When I was talking to the class about the habit of sub-vocalisation, I explained that it stems from our being taught to read out aloud. We were programmed to believe that in order to read we have to speak.  As children that is what we did for a year or so, but the rules had been set – rules that we are still using many years later. 

Anyway, our deaf and dumb friend increased his reading speeds to over 2000 words a minute during the rest of the course, and with 100% on every test we did. I was longing for him to make just one mistake, but to avail!  Quite incredible.

So what does this tell us about the way we read? First, let’s accept that we can’t do anything about the way children are taught to read – that’s up to others. But we have to challenge the belief that we have to hear every word in the head to be sure we understand it. In fact the brain is capable of making visual comprehension from what the eyes see – this happens all the time when we are not reading but looking. For example, if you were to look out of the window right now and saw there was a lot of traffic passing by, I doubt you would say to yourself  “Gee  – what a lot of traffic today!” Or, you are thirsty. You reach for a glass of water. Your eyes see the glass of water, you lift it up and you drink from it. But when you focus on the glass, do you have to say to yourself “Glass of water” before deciding to drink from it. You see the glass and understand immediately. No mental sound, no inner voice, just instant action.

The impact of total sub-vocalisation is that it slows reading speeds down to speaking speeds. The brain can think much faster than the speed of speech.  For example, an idea can come into your head in an instant, but it might take you 5 minutes to explain it to another.  When we read at the speed of speech, we can quickly lose concentration. If that happens, our comprehension suffers and we make a regression – have to go back over the text.  Time is lost needlessly. Reading becomes a chore.

So what to do about sub-vocalisation?

More on “A Day in the life of a Speed Reading trainer – sub-vocalisation, part 3”

I was living in the Oxford area at the time, and approached the authorities in the University to make our Speed Reading course available to the undergraduates there.  Students the world over have huge amounts to read and are in the main untrained to deal with the massive work-load.

So the day of the first course arrived, and as I was setting up the room the first student arrived – about half an hour early. I was rather taken aback when he proceeded to seat himself about hall a meter away from me.  I greeted him but got no response, which I thought odd – perhaps he is hung over.  Maybe it was because he wasn’t looking at me when I said “Good morning”. He then took out a note-book and wrote something in it. He then tore out the page and handed it to me. The note read: “What time does it start?  I am deaf and dumb by the way. ”

Things now became clearer. Obviously he wanted to sit near the front so as to lip- read and hand me any written questions he might have.

So I started the class half an hour later. I noticed immediately that his reading speed from the first tests we did to establish benchmarks was about 4 times greater than anyone in the room.  Not only that, he got every question right after having read the texts – he couldn’t have been cheating as he was sitting in front of me. Needless to say this was a revelation to me, and I wondered how on earth could someone with such an affliction achieve such results.

The answer came later when I talked about sub-vocalisation – the need to hear the words in the head.  For most people, this habit limits their reading speeds to little more than their speaking speeds.  For our deaf and dumb friend, this of course had never been a problem. He taught himself to read by looking at the words to understand them, without having to sub-vocalise anything. He was reading close to the speed of thought than the speed of speech.  He was reading without inhibition.

More on “A Day in the life of a Speed Reading trainer – sub-vocalisation, part 2”