I’m a slow reader. Always have been. When I read, I say every word aloud in my mind. I’ve been reading online that this “subvocalization” actually slows reading WAY down and doesn’t help with reading comprehension (once you know how to read). Is this true, and if so, how can I read without subvocalization? I’d like to become a better reader that can read books in weeks, not months. Thanks for any help!
Getting rid of subvocalization is a speed reading technique, not something to do if you just want to read faster but still enjoy what you’re reading. When I do this, it’s to just be able to scan the words on the page and just “understand” what I’m reading without thinking about it. You can train this by focusing on your breath rather than your thoughts, scanning steadily with your finger, and stopping every paragraph or so to summarize what you just read to test your comprehension. But this is only useful to me when I just want to get the information and am not looking to enjoy the writing whatsoever.
I find I read faster (while still being able to enjoy what I’m reading) by starting each book slowly, reading at least a good chunk of pages, 40-50, deliberately getting my inner monologue used to the sound of the author’s voice (their writing style), the setting and characters and other basic things about the story, while not getting too caught up on minute details. Once I have a feel for their writing style and get familiar with the characters, I naturally start to speed up until I don’t even think about whether I’m vocalizing in my head or not.