Speed Reading Essentials - The Four Typical Levels of Reading p1:
Light Reading.
Ordinary newspaper items and the simpler varieties of fiction are usually read at the rate of five or six words per second. This speed can be maintained for an hour or two, without strain. Suppose you spend two hours daily throughout the year on such light reading. Your annual coverage would then amount to 13,000,000 words more or less (5 words per second equals 18,000 words per hour or 1,080,000 per month of two hours daily reading). This Would Equal 130 Books of 100,000 Words Each.
Average Reading.
The longer newspaper articles on serious subjects and most ordinary news articles in business and trade papers in your own special fields can be read at four words a second, up to a total of two hours daily.
If you devote two hours daily to such reading matter, you can cover in a year between 10,000,000 and 10,500,000 words (4 words per second equal 14,400 per hour).
This Would Equal 100 Books of 105,000 Words Each.
Solid Reading.
Technical discussions of fairly difficult matters more or less unfamiliar to you will slow your speed down to 3 words per second. At this rate your annual coverage would run around 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 words, which would equal some 70 or 80 volumes of standard size.
Heavy Reading.
Technical dicussions of subjects almost wholly new to you and important enough to require thorough understanding of them must be studied, rather than read. Here you will be doing well if you average 6,000 words per hour. And it is unlikely that you will be able to devote two hours daily to such intensive perusal throughout the year. Suppose, however, that you do this. Then you ought to cover between 4,000,000 and 4,500,000 words annually; or the equivalent of 40 to 50 books of standard length.
Minutes
To light reading, including some news
paper skimming....................................... 15
To average reading..................................... 45
To solid reading____ ,................................. 30
To heavy reading (study)............................. 30
On this basis you would read, in the course of one year:
Of light reading............... 1,600,000 words, or 16 books of standard length.
Of average reading.......... 3,900,000 words, or 39 books of standard length.
Of solid reading.............. 2,000,000 words, or 20 books of standard length.
Of heavy reading............. 1,000,000 words, or 10 books of standard length.
On a gross average, this would mean that you would finish the equivalent of a book every four and one-half days, year in, year out! Perhaps you can find only one hour daily for reading.
Even so, see what you can accomplish! On this modest basis you can read: 8 books of the light type. 17 books of average difficulty. 10 books of solid reading. 5 books requiring close study. Or a total of 40 books a year.
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