Three Reasons Why Speed Reading Does Not Work.

The basic illusion of speed reading is difficult to pinpoint, but the delusion in the mind of the speed reader is clear. It goes like this:

Someday I will have the ability to read everything I want to read. I will be able to consume the world of knowledge. I will become like a god!

1. So, in a word, it is greed that deludes the speed reader.

But what about the falsity of speed reading itself? Mortimer J Adler expressed a horror of speed reading; he was a proponent of slow reading. Adler said one must read use their precious time in reading only great books, or at least very good books, at a clear table, with paper and pencil for notes, line by line, and with care. To this image of reading, we have little in the modern world to match.

2. Because behind speed reading really is the failure to apprehend the reality of the book.

Of course we can comprehend things - grasp words with our minds. But can be apprehend? Can we grasp meanings, significances, and purposes? Can we grasp the feeling hand behind the writing of the author, and connect in fellowship and unity of minds? Can we concord with the sphere of human possibility through reading? Not with speed reading we cannot!

Just a cursory look of the literature online on speed reading demonstrates not only that it is not just useless for really apprehending, really creatively grasping the essence of another mind, but also that it kind of seems to suck at comprehension as well.

3. Because speed reading hurrries you through, no matter how relaxed you are, you must have poorer comprehension, not richer, and less apprehension, not more.

That is not to say that scanning, previewing, and other methods of comprehension don't work. But mechanical helps to both apprehension and comprehension - speed reading, super reading and photo reading - would appear to be false.