How do we read ?

How do we read ? What happens when we read ? It has been known for over 100 years that when we read, our eyes don’t move smoothly across the page, but rather make discrete jumps from word to word. We fixate on a word for a period of time, roughly 200-250ms, then make a ballistic movement to another word. These movements are called saccades and usually take 20-35ms. Most saccades are forward movements from 7 to 9 letters,* but 10-15% of all saccades are regressive or backwards movements. Most readers are completely unaware of the frequency of regressive saccades while reading. The location of the fixation is not random. Fixations never occur between words, and usually occur just to the left of the middle of a word. Not all words are fixated; short words and particularly function words are frequently skipped. Figures below show the fixation points of a typical reader From : The Science of Word Recognition or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bouma   Kevin LarsonAdvanced Reading Technology, Microsoft CorporationJuly 2004 http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ctfonts/WordRecognition.aspx Diagram 1 – from Internet Images Diagram 2 – From Tony Buzan : Speed Reading Diagram 3 – Nila Banton Smith – Read Faster. Key to the diagram : R 1- R8 = Eight different readers tested. R8 made 16 pauses to read the sentence whereas R1 made only 3. From the above diagrams you can see that : You can dramatically increase your reading speed. Having less fixations (taking in groups of words) Making fixations faster And by staying on the page (don't allow your eyes to wander off) only going forwards (don't back skip, even if you thought you missed something) Excerpt from: “Quantum Speed Reading Workbook” – click here to Order the book