I'm not trying to brag -- just giving a data point which seems to suggest that the tagline "nobody reads much faster than 400 words per minute" is false.
I read the first article you linked to. I measured myself on it and got 630 wpm. (And I backtracked a couple times during the reading process. It's hard to focus when you know you're being measured)
I'm by 40-50% the fastest reader I know, except for my father (we're about equal; I've never measured much, just read over his shoulder). When other people read over my shoulder they rarely get farther than through the left page before I'm turning it; most of them only get through 2/3 of the left page.
In a line such as the following (from the first linked article):
several words. This is called a "fixation," and it takes about .25 seconds on average. You
My eyes seem to fix in four or five spots (I can't tell for sure): "several", "this", "and", "seconds", and "you". So I think I can instantly read about 3 words at a time. When I stare at "called" I can read the whole phrase from 'this' to 'fixation' without moving my eyes. I get the sense that other people only read one word at a time. Is that true for you?
(Edit: In a monospace font like it appears here, I seem to fixate on every other word, so it's more like 8 fixations across the line. The tighter font on the original page seems to let me read faster.)
I was reading before I turned 2 years old, which is pretty young, I think. I am guessing this had something to do with how fast I read, although genetics may also be related.
Edit 2: I should point out that I've never tried to study speed reading or improve my reading rate. I did play around with Spreeder and I could read every word at 1200wpm, but my comprehension was in the toilet. I played around with setting it at 800 (with 4-5 words per screen) and it worked reasonably well, although I never fully got past the distracting element of it flashing lots of stuff in my face while I was trying to concentrate.
I tried that article, and clocked myself at about 730wpm (in your face! or something...). But I was deliberately trying to read fast, although I do read pretty quickly.
I am able (obviously) to skim read things quickly - I would read slower when reading for pleasure though.
I've never tried speed reading techniques, mainly because the one person I talked to about it said they found it hard to 'switch off' speed reading. e.g. I was asking him about 'Watchmen', and he couldn't remember some of the stuff I was talking about - he thought it was because he speed-read it.
I'd rather enjoy reading than focus purely on speed.
Confirmed. In a high school course they clocked our reading speed (with comprehension after). I was 432, and wasn't nearly the fastest reader in there.
I'm on the other end of the spectrum -- originally grew up in a Punjabi-speaking household (immigrant family in The States), moved to English around the time of Kindergarten.
I think it's got to do with the innate redundancy in grammar. You can focus on blocks of text and only get partial data from each, but reconstruct the entire thing in your mind in real time. With practice, of course.
Actually it does. Here are two quotes from the article, both of them emphasized in the original.
"Studies show that people who read at or above the college level all read at about the same speed when they read for pleasure."
"the fastest college-level reader will read, at best, twice as fast as the slowest college-level reader."
The article isn't talking about 95% of college-level readers, it's talking about the best college-level readers. The above posts (as well as my observations outlined below) refute it quite well.
I read the first article you linked to. I measured myself on it and got 630 wpm. (And I backtracked a couple times during the reading process. It's hard to focus when you know you're being measured)
I'm by 40-50% the fastest reader I know, except for my father (we're about equal; I've never measured much, just read over his shoulder). When other people read over my shoulder they rarely get farther than through the left page before I'm turning it; most of them only get through 2/3 of the left page.
In a line such as the following (from the first linked article):
My eyes seem to fix in four or five spots (I can't tell for sure): "several", "this", "and", "seconds", and "you". So I think I can instantly read about 3 words at a time. When I stare at "called" I can read the whole phrase from 'this' to 'fixation' without moving my eyes. I get the sense that other people only read one word at a time. Is that true for you?(Edit: In a monospace font like it appears here, I seem to fixate on every other word, so it's more like 8 fixations across the line. The tighter font on the original page seems to let me read faster.)
I was reading before I turned 2 years old, which is pretty young, I think. I am guessing this had something to do with how fast I read, although genetics may also be related.
Edit 2: I should point out that I've never tried to study speed reading or improve my reading rate. I did play around with Spreeder and I could read every word at 1200wpm, but my comprehension was in the toilet. I played around with setting it at 800 (with 4-5 words per screen) and it worked reasonably well, although I never fully got past the distracting element of it flashing lots of stuff in my face while I was trying to concentrate.