Speed reading/photographic memory and comprehension/digestion/poetry...

[Nan in Mass]

Warning - this is a worried muddle. I'm not even sure how to explain what is worrying me...

My son is fascinated by this ability and is trying to develop it. I am a bit worried and need to know if I am just being silly or not. If you have a photographic memory and read by looking at the whole page and absorbing it at once (and I suspect many of you can), would you please reassure me about this? Both for me and for my son? If he figures out how to do this, I will probably work on it as well. I myself need to develop a better visual memory because I want to be an artist next and my memory for anything but tunes is miserable. I can't emphasize enough how bad it is. I don't think my son's is much better. He would like to be able to look at a page and then reread it in his mind's eye later, preferably years later. He is hoping that this will make school easier, among other things. I can't do this, so I don't know how it works and I wonder if like many gifts, aquiring this one comes with a price.

I can speed read when I want to, sort of. I do it by running my eye down the page quickly and sort of not thinking and I wind up with the general gist. I mostly do it to locate information. Then I read it slowly several times to really understand it, if it is complex or contains unfamiliar vocabulary. If I want to memorize it, I have to rewrite it or draw it or make a mental picture, and then review it a LOT. Even speedreading, I'm not reading all that fast, not at a read-as-fast-as-you-can-turn-pages sort of rate. I didn't used to be able to do this. I used to be stuck reading by hearing the words in my head. I learned to do it when I had small, impatient children who didn't like me reading to myself. (They love me to read aloud to them.)

When I want to enjoy the way something is written, I have to read word by word. If I'm not careful, I wind up slipping into reading faster and miss the beautiful wording. It was a nuisance, especially for school, when I was only able to read slowly, but at least I didn't miss the way things were written.

When I want to escape into a book, escape far enough that I am all the way in the book and the real world doesn't exist anymore, I try to read more slowly. I find speedreading (my way at least) is not helpful for that, either. The books get over too fast (shortening my vacation) and I feel like I miss out on enjoying some of the details. I think I probably read them and they add to the movie-like thing I am in, but I don't notice the details as much, somehow.

Having found the skimming sort of speedreading unhelpful in some situations and something I have to guard against doing sometimes, which I find a bother, makes me worry a bit about my son's determination to alter the way he reads.

Is this something you can develop? Or do you have to be born this way?

Will he be stuck that way if he learns to do it? Or will it be hard to switch?

Can you still enjoy the writing? What happens to poetry?

What happens when you are reading difficult material? You still have to digest the material, don't you? Otherwise, it would be like taking an open-book test. Or wouldn't it be?

Can you still escape completely into books?

What are the disadvantages?

-Nan

[KarenAnne]

I don't know whether this will be helpful or not, but my daughter has the auditory equivalent of a photographic memory. When she had neuropsych testing at age eleven, she remembered 81 out of 82 separate elements in a narrative the psychologist read; the tester almost fell off the chair. She had never seen this degree of auditory memory in anyone she'd tested.

From my observation, this is completely inborn; my daughter simply came wired like this. She simply can remember anything she's heard, can recite entire pages from an eleven-hour audiobook, memorize song lyrics after a single hearing, remember conversations I had with her when she was three.

On the other hand, I think you can improve upon just about any kind of short and long term memory, whether auditory, visual, tactile, etc. through practice. I think people who are really motivated can improve quite a lot. It seems to me that it would be hard to achieve that level you are talking about without it being inborn to some extent or other. Genetics and practice/hard work go together.

Having an auditory memory like this has not made my daughter any less willing or able to linger over repeated listenings. She told me just yesterday about how when she really loves how something sounds she wants to slow it down, and will go back over and over that part, just enjoying it. There are parts she listens to so repeatedly she gets the syntax and rhythm locked into her brain. Others she may remember perfectly well but not feel any particular need to recapitulate or study in detail. So I don't think this type of ability necessarily compromises or reduces any other kind of use of that same system.

Has this made any sense at all??? I do not have these abilities -- I'm more the kind of person who goes stumbling around running into things because I'm not looking, or who doesn't recognize someone I know out of context, or can read half of a book I only then realize I've read a year or two ago. I just don't give it the concentrated attention my daughter does, nor do I have the inbuilt wiring. So I only know what I've observed in her.

[The Dragon Academy]

I think my DS does this. He will read a book super fast and I'll think "there is no way he understood what he read." However, he can regurgitate what is on each page verbatim. It is very annoying.

He has always read that way. We didn't teach him and he didn't develop it as a skill. They (the docs, psychologists, etc) tell us DS is wired this way.

When he went for his hunter safety class the instructor gave the class a booklet to read and gave them 30mins to do it. After five minutes DS put it away and was goofing off. The instructor thought he would make an example of DS and decided to give DS the test early. Not only did DS score 100% but he quoted the booklet word for word.

One time DS was telling me about a book that we had read together. I made a comment about something and DS told me what page and which paragraph to look on for the 'correct' information.

What's the trade off? DS cannot give a synopsis on anything. There are no condensed versions for DS. If you ask him a question be prepared for a dissertation. He can remember all of the arguments leading up to the main point and believes each of them is important and needs to be included.

DS does enjoy writing. He often tells me he is sad when a good story ends and wishes it could have continued for another hundred pages (like The Count of Monte Cristo; thank goodness there is a third book in that series). Yes, DS escapes into books; gets quite lost in them, actually.

Difficult material? So far DS can read anything from Boy Scout manuals, 4H manuals, history texts & documents (he just finished the Declaration of Independence), classical literature, etc. and is doing fine.

Poetry...well, we are just starting that (using MCTLA) and he gets it but rips through it like the wind. I have him read it to me and force him to slow down and enjoy the poem. What he could do is rewrite a poem, word for word, after reading it but the beauty is lost.

Is my rambling answering any of your questions?

--
Oh yeah...if he is ever in a situation where he hears or reads contradictary views on a topic, woowee, get out of the room quickly. He will quote the author, the book, the page...I experienced that this week with Apologia Phys. Science and info he has learned previously.

What I find difficult in all of this is teaching DS self-control and in differentiating when it is appropriate to say something and when being quiet is best. (But I have that problem myself so....)

[sccalla]

I have a resource to offer. I know many people who have used Paul R. Scheele's PhotoReading, a book that teaches you how to read books by absorbing whole pages at a time. I found a used copy on Amazon.com for a reasonable price. His company's website is www.LearningStrategies.com. They offer more complete courses in photoreading including workshops.

[Nan in Mass]

Thanks guys! This is all helpful. My son is spending hours investigating this. I guess I needn't worry about his research skills GRIN. I think he's probably increased his reading speed sifting through the info, too. But seriously, thank you for the info. I'm still trying to decide whether to be worried or happy about this... We had a conversation yesterday about what exactly it is that he is trying to do, since this has changed a bit as he has learned about it, and how the study skills I am teaching him relate to what he is doing, and how he still will need to learn my study skills, even if he learns to do this. Thanks to the info you gave me, I know he will still need to do this. I'm still not sure any of it will help me paint. I think I just have to do what the painting books recommend and keep trying to draw something I've looked at for a short while until I finally convince my brain that it really does need to remember what I see in detail. I already can read as fast as I would like to.

If anyone else would like to chime in, I would welcome more info as well...

-nan

[Donna]

My dd has the auditory equivalent of this as well. Anything she hears, she remembers. It has helped her tremendously with her music studies. I suspect she may have a photographic memory due to her spelling ability, very early ability to remember directions to different places even those only travelled to once, and some other things she has done over the years. She does not speed read...at least not yet so I don't think I can answer your other questions.

I do know that even with the auditory memory she still loves to hear things repeatedly especially music she loves and will listen over and over picking up different things each time. She may get the notes initially but with repeated listening will pick up the bowings, dynamics, phrasings, etc...

[bairnmama]

I don't know if this helps... but here's my experience.

I used to do this in hs and a bit in college. I wouldn't really "study" for a test, just look at the pages for a while. Then when I was taking the test I would mentally scan the page in my head, find the answer, and write it down. The problem I discovered is that I quickly forgot the previous information when I needed to "study" for another test. Consequently I made straight A's, but didn't really learn anything that lasted. That really hurt me during my last years in college when I needed to pull together all that I had supposedly learned in previous classes. I found that it was better for me to actually take the time to read and digest the information, to really get it to be a part of me, rather than just have the image of it in my head. Does that make sense?

Certainly others can probably internalize and remember things long term by just looking at the page, but I couldn't. HTH

[Nan in Mass]

Total sense. That is one of the things I wondered about. I could see that happening. It would work great for painting a picture (me) but not very well for getting an engineering degree. It would be handy afterwards, when one was working as an engineer. I don't necessarily want to discourage him from trying to do this. At this point, I'm mostly trying to figure out if I still need to insist of studying my way or whether that is a stupid doubling-up, whether it will hamper his ability to escape into the book world, and whether it can be of use to me as an artist. Your post was very helpful. Were you born that way, do you think, or was it something that you figured out? Do you think it is something that other people can learn, given enough practice? Can you still do it? Is it useful to you as an adult? Do you do it when you read for pleasure?

I was very good at figuring out what the teachers would ask on a test, stuffing that into short term memory (not visually or aurally but some other way that I can't describe) and spitting it back out for the test. Within a day or two, it was all gone. I feel like most of my education was totally useless. I would have had real problems if my major had required me to remember and pull together anything. Fortunately, it didn't. Sigh.

-Nan

[cjbeach]

I'm so intrigued by this thread. I hope others chime in.

My ds9 is an Aspie and seems to have a bit of a photographic memory. However there is no comprehension unless I go back and analyze what he read/memorized with him. The readings seem to be just a picture of words in his brain until we analyze it. However, by diagnosis he is hyperlexic (precocious ability to read) so for him it's "all about" the words, minus the comprehension. For example, in second grade he was in a private MOntessori and had a book report to write. The report he wanted to write was the whole story. Literally. He had memorized the whole story and started to write the whole story as his book report, verbatim. :confused:

Looking forward to reading others' experiences.

[KristenS]

I don't have a photographic memory by any stretch of the imagination, but I do have a good visual memory. I read very fast ... I'm a natural speed-reader, I guess. It's not skimming for me ... I can do that too ... but my natural reading speed is just plain fast. I don't necessarily recite it all verbatim after one reading, though.

It has not hampered my comprehension ability. (Well, except in Spanish class once, where I read too fast on a passage and missed a critical 'no' that changed the entire meaning ... but that came out funny...) My husband, who is also an avid reader but goes much slower, gets annoyed because I can read super-fast and recall all the details, while he concentrates on each page and has less recall of detail (though very good comprehension). It blows all his theories of speed-readers cutting corners. LOL.

I had a similar moment to the story someone posted above ... our college Honors forum class had a guest speaker who brought an article for us to read before she spoke. Since it was presumably a limited amount of time, I did what I usually would in that situation ... I skimmed to get the gist of it, then went back and read it 'slowly' ... and then since there was still time, I re-read it. When I looked up, the speaker gave me a look that clearly was asking if I'd really read it, and I don't think she believed me when I nodded. But I had. Twice. Plus a skim.

I do have a pretty clear recall of 'where' in a book I can find a quote ... I can get a feel for if it was, say, on the top left of a page spread, or in the middle right, or whatever. So reading different printings of a book actually throws me off because the words are in the wrong places! And I learn best when I can see things written or drawn out. But I do not have a photographic memory. It's kind of weird.

(I'm also a re-reader ... all the natural speed readers I know are as well ... if it's good, then we read it again ... we just do it a little faster. It doesn't have to get in the way of the enjoyment of a well-worded passage or anything. And I do feel like I'm in the world of the book when it's a story ... I hear the voices, etc. I would say I actually do hear each word in my head, but mathematically that doesn't seem quite possible. And it can be kind of annoying because I 'absorb' print like a sponge whether I want to or not ... a glance at a newspaper or a cereal box or whatever, and I've already read half of it. Sigh.)

[bairnmama]

Total sense. That is one of the things I wondered about. I could see that happening. It would work great for painting a picture (me) but not very well for getting an engineering degree. It would be handy afterwards, when one was working as an engineer. I don't necessarily want to discourage him from trying to do this. At this point, I'm mostly trying to figure out if I still need to insist of studying my way or whether that is a stupid doubling-up, whether it will hamper his ability to escape into the book world, and whether it can be of use to me as an artist. Your post was very helpful. Were you born that way, do you think, or was it something that you figured out? Do you think it is something that other people can learn, given enough practice? Can you still do it? Is it useful to you as an adult? Do you do it when you read for pleasure?

-Nan

I don't remember "learning" to do it, but I do remember when I discovered I could. I had forgotten to take a book home to study for a certain test in Jr High and only had enough time to quickly look at the pages that were covered. During the test, I closed my eyes to concentrate and found that I could "see" the pages in my head and quickly read to where the answers were. In my adult life, I don't really have much use for it since I have no deadlines or tests... so I've gotten VERY rusty. I do, however, find it useful to remember, like another poster said, where in a book a certain passage is located, especially in my Bible study. When I read for pleasure, I read every.single.word. But I also "see" it unfold very graphically in my mind so that I have a very hard time distinguishing between books that I have read and movies that I have seen. I see it so vividly that I often tell friends that a book had been made into a movie when it hasn't, lol. But I very seldom reread books that I have enjoyed. I remember too much, too well to be able to enjoy it. I've tried many times with different books and different authors, but I still remember what each character is going to say next and other specifics that I often get so ahead in my mind I confuse myself on what I am currently reading.

My dd seems to have a similar ability to remember, in order, books she has heard on CD. Like cjbeach's ds, she begins to tell me, verbatim, whole chapters of the book when I ask her what it was about or to give me a summary. She is still struggling to read print, but her auditory memory is astounding.