Really, really fast?

[bcholmes]

Is the speed at which you read a badge of honour? If so, why?

Comments

[australian-joe.livejournal.com]

I am a bit embarrassed to say that yes, it is. I am pleased when I find I read more quickly than friends, colleagues and even partners, and I cannot help a bit of competitive disappointment when I am the slower one.

I'm not quite sure why that is. I don't feel like I'm racing through my reading, and it *is* possible for me to increase my speed to the point where my enjoyment is reduced (and to increase it further such that my comprehension and retention is reduced), so I certainly understand that "enjoyable speed" is less than "maximum possible speed".

I wonder if this was an attitude I picked up early in school that never really went away - reading speed was explicitly encouraged and urged and valued in primary school.

I also expect I place higher value on the things I'm good at, so as to have more ways to feel more valued. Perhaps if I were especially good at cooking or crafting or running or dancing, they would likewise be a badge of honour for me. So maybe it's as simple as I'm good at it so I value it; I value it so I strive to be good at it.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

When I still read for pleasure*, I liked being able to read fast, becauuse it meant I could get through more books. So many books, such a short life! But "badge of honor"? Nope, I can't say I ever bragged about it or anything.

* The onset of bifocal-wearing has played hell with my reading-for-pleasure, because my focal plane is so shallow. These days I mostly listen to books on .mp3, which means I'm constrained to the pace of the reader. It's better than not reading at all ...

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

It was in University because it gave me a bit of a studying advantage. Since then, no.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Same here. It's a great skill when you're studying, but when I'm reading for pleasure, I have to force myself to slow down and enjoy it.

[rosefox]

Not directly, but being a reader is, and the speed at which I read is directly related to how much I enjoy reading and how often I do it.

I realized just the other day that one of the reasons I dislike television is that I get more words per minute reading than I do listening to someone speak, and that if it were the other way around, watching television news would suddenly make a lot more sense.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I read fast and at the same time I'm very aware that I don't get as much as alanbostick and other slower readers do out of the same text, so no, it no longer feels like a badge of honor to me.

I am, however, reading Decca, Jessica Mitford's letters, and am entranced by an encounter she had with a southern-U.S. country club couple in the early 1960s. They started by talking about her books. The husband, a slow reader, held out for Reader's Digest Condensed Books, while the wife was bragging about how fast and how much she read. When the talk turned to integration, and the husband gave a little rant about how integration leads to miscegenation and cross-breeding is just bad, citing race horses and cart horses, Mitford asked him how he felt about cross-breeding fast readers and slow readers.

"Apparently, the question had not occurred to him."

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

"Slower reader"?

When I was in sixth grade, they encouraged me to do a lot of speed-reading exercises, and those exercises took. I got to be capable of reading a lot faster than I had before, faster than essentially everyone else in school. I can still read quite fast when I want to; it's just that I miss things, and my reading comprehension suffers.

If I'm reading for pleasure, I don't see the point.

Re: Really, really fast?

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

"badge of honour" is not quite the right term, but i really like my reading speed because it means i can read more, more, more! and i am a little proud of it because, heck, i've worked for it. though i am not as proud of it as i am of things for which i've worked against major obstacles; it's been mostly a pleasure.

[silentq.livejournal.com]

It used to be, until I found out that my 4 years younger cousin was faster than I was. :)
Now, I tend to reserve being happy about the number of books that I finish, rather than how fast each one goes. I tend to allocate big chunks of time to reading, so I can get through a lot in one sitting. But if it's not light fiction, I have to force myself to slow down and enjoy it (I don't read a lot of poetry for this reason, it's work).
That said, it took me a while to figure out your post, I originally understood it as:
"Do you read badges of honour really really fast?"
and wondered why you were asking about how fast people read the inscriptions on medals. :)

[mathbabe.livejournal.com]

Yes, fast reader, and yes, proud of it.

I'm not terribly competitive, usually, but I am about this. I love to read, but anybody can do it, so I like that there's some way I can "beat" other people at the game. I wouldn't normally say that, but you *did* ask why!

My father brought home a speed-reading kit from work when I was about 9 or 10. He managed to improve his reading speed from 'dismal' to 'average', and was so proud of himself he gave me the pre-test. My rate was already above-average, after doing the test it was even higher, and my rate of comprehension increased. So, my Dad's praise of me then probably has a lot to do with my competitiveness in the area now.

[futabachan.livejournal.com]

No. It's a useful tool for snarfing in lots of information in a hurry, but I don't use the fact that I read faster than australian_joe quickly as a club to beat people over the head with. I'm not always able to turn the ability off, which causes trouble with certain fiction authors; I sometimes find that I've rushed past an important moment in the plot. It's a major help for staying on top of new technology, though.

[elissaann.livejournal.com]

Nope, but it was when I was younger, because I was more competitive then.

Now I enjoy reading slowly and taking in the details I used to miss.

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

Not any more than the speed at which one knits. Useful for being able to read a lot of books. Not so useful in having to carry a lot of books around to keep from going through them all. Kind of irrelevant now that I've mostly quit reading.

(For values of "quit reading" that look like lots of reading to other people, but which are noise levels compared to the amount of reading I used to do.)

[kat-chan.livejournal.com]

No badge of honour here. I'm slow as heck when I read.

[lakme.livejournal.com]

Nope. But me reading 7-10 books a week kind of is. Life without cable=that.

[cigfran-lwyd.livejournal.com]

i used to read more quickly than i do now, i think. these days, anything particularly "language heavy" tends to be read at just a bit above speaking speed.

what i have always *have* been pretty proud of, however, is the quality of my reading. i was one of those people who read college level while still in grade school.

but i also i read a lot less than i used to. i'm not at all proud of that.

[mdiumcoolgrrl.livejournal.com]

I used to read very quickly. At the ripe old age of 42, I find that um, my eyesight isn't what it used to be.

I suppose an impediment to reading quickly is that I stop to ask questions, even deconstruct the text, as I read. It's pleasurable, at least, if not quick.