Reading speed

[Oralordos]

So I had a small adventure today finding out my reading speed. I have always been someone who reads really quickly, to the point where I don't personally know anyone else who reads faster than me. So today I thought I would take one of those reading speed tests to see exactly how fast I read.

The test used the acceptance speech of Ronald Reagan, ugh. My reading speed plummets to what I consider a snails pace on things I don't like. So I take the test and it says I read at approximately 400 words per minute. The average reading speed is about 200-250 by the way. So even at my snails pace uninteresting reading speed I am double that of others. No wonder no one else seems to be as into reading as I am.

But I start to wonder, how fast am I on stuff I like? So I remembered the time I read the entire Harry Potter series beginning to end over one weekend. I spent about 12 hours each of the two days on it. The series has about 1,000,000 words. So dividing down by 24 hours, and by 60 minutes per hour, makes about 700 words per minute. Now I am a bit shocked. I knew I was way faster than others, but I didn't think I was really 3.5x as fast as an average person. I think I am going to stop trying to get others to read as much I do anymore.

[Hearteater]

I don't really find reading super fast all that enjoyable.  When I'm reading something I really enjoy, especially fiction where I'm connecting with characters and situations, I don't want to be blasting through the pages.  It's like watching a movie on fast-forward.  At the same time, when I'm just reading to get information, especially problem solving, I skip like mad.  I don't really know if you can call it reading anymore.  Skimming might be overly generous.

[Oralordos]

I am a fanfiction addict, so it's hard for me to run out of things to read.

[Mánagarmr]

Interesting. I'm a fairly fast reader myself, but I've never really "clocked" myself like this. Maybe I should?

[keith.lamothe]

I never actually measured that myself, interesting.  Chris and I are fairly insanely high-speed when it comes to reading and typing; a fact we've noticed from the mammoth email chains we're capable of producing in a short period of time.

Though my typing speed has never been as good as the year or two after I discovered instant messengers the first time.  Probably 120-140 wpm (mostly without errors) for a while there.  That declined substantially after I decided to never go back to having an I'm window open all the time

I used to read a ton back in high school if I wasn't playing video games or MUD'ing, and plowed through a 3-book star trek Q series in a single 24-hour period.  I think my reading speed has declined since then too

I've never been very good at effective skimming, though.  I either wind up reading it all or missing important stuff.