...

 BK>>  We had a teacher who went into a lot of speed reading
 BK>>  techniques.

 MM> I hope that teacher was well-rewarded and ended up training
 MM> new teachers to carry the lamp a little further !

 That was ...ummm... 47 years ago. Dang!

 BK>>  Now I see people typing faster than a lot of people
 BK>>  can read. Thanks to computers. Ok, faster than some
 BK>>  can read. I  have been told some type well over 150WPM.
 BK>>  I recall when 60WPM was fast.

 MM> On a mechanical typewriter...?

 Which? 60WPM on an electric. 150 on a computer. I have a
 mechanical typwriter out in my garage. Nope, come to think about
 it, it's an electric. Haven't used it in years and years.

 MM> Average adults all over seem to manage reading 240 words per
 MM> minute, with a range of 80ish to 500ish.

 Yeah, average. Some are much less.

 MM> One thing that slows anybody down is watching the words
 MM> being typed - you lose the peek-ahead of peripheral vision
 MM> provided by jumpy eyes and a predictive brain.  A good demo

 Oh, yeah. That's why I dropped out of chat rooms decades ago
 when I was on AOL.

 ...

 MM> Reading text being typed is a little easier,  but the slow
 MM> completion of the current word and arrival of the next word
 MM> continually frustrates the head.

 I type my msg, than do something else while waiting for the
 reply.

 ...

 MM> I just got to review a reading kit produced in the 1975's
 MM> that featured a plastic tachistoscope called the
 MM> "Eye-speed" that exposes one or more words at 1/25 of a
 MM> second or faster in order to train eye-and-brain to speed
 MM> up recognition.

 I remember those things. Never used one though.

 MM> Despite claims to the contary, this is far from a normal
 MM> reading environment and critics allege that any gains
 MM> recorded are only temporary...   google `Renshaw' to gain
 MM> the history of this approach.

 I remember that name also. Can't remember much about him.
 Heinlein mentioned him in one of his novels.

 MM> What a wonderfully murky mystery reading is - taken by
 MM> adults for granted,  instilled by any approach favoured by
 MM> the minder and subject to major improvement with very
 MM> little effort.

 And a great way to travel the universe.

BOB KLAHN bob.klahn{at}sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

... BASIC programmers never die, they GOSUB and don't RETURN.
 * Silver Xpress V4.5/P [Reg]
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5a