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DS is taking quite a few classes which have heavy reading loads. I asked him how he reads. (He has visual processing issues, which have been addressed by vision therapy, but reading is still not a love of his; although audiobooks are.) He said he reads by saying the words out loud in his head. I do this as well and find that it really slows down my reading and was a detriment in grad school. DH, on the other hand, looks at material and can read it without stating it in his head. Are these just two different techniques? It is a progression developmentally? Is there a way to learn to read without saying it in your head or to increase the speed of reading while retaining information?

Thanks!

As far as I can tell, subvocalization is considered normal, and a slow speed is associated with reading for learning and comprehension. Whenever I look into speedreading, it seems to turn out to be skimming, which isn't how I want to experience a book.

I find that one approach that helped was to use a bookmark to trace my place on the page. A lot of my speed loss is due to losing my place repeatedly, usually as I go from line to line. The bookmark eliminates that and also lets me try to speed up (i.e. you can subvocalize faster, as long as you aren't losing your place). I've seen some bookmarks that have a slit cut in them so that the lines above an below are hidden.

Apparently you can buy them, but they go by different names: reading guide, reading strip, reading highlighter. Might have to get myself one.

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My other approach is just time management. I know from lots of experience I read at about 20 pp/hr. So when I had reading assignments after I got older and more responsible I would just make that its own task and assign a realistic amount of time to each week's reading. A lot of reading that is assigned is actually less dense than you might expect so you can get an nice sense of accomplishment from finishing the reading with time to spare.

There certainly is some developmental progression from silent reading at oral reading speed to faster silent reading speeds, but it usually happens in late elementary school/middle school. For some perspective, the average adult reads at about 200-300 wpm silently (depending on which reference you cite), and about 150 wpm orally (out loud). So if one is able to read at above 150 wpm with decent comprehension, I would say that that is reasonably functional. I agree that it's more important simply to know one's own reading time requirements.

In addition to mckinley's time management suggestions, I would also recommend investing a little energy into finding an active reading strategy that suits the individual reader. E.g., SQ3R (https://www.khanacademy.org/test-pr...at-active-reading-strategies-part-1-sq3r).

I don't know if this has any relevance for your family, but DH and DD are dyslexic. DH was never diagnosed or remediated. From what he describes and I observe, I think he reads almost entirely by sight words/ seeing every word as a distinct picture (from similarities to DS, I think DH has visual spatial and memory off the charts). He speaks the words in his head while reading, and thus reads at the same speed, whether out loud or silently (or upside down, for that matter).

I wonder if saying the word in his head may be necessary to transform it from the picture he stores into something verbal that can be read?

DD has been through reading remediation, and now decodes far better and reads much faster than her father. I'm guessing she no longer subvocalizes, simply based on her speed.

Apparently a link between lack of inner voice and dyslexia has been proposed. And apparently whenever you ask a group of dyslexics about it opinion is divided (in the sense that some of them report a voice and some don't).

There are fonts designed to ease dyslexic reading on e-readers. A common one is called Open Dyslexic.

No idea what is "normal," just wanted to chime in with personal experience in case that helps.

I read over 500 wpm (tested by hubby for fun) and I say the words in my head when I read them. He argues that is not possible, but I say them in my head much faster than real time speech would be. In fact, I say them at the speed I wish everyone would talk at as I am the kind of person who cannot stand slow speech/pauses in speech. I talk way too fast for most people and I read aloud so fast people can't understand me and have to ask me to slow down.

So I can say that for me saying each word in my head as I read it does not lead to slow reading.

DH OTOH reads around 250 wpm and insists that he can't read faster because he properly says everything in his head and constantly accuses me of "just skimming." Upon reading the same random passage from a book I had better comprehension and could quote from it despite reading it twice as fast as he did.

In actuality I read through a book in about a quarter of the time it takes him, so I'm guessing he reads even slower when we aren't doing a speed test. Or I read even faster when I'm really into a story. Either way, we have both been successful educationally and both got very similar SAT verbal scores. DS seems to take after his dad on reading speed.

Basically, other than saving time I doubt reading faster does you a lot of good. It is possible to say the words in your head and still read quickly and maybe this could be practiced? I do think that reading quickly enhances reading enjoyment as most of the slow readers I know don't do a lot of reading for pleasure (or they tend to read magazines rather than novels). I do a lot of reading. Has practice made me a faster reader or do I enjoy reading so much because I am naturally faster at it? Who knows

Or, more likely, both!