Myth #3: Speed Reading Impairs Comprehension
This idea that speed reading impairs comprehension is a product of the myth that skimming is speed reading and not just pretend reading. People who skim have atrocious comprehension because their rate of recognition remains unchanged despite faster eye travel across the text. This is compounded by the fact that skimmers are distracted from understanding the text by the focus on reading speed and the method used to maintain reading speed. At first a skimmer misses random words and phrases, then as reading speed increases, random clauses and statements are lost. At the highest skimming speeds, only random words and phrases are retained.
The comprehension of skimmers is not so bad in well formatted text that judiciously uses font size, bold & italic typeface, and colours to emphasise key words, phrases, and headings in some semblance of a summary of the text's thesis. However, retention from plain text that is skimmed is entirely random. As you can imagine, this practice is highly detrimental to comprehension and is thus not true reading at all.
Speed reading is based on the instant recognition of blocks of text referred to as "fixations". For example, the progression from syllable by syllable "phonic" reading to word by word "sight reading" has a remarkable effect on reading speed and comprehension because entire words are recognised in context instead of having to be constructed. Real speed reading is known to improve comprehension because words and clauses that are instantly recognised can be seen in context - whereas words and clauses that must be constructed into a concept are not immediately visible in the context of their usage.
