Practice makes perfect, the more you read the better you become at it. You’ll slowly but surely start reading faster, just find some books you enjoy and read them at your natural pace. That natural pace will get faster eventually as you read more, have fun and good luck!

What’s going on with this trend of internalised competitive comparison? Where has it come from?

Every few days it’s:

“ I’m not reading as many books as others”

“I’m not reading to target”

“I’m not reading quick enough”

“I’m not reading the right books”

“I’m not reading books that others deem intellectually challenging”

Where is this phenomenon coming from? What’s the cause of this obsession, comparison, competition?

It doesn’t seem healthy to me.

Graphic novels and Lotr are a good plan. Read what makes you happy. The happier it make you, the more you will read. The more you read, the more practice you will get. More practice will make you faster and better.

they could fully read a page and comprehend it in about a minute and some change, it took me 2 minutes and 25 seconds to read it.

This is dramatic, especially between friends, but it’s not really a crippling disability. Your reading speed is not something you need to feel self-conscious about.

Best way to get better at anything is to simply do it more. If you’re finding it really difficult to improve, it may be that you have some underlying issue (like dyslexia) impacting your ability to read, but there are strategies to get around that.

As for studying, I recommend preparing your own flashcards–that exercise itself builds some understanding because you have to break down the concepts–and use them to help with things that you need to memorize. I always found writing things out from textbooks way more productive than just reading and re-reading the same passages over and over again. There’s some learning science behind that, about how you’re forced to engage more of your attention and process the information more thoroughly when writing it out than by simply reading it.

Try reading aloud. You don’t need to speak in full volume while reading. Speak only loud enough to hear yourself. I did this when studying and it helped my reading speed and comprehension.

My advice is, instead of taking your time tao comprehend each word just flick your eyes through the whole page but still look at every word, your brain can still comprehend it and gradually you’ll be able to start reading faster and faster

There’s a technique called timed repeated reading that has proven quite helpful in fluency work. It doesn’t take a lot of time to do, and it may help you improve your reading speed. Here’s a breakdown of the procedure:

https://www.readingrockets.org/classroom/classroom-strategies/timed-repeated-readings

I wouldn’t worry too much about your reading speed if you’re just reading for enjoyment. One small suggestion, though - if you real on an e-reader, try a “dyslexic” font like OpenDyslexic. I’m not dyslexic, but even so, it feels easier and faster to read than the stock fonts.

My boyfriend isn’t in the same field as you but has the same issues with textbooks. For him it helped to read the information before classes or any meetings so he can read it at his own pace. He would then put sticky notes next to paragraphs that only had the most important information on them. When he was in class he would just refer to those sticky notes. He says he can now skim a little bit faster because he has an idea of what important information looks like. He doesn’t need to dissect every sentence. In terms of reading for fun it isn’t necessary to read super fast as long as you’re enjoying it. However, if it really does bother you, I found that listening to the audio book as I’m reading helped me read a bit faster.

You just need to read more. Practice problem. At a certain point, you’ll start to read blocks of words and phrases.

I had a similar problem until I learned about sub-vocalisation, or actually speaking the words in your head. It limits your reading speed to that of your speaking speed, which is no where near optimal. Try reading something but only concentrate on the shape of the word, not the sound; don’t say it in your head, just let the shapes of the words flow into your head. You’ll honestly surprise yourself.

Am I the only one here who thinks that not everyone will be capable of improving their reading speed?

I cannot for the life of me skim read, my brain just cannot take in the information this way, I have to properly read each word.

Op, I have a degree in Mech Eng, and I am a really slow reader. My uni recorded the lectures and I found watching them really helped, if your uni doesn’t do this maybe you could utilise a little camcorder to do it for personal use?

There’s a lot of good advice here, but I will add that some people are just slower readers, and that’s perfectly okay. I’m a fairly fast reader. My brother is a very slow reader. He still graduated college with an English degree and then went to law school. He reads all the time (more for work than pleasure now) and is a beautiful writer, but he’s still a slow reader. And that’s fine, he just has to plan for it.

I’ve always been a fast reader in English, which I attribute to my mom reading to me before I could speak and me picking up books the moment I could read. Though I slowed down after starting college (study time meant less brainpower for casual reading), I found that my reading speed went back to what I was used to the more I did it.

That said, I realized two things during college: 1. Reading textbooks and dense material IS slow. You’re trying to read, parse, and retain material – that’s just more to do than something meant for casual reading. And 2. Reading speed is all about practice and exposure. The more you read, the more your brain will get used to the exercise. The more you read textbooks (especially if they’re the same subject matter), the better you’ll get at parsing and retaining.

As one more anecdotal note, I’m currently learning Japanese and started reading native materials earlier this year. And it was a SLOG: I’d take 15 minutes to read one page… of a children’s book. Needless to say, that was demoralizing and painful. But now, almost a year later, I’m reading high school level material and playing games like Persona 5 with a decently comfortable speed (note: I’ve studied for a few years, so I’m not saying that’s a normal pace for new Japanese learners).

Same thing there: practice and exposure to the activity helped me get faster. That sucks because it takes time, but the good news is that you can and will improve. Just keep at it!

I don’t see a problem with reading slowly. I read quickly, but I’ll slow down a bit sometimes because every once in a while I forget important plot points that happened earlier in a book due to reading a little too fast and not being able to remember every single notable thing that happened in the last 50 or so pages that I read in under an hour, especially if it’s a book that’s extremely plot heavy.