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!
I subvocalise in the sense that I ‘act out’ the dialogue in my head with great deliberation. If I think I might make a line land better by putting the emphasis on a different syllable, I go back and ‘mentally pronounce’ that line again.
I’ve recently joined a book club, and I’ve become a little self-conscious about how much faster some of the other members read. I know there’s techniques out there to read faster, but honestly, I don’t think I need techniques; I’m pretty sure I could speed myself up any time I wanted by just not doing the dramatic pauses and re-takes and all the stopping to get the voice just right. But I don’t want to stop doing those things, because I feel like that’d take a lot of the fun out of reading.