I now understand my reading issues better. It weren’t just lack of speed and imagination as I thought. There was a whole bunch of factors creating a stable equilibrium.
And probably it indeed was “from childhood”. Concretely, from how I was taught reading at school. At the beginning of school, I already was able to read, but I read slow.
And I was checked on “technique of reading” (“техника чтения”), actually speed of reading. I needed to read out loud (so I couldn’t avoid full-blown vocalization, without even sub) and with expression (so, just make up intonations which aren’t exactly specified by text) and do it maximally fast (so I couldn’t stop to think, check quality of comprehension, not just remembering, or use imagination or...).
And also I was taught on texts which weren’t interesting to me, even the slightest bit. I can remember exactly one example of story which I liked reading in school, and it was already not in elementary school.
And then it all became an undividable habit, including hate.
That was the puzzling thing. I was reading not slower than peers, expressively, with good remembering and good comprehension (checked: I was able to rearrange words in the sentence and make replacement to synonyms very well!).
When I found fan fiction (which allowed me to switch between universes without diving into something totally unknown, and also made dropping books not just permitted in difference with how I was taught to read, but necessary), I even started to like what I read. But I still hated the process.
So advices I saw about “How to Learn to Stop Fearing and Love the Reading” were totally useless. Start to read what you like—I did. Avoid dense text, read in comfortable environment—just misses the mark. Read summaries, highlight key ideas to have better comprehension—I already have! Increase vocabulary—holy Cthulhu, I already have 99.9% if for my age and more than 65y PhDs if in absolute numbers, where more?? Start in short pieces and gradually increase—I already was able to read 16 hours at a day, 8 hours per day on average, my reading already is automatic, I can think about something while my brain will still continue to read. Join a reading club to make it social and fun—are you serious, social and fun? Experiment, personalise, track progress—done, didn’t help. Even the most promising thing “not treat it like a chore” wasn’t actually insightful, I was watching videos as a chore and didn’t have problems like I have with reading.
After seeing such advices, I dismissed the idea of getting help from something like that. As I now see, the most puzzling thing was that I was a smart A-grader etc, though I still hated reading, I shouldn’t ignore that context. But actually that was because stories lied me, when I have gone to school, I understood that in reality it’s not at all like in books, totally not. So I just put this connection “smart A-graders do like reading” into the same bucket of stereotypic blatant lies as “boys pull girls’ pigtails” (I still puzzled why someone will do that, or is actually someone doing that, I have never seen it) or “smart A-graders do like chess” (which similarly to reading actually has its own big story of wrong mental habits causing lack of liking).
As I now see it, a habit of reading maximally fast made me unable to learn any other way of reading, any new method would be less effective in the beginning. And from reading out loud with expression and listening to audiobooks (which weren’t read with just expression, but with soundtrack) I learned to read only sequentially, with never skipping, rereading or stopping to use imagination, and to get a joy from audio (so I couldn’t dismiss it).
And partially it was indeed a problem with reading as a chore, or more properly, as a work, because when I was watching videos as a chore, I wasn’t trying to understand and remember each word, I wasn’t trying to do it perfectly. What I needed as advice was “try to read the same way you’re watching videos”, which actually aims into trying to understand the meaning of the whole content block, but needs to be said with a link to direct experience to avoid misunderstanding.
And partially it indeed was the problem of reading speed. Now, comparing these two experiences I can notice that in the background I all this time felt like in cage, or maybe like being put into rails, while reading with subvoc. I was able to process text my faster than the speed of speech, 4 times at least, maybe? It’s hard to tell exactly just by intuition, because the absence of speech affects the sense of time. And I can’t just take a reading speed test, because I can’t yet switch off subvocalization reliably. And also there are issues with how my eyes are moving, which width the text is text etc.
I now understand my reading issues better. It weren’t just lack of speed and imagination as I thought. There was a whole bunch of factors creating a stable equilibrium.
And probably it indeed was “from childhood”. Concretely, from how I was taught reading at school. At the beginning of school, I already was able to read, but I read slow.
And I was checked on “technique of reading” (“техника чтения”), actually speed of reading. I needed to read out loud (so I couldn’t avoid full-blown vocalization, without even sub) and with expression (so, just make up intonations which aren’t exactly specified by text) and do it maximally fast (so I couldn’t stop to think, check quality of comprehension, not just remembering, or use imagination or...).
And also I was taught on texts which weren’t interesting to me, even the slightest bit. I can remember exactly one example of story which I liked reading in school, and it was already not in elementary school.
And then it all became an undividable habit, including hate.
That was the puzzling thing. I was reading not slower than peers, expressively, with good remembering and good comprehension (checked: I was able to rearrange words in the sentence and make replacement to synonyms very well!).
When I found fan fiction (which allowed me to switch between universes without diving into something totally unknown, and also made dropping books not just permitted in difference with how I was taught to read, but necessary), I even started to like what I read. But I still hated the process.
So advices I saw about “How to Learn to Stop Fearing and Love the Reading” were totally useless. Start to read what you like—I did. Avoid dense text, read in comfortable environment—just misses the mark. Read summaries, highlight key ideas to have better comprehension—I already have! Increase vocabulary—holy Cthulhu, I already have 99.9% if for my age and more than 65y PhDs if in absolute numbers, where more?? Start in short pieces and gradually increase—I already was able to read 16 hours at a day, 8 hours per day on average, my reading already is automatic, I can think about something while my brain will still continue to read. Join a reading club to make it social and fun—are you serious, social and fun? Experiment, personalise, track progress—done, didn’t help. Even the most promising thing “not treat it like a chore” wasn’t actually insightful, I was watching videos as a chore and didn’t have problems like I have with reading.
After seeing such advices, I dismissed the idea of getting help from something like that. As I now see, the most puzzling thing was that I was a smart A-grader etc, though I still hated reading, I shouldn’t ignore that context. But actually that was because stories lied me, when I have gone to school, I understood that in reality it’s not at all like in books, totally not. So I just put this connection “smart A-graders do like reading” into the same bucket of stereotypic blatant lies as “boys pull girls’ pigtails” (I still puzzled why someone will do that, or is actually someone doing that, I have never seen it) or “smart A-graders do like chess” (which similarly to reading actually has its own big story of wrong mental habits causing lack of liking).
As I now see it, a habit of reading maximally fast made me unable to learn any other way of reading, any new method would be less effective in the beginning. And from reading out loud with expression and listening to audiobooks (which weren’t read with just expression, but with soundtrack) I learned to read only sequentially, with never skipping, rereading or stopping to use imagination, and to get a joy from audio (so I couldn’t dismiss it).
And partially it was indeed a problem with reading as a chore, or more properly, as a work, because when I was watching videos as a chore, I wasn’t trying to understand and remember each word, I wasn’t trying to do it perfectly. What I needed as advice was “try to read the same way you’re watching videos”, which actually aims into trying to understand the meaning of the whole content block, but needs to be said with a link to direct experience to avoid misunderstanding.
And partially it indeed was the problem of reading speed. Now, comparing these two experiences I can notice that in the background I all this time felt like in cage, or maybe like being put into rails, while reading with subvoc. I was able to process text my faster than the speed of speech, 4 times at least, maybe? It’s hard to tell exactly just by intuition, because the absence of speech affects the sense of time. And I can’t just take a reading speed test, because I can’t yet switch off subvocalization reliably. And also there are issues with how my eyes are moving, which width the text is text etc.