That's solid logic, but there were a whole bunch of other things. He was always on the honour roll. In every class I had with him he never took any notes. And on top of all that he got into University of Toronto, which is the hardest school to get in to in this city.

Most slow readers have a few issues. I myself was a VERY slow reader and needed to speed up before college. I learned some great tactics which helped me.

First, the possible issues:

1) You read something, then re-read it without knowing why. So you read: "The cat jumped on the bus twelve minutes before noon" as "The cat... the cat jumped on the bus... the cat... twelve minutes before... jumped on the bus.... before noon."

You're reading at an acceptable pace, but you're destroying yourself.

To combat this, practice. See practice down below. But you'll want to also spend time focusing on practicing reading straight through and not going back at all. If your brain forgets a passage, just keep reading and refuse to go back. Just keep reading.

2) You read a few pages and then realize you have no idea what you've read. Then you need to find where you left off and then start again.

This issue arises when you're reading and something triggers a thought. You may be thinking about the text itself or what you want to do next weekend. Either way, your brain isn't focused on the text. So you have to gain the self-awareness through practice so that you can stop reading, focus on thinking things through, and then refocusing on the text.

3) You read one word (or part of a word) at a time.

Our brains can read many words at one time. Some people can look at a page for less than a few seconds and move on to the next and their brain captures all of the words like a picture. I think most of us can't hope for those skills, but through practice, you can read and process multiple words at a time.


PRACTICE
To practice, pick a non-fiction book that you are familiar with. Read it as fast as your eyes will allow. If you don't get all of the words, that's okay. You're already somewhat familiar with the book. Do it for a few minutes and then think about what you just read. Give yourself a few minutes of break, then do it again.

Be sure you don't go back to read anything at all during your practice. Just keep reading.

This practice teaches your eyes and brain to power through and keep going. If you read a page of a novel and time yourself, do 20 minutes of these exercises and then re-time yourself, you'll notice a dramatic reduction in time and you'll also find that you retain more important information.


What you're reading, why:
You should process and read things differently depending on what you're reading. For my master's degree, I read on average right around 600 pages or so per week. But a lot of the information was repetitive and often building on the same framework. There's no reason to read every word of all 600 pages. So I would scan the pages spending no more than 10 or 15 seconds per page and look for key words, concepts and first sentences of paragraphs. When I find something interesting and new, I read it quickly and then move on. As I continue, concepts build on each other and get more fleshed out. There's no reason to sit on topics early in their development and try to guess at anything. Just read, read fast, make judgments later and reread the most important sections to fill in missing details.

If you're reading a novel, slow or fast reading to wreck the pacing of the book. Sometimes I slow it down and indulge in the details. Sometimes I speed it up -- missing a few words here or there, but they're unimportant. I can get the main ideas and move on.


All of that said, I had all of the issues above and they still come back to haunt me -- half of my life later. I still get caught up in them. But if you need to get your reading on, then stop, practice, and get it on. You can do it.


Last notes: Some folks struggle with dyslexia and other significant reading hindrances. If that's you, then seek professional help. You can overcome those issues. I myself had big problems with 6,9, p, d and b. One big cluster of uncertainty. I don't know what my teachers did anymore, but I eventually grew out of it. Some folks have it far worse than that, though. So be sure to get help if you do.

You forgot #4, which is very related to #2. Namely:

4) You read a few pages and realize you forgot entirely what you just read and have no idea what the last paragraph said.

This is the one that hits me the most, where my consumption of the written word has heavily declined. However all you can do is backtrack to what you can last remember, or probably change the pace. Get a glass of water, get out of the rut, and then return and try again a few minutes later after you're not forcing yourself into re-reading the last 2-3 pages trying to retain enough of the information to keep yourself satisfied.

Oh, one thing I forgot which is important. When you read, do you sound out the words in your head like you're saying them? Try to scan the words instead.

The 5 minute sessions are to help practice doing that.

I've dabbled a little in trying to reduce sub-vocalization but it didn't work, it seems like something like that could take weeks or even months before you learn it. The problem is that it's more natural for me to sound out the words which means I have to force "out learning" it and at the same time, I find retention and comprehension diminished without (as the speed will pick but reduces the other two).