Does Reading Speed Matter Overcoming shame as a slow reader

Hi everybody. Today want to talk about the topic of slow reading. And before do so, want to say that consider reading privilege. It's something that I'm grateful that have the time and capacity to do every single day. want to share about this topic of being slow reader because it's something that I've psychologically struggled with. And want to talk about the pros, the cons, and open conversation with you all in the comment section below. Find out how you feel about your reading speed, if you're slow reader, if you could relate to anything have to share. So, became aware that was slow reader at very young age. never had an issue with my reading comprehension. feel as though my reading has always matched my grade level pretty well. never felt like was behind in terms of that, but did become aware that read more slowly than other people in my grade. My earliest memories of this were in grade school at some point. just remember times when when the class was to read certain section silently and then afterwards we would talk about it as group. And there are couple memories feel like I've had along the way in which I'd be reading silently and wouldn't be thinking about anything else than what was reading and then would look up and notice everyone was looking at me because was the last one to finish reading. So that's how became aware that am slow reader. And think it also came into my awareness when started to enjoy books and realized it took while for me to read. But was always just more into the immersion of story. And so would get lost in the story. would feel like was almost in cinematic experience. I've talked about this before on my channel in in video called Do You Visualize What You Read? But when was in this experience, there were times when would try to speed up my reading. In fact, can say this has been true my whole life. There have been various periods where I've tried to actively read faster. And every single time I've tried to actively read faster, I've missed things in the story. And not only that, I've not been able to feel immersed. Now, for me, book immersion is very much like falling asleep and falling into dream. If you try to fall asleep and try to dream, that can work against the ability to actually do so. For me, it's it's process of letting go into the story or letting it unfold before me. But if I'm trying to actively engage in in pushing how that happens, it works against me. So, I've never been able to increase my reading speed. Another factor is sub vocalization. This is something I'm pretty certain do, which is to in your own mind think out every single word on the page. don't really understand the science behind people who are able to read without sub vocalization, but I've tried to do that and think sometimes can kind of manage to read without subocalizing, but again, feel like don't quite feel as immersed in the story and feel like miss bits of information. also find that I'm somebody who tends to backtrack, reread sentences. Even when I'm listening to an audio book, and I'm going to talk about formats here in minute. find sometimes if don't catch what I'm listening to, will often use the the back button, the 30-cond back button or 15-second back button to make sure heard what the what the narrator was saying. Now, know some people who read slowly and feel no shame about being slow reader. am envious of those people. My father is one of those people. He's read avidly his whole life, but he he reads slowly and he has no problem with that. But for me, it is something that I've always felt struggle with. It's something that I've always felt like want to fix about myself, or maybe that means my brain is slower, or maybe that means something's wrong with me, that can't train myself to read faster. think also added to this are all those videos that you see on YouTube in which people are talking about tips to read faster as though that's something you could do and then people talk about how they're able to do that and wonder what's wrong with me that I'm not able to increase my reading speed. don't feel like read faster when read easy text versus more dense text. could tell it flows easier. could tell that my brain feels more at ease reading something with more simple pros, but don't know that actually read all that faster when that's the case. Now, as booktuber, have felt some pressure and some shame about being slow reader. And knew that was going to be an issue before even started channel. knew that that read much more slowly than most people. And when started my channel, did feel the pressure. think the first time ever participated in reading sprint on somebody's channel, won't name names, but participated in reading sprint, which is when you're engaged with other booktubers and you set timer and everybody reads while on camera live, and then after certain period of time, everybody starts to talk again and say how much they read. Not everybody runs reading sprints that way, but the first time ever joined reading sprint, think even said at the beginning that didn't want to share how much I'd read. But then when the time came up, the person who was hosting asked each person, and every person said how much they read. And when they got around to me, felt like couldn't hold it back. Like couldn't not say. know that's silly. probably could have just not said, but did. And felt humiliated. felt embarrassed that hardly read any pages in half hour sprint versus other people who were reading twice or three times as much as did. So, it was very embarrassing for me and know nobody else probably knew was embarrassed in that reading sprint, but it's something that has been uncomfortable for me. It's also been little awkward when somebody invites me to buddy read and they don't realize that read I'm gonna read three times it's going to take me three times as long to to finish book than than it does for them. so don't know it's something that have noticed being self-conscious about here on book. And before you all tune out because this sounds like sob story promise have more happy things to talk about soon. But remember also when started my channel being around other people on book who were reading so quickly and getting through so many different epic fantasy series whereas was still stuck on just one and and remember feeling some FOMO about that and feeling like can never catch up and what's wrong with me again. and there were few ways got around that. So, want to now spin this to how this is actually not bad thing after all, or how I've been able to maybe see the more positive sides of being slow reader. So, what happened to me was when was in the midst of feeling down on myself about being slow reader, feeling unable to increase my reading speed, looking at my peers who were able to read so much more than was able to. What did was sat down and had heart-to-he heart with myself. asked myself, Joanna, why do you read? And realized read because love stories and love feeling immersed in world and love engaging with characters and themes and all the things you hear me talk about here on the channel. And realized that that's what's most important and that's also the bridge between all of us in this community. Whether we're slow readers, whether we're fast readers, we all love stories and we all have reason why. And maybe the why can present itself in myriad of ways, but we all have that passion, that shared passion. And guess what that led to? It led to the birth of the Yread series, the Yread discussion series. Because thought if if can't bring to the table person who is going to be reading tons and tons of books per year, 100 books per year, or whatever the number is, the average number is for booktuber. If can't do that and can't talk about or can't keep up with all the series that my friends are reading, can can connect with others and ask them why they read. That can help me discover why somebody chooses to pick up book, why it's important to them in meaningful way rather than it being about the numbers because do think you know we're in world of numbers. I'm not even going to blame book book for that. think we're just in world that loves to talk about numbers and to assess everything according to numeric value. So, really loved the idea of of being able to connect with others and find out why reading is meaningful to them. The other part of this is to embrace slow reading. And this has been not easy all the time. Still, it's still not always easy, but but have found ways to appreciate slow reading at times. And so one of those things that have tried to actively do here on the channel is that I've tried to make my reading as meaningful as possible. How do do that? of course choose books very carefully according to what know resonates with me as reader. And keep reading journal. You could check out the reading journal video. I'm always talking about if you're interested in finding out how go about this. have found that the reading journal exploration has helped me to reflect more deeply on my reading every day. And it's helped me to feel like could bring more to the table when talk about books, when have book discussions with friends or talk about books on my channel. I'm excited to talk about these things because do spend lot of time deeply engaging with what read. also do my best on my channel to avoid apology statements and say things like, only read two books this month, guys." You know, didn't read that much this year. Or statements like that. do my best to avoid those kind of statements. know they're very tempting. hear my friends make them all the time. But what if we didn't make them? What if we didn't say, only read," or say, "I'm sorry, didn't read that much." What if we stopped doing that and just embraced what we read? Isn't that the most important thing? My friends who read quickly are always saying that they don't see it as problem that read slowly, that there's nothing wrong with reading slow or fast. hear people say that all the time, but if that's true, why do we make those statements? Why do we say only read or making excuses about reading slumps? mean, reading slumps do happen. I'm in one right now. But don't think that that has to be the important thing. feel like it's more important what we read, that we're engaging with it, and that we're talking about how we engaged with it in meaningful way. mean, that's that's what's important to me anyway. So, so that's what try to aim for. Now, there is something else that I've done in the past to embrace slow reading. And honestly, want to make an intention of doing this again or allotting time to do this again. And that is reading out loud. used to set timer for 5 to 10 minutes, sometimes 15 minutes, and would read whatever book was reading. would read it out loud. And did this for different reason than slow reading. did this because wanted to work on my vocal fluency because tend to be someone who uses lot of filler words and ums and also stutter quite bit. So, wanted to get more more fluent in my in my language in my in my ability to speak and better with my vocabulary. And have heard before that reading aloud can help with that skill. But found that there was an added benefit in that if you read aloud, you can find yourself engaging in more slow and and mindful manner with your story. So it it can be good way to embrace slow reading. And it might be something turn towards again because found enjoyed that exploration. felt like was engaging with the story in different way by reading aloud. Now I'm going to transition to talk about different formats. have personally found immersive reading very helpful. know not everyone does, but there are times with certain books and certain narrators when listening with my ears to the audiobook and reading with my eyes at the same time can be very helpful. It doesn't work for me with every book, but it does help with some books. And it helps specifically because tend to be somebody who backtracks lot. don't know what the right word for that is. Retractive reading, think. And that obviously slows me down. And find that if I'm listening to the audiobook and reading with my eyes, it helps me to focus quite bit more. know many people find that allows them to read faster. It might help me to read little bit faster, though don't usually put the audiobook at super high speeds. find that it helps me to continue with the forward momentum as I'm reading through the story. find audiobooks alone can be helpful, but again, that depends on the narrator and the genre. So many different factors. and and love ebooks. know lot of people are not happy with Amazon lately and so feel some trepidation talking about this topic, but have found that reading large books specifically on my Kindle has been gamecher for me as somebody who psychologically struggles with the fact that she's slow reader. Now, maybe the better option would be for me to get over the psychological issue of being slow reader, but found that if I'm reading large book, sometimes psychologically get bogged down if notice that there are so many more pages ahead of me, like there's brick width of pages ahead of me, and that I've barely made dent after an hour of reading this large tome. But find if I'm using my Kindle, if I'm using my e-reader, and can turn off that function that shows the percentage or the page number, could just make that disappear. And then, of course, with an e-reader, you don't see page numbers. You don't see how far you've gone or how far you have left to go. find can just focus on the story. And it's so liberating for me. Yes, do check in with those things sometimes after reading session, but it doesn't bog me down the same way that seeing the visual representation of those pages does. So, personally love that feature with the Kindle e-reader. don't know if other e-readers have that function. If you have different kind of e-reader, let me know in the comment section below. Lastly, want to say that know that there is continuing conversation and maybe continuing research about the benefits of slow reading. So, want to point you to video that Murphy Napier did. She did this think couple of years ago now and it was about slow reading and she talked about some of the research that supports the idea that slow reading helps you to retain information that it can be great tool for reading comprehension. So highly recommend checking that video out. wish could close this video out by saying I'm proud to be slow reader. And while part of me has learned to embrace that little bit more than used to be able to embrace it, part of me still sometimes wishes could read bit faster. But that said, think that again why read is so much more important than how much than the numeric value. never set good readads goal by the way. just try to read what want to read. do make certain list sometimes as far as the books want to read in year and I'm happy if could check some of those off, but really it's more about enjoying the experience, connecting to the experience of reading and getting to talk about the reading experience with all of you. So, that's all have. hope that you can embrace slow reading as much as possible if you're like me. And hope to have another discussion soon when it comes to this topic. So, please let me know in the comment section below your thoughts on it. Are you fast reader? Are you slow reader? Are you satisfied with your reading pace? Do you wish you could read more slowly? If so, highly recommend that reading aloud technique. And if you're somebody who wishes you could read more quickly, let me know. Thank you so much for watching and have great rest of your day. Bye-bye.