Reading is a process of retrieving and comprehending some form of stored information or ideas. These ideas are usually some sort of representation of language, such as symbols to be examined by sight, or by touch (for example Braille). Other types of reading may not be text-based, such as music notation or pictograms. By analogy, in computer science, reading is acquiring of data from some sort of computer storage.

Although reading is now a primary means for most people to receive information this has been the case only for the last 150 years or so — with some exceptions, such as colonial America only a small percentage of the population in any country was literate before the industrial revolution.

Rates

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Rates of reading include reading for memorization (under 100 words per minute (wpm)), reading for learning (100–200 wpm), reading for comprehension (200–400 wpm), and skimming (400–700 wpm). Reading for comprehension is the essence of most people’s daily reading. Skimming is sometimes useful for processing larger quantities of text superficially at a much lower level of comprehension (below 50%).

Advice for the appropriate choice of reading rate includes reading flexibly, slowing down when the concepts are closer together or when the material is unfamiliar, and speeding up when the material is familiar and the material is not concept rich. Speed reading courses and books often encourage the reader to continually speed up; comprehension tests lead the reader to believe their comprehension is constantly improving. However, competence in reading involves the understanding that skimming is dangerous as a default habit.

Types and methods

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We can identify several types and methods of reading, with differing rates that can be attained for each, for different kinds of material and purposes:

Subvocalized reading combines sight reading with internal sounding of the words as if spoken. It can be a bad habit that slows reading and comprehension, if applied to all reading material, but it can also be essential for reading things like poetry or transcripts of oral speeches.

Speed reading is a collection of methods for increasing reading speed without an unacceptable reduction in comprehension or retention. closely connected to speed learning.

Proofreading is a kind of reading for the purpose of detecting typographical errors. One can learn to do it rapidly, and professional proofreaders typically acquire the ability to do so at high rates, faster for some kinds of material than for others, while they may largely suspend comprehension while doing so, except when needed to select among several possible words that a suspected typographic error allows.

Structure-Proposition-Evaluation (SPE) method, popularized by Mortimer Adler in How to Read a Book, mainly for non-fiction treatise, in which one reads a writing in three passes: (1) for the structure of the work, which might be represented by an outline; (2) for the logical propositions made, organized into chains of inference; and (3) for evaluation of the merits of the arguments and conclusions. This method involves suspended judgment of the work or its arguments until they are fully understood.

Survey-Question-Read-Recite-Review (SQ3R) method, often taught...