Exercising Independence

Let's talk about reading speed and speed reading. Speed reading seems to suggest that we read too slowly and need to pick up our velocity in order to keep our intellect properly engaged while suppressing our tendency to subvocalize. I agree that we all need to increase our top speed which can be done through good practice and competent pre-reading. The more we read the more we learn how to read and the more we learn to read the more likely we are to discover and when we discover we become more likely to learn to read better etc.

As we learn to read better we learn how to read at different speeds, how to zoom past interstitial material and how to slow down to grasp the profound yet essential.

(OBTW, did your reading slow down at the word "interstitial? Did you stop to look it up. Did you approximate its meaning by using context clues. Did you zoom past it as filler?)

Van Doren suggested that a good measure of reading speed can be examined in the reading of the first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence which I include here as kind of a scrimmage.

I assume that you are somewhat familiar with the Declaration and have preconcieved notions about its quality, level of engagement, rigor, validity and coherence. Your past knowledge of the document counts as pre-reading. If you have read it before, the earlier  assertions about comprehensional progress realized by pre-reading are in play as we scrimmage with Thomas Jefferson.

Go ahead an read for a spell.

Start your stopwatches.

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States."

Okkay

That whole thing was about 400 words.

If you read it in 2 minutes, you're reading rate is 200 words a minute.

Some scholars suggest that for any sense of comprehension of those two paragraphs, you're reading rate should be about 20 words a minute which means it would take you around 20 minutes to read those two paragraphs if you were/are seeking enlightenment. 

A lot depends on time restrictions. If you were given one minute to read the whole thing you would have to scan at about 800 words a minute which is a pretty safe scanning rate.

If you were compelled to read the whole thing in  3 minutes, you'd be reading at approximately 133 words a minute.

Or maybe you scanned it in one minute and read the rest at 200 WPM.

If you have no imposed time limit and you read according to your curiosity and desire to discover/understand how long did it take you?

Once again, the ideal time for that kind of comprehension is  20 minutes which if you are as practiced a reader as a scholar probably also includes an efficient pre-read.

Now that you have pre-read it go back soon and read it again and take 20 minutes to do so. Maybe think about Ukraine when doing so. I guarantee you'll be a better reader and perhaps even a better person every time that you perform that exercise.

In summary, the more we read the more we learn to read, the more we elarn to read the more we examine our technique of reading and improve that technique, the more we improve that technique the more we add enlightenment to our enjoyment, the more we are enlightened through discovery the better democratic citizens we become. We become more independent thinkers.

I do declare