Speed Reading Luminaries

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Speed reading devices like reading pacer trainers can enhance reading speed by scrolling text quickly past a window. Research indicates that English readers typically read around 250 words per minute, dropping to 184 when reading aloud. Speed reading techniques involve quick scanning, note-making, and subsequent longer scans. Speed reading pioneer Evelyn Wood was reported to read at an astonishing speed of 2,500 words per minute, while JFK allegedly read at 1,200 words per minute. The world's fastest reader, Howard Steven Berg, holds a Guinness World Record by reading 25,000 words per minute using finger-guided rapid scanning. Berg's reading prowess was demonstrated by effortlessly going through half a law textbook in a remarkably quick time. He authored a book titled 'Super Reading Secrets,' which he could read in less than five minutes due to his extraordinary reading speed.

Clay tablets! Printing presses! Old timey audio books! Speed reading strategies! Attention spans! Dyslexia history! Literacy campaigns! Dr. Adrian Johns is an historian, professor, and author of the book “The Science of Reading” and we have a nice mellow chat about when humans started to “read,” what that means, being Hooked on Phonics, Dick, Jane, character languages, audiobooks, e-readers, school segregation, literacy rates, and how long we can focus at a time. He literally wrote the book on it.

Visit Dr. Adrian Johns’ faculty bio at University of Chicago

Shop Dr. Johns’ books including The Science of Reading: Information, Media, and Mind in Modern America (2023) and The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (1998)

A donation went to 826LA.org and Glioblastoma Research Organization