know I
forget. In an information technology metaphor, the metadata improves but a lot
of the input stream data just gets dropped on the floor.

Of course, Kay may be different. But for me, some things stick and others
don't and the things that stick stick due to some combination of my interests,
the quality of the author's writing and dumb luck of timing in the external
world. And that means that often I will make different connections when
rereading because the context in which I am reading is different.

Good luck.

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afarrell
I've switched to listening to audiobooks, which allows me to walk around while
hearing the words. This helps me think about them better.

Some books are significantly better on audiobook, such as those written by a
professor of Anglo-Saxon oral tradition.
[https://mobile.audible.co.uk/pd/Classics/The-Fellowship-
of-t...](https://mobile.audible.co.uk/pd/Classics/The-Fellowship-of-the-Ring-
Audiobook/B004FTVZFG?source_code=M2M14DFT1BkSH082015011V)

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pasbesoin
Pay attention to your environment. I still remember one fellow student
complaining in college about his bio or chem grade -- some such. He always
studied with music on.

I told him that would never work for me.

He studied for the next test without music. Came back all excited: Got an A.

I suspect Kay has had many decent offices in which to consume those books.
Just a guess.

Environmental needs may vary by individual. Regardless, they are NEEDS for
effective assimilation and thinking.

~~~
alankay1
Good point! (Cog Psych shows that we don't really multi-task.) I've always
been partial to beds and couches for reading ... and especially in the very
early mornings ...

~~~
ruraljuror
Anecdote about how time of day affects reading: Michael Silverblatt, host of
KCRW's Bookworm and one of the country's best readers, says that during the
day he reads at a relatively slow pace, say 50 pages per hour; but he will
often wake up in the middle of the night and read an entire book over a few
hours. I believe he referred to it as "nightbrain."

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fitzwatermellow
I have a quick hack for reading long news articles on the web. Simply read the
first sentence of each paragraph.

This works remarkably well. Most journalists seem to practice a uniform style
when it comes to paragraph composition. The first sentence is the "thesis",
and the subsequent ones provide the "evidence."

~~~
alankay1
The subsequent sentences are also there for disclaimers and subsetting. The
first sentence model is too weak for real writing.

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qkeast
I have a severe hearing impairment. I have a crazy fast reading speed, which I
attribute in part to always having closed captions on television. Simply
turning the captions on is a good way to pick up speed: eventually, you don't
actually read what's written on the screen—you just comprehend it.

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1123581321
Get more sleep.

