Subvocalization

Sujith Gladwin:
🗣 Eliminating Subvocals 🗣

Subvocalization occurs when you mouth or silently say words to yourself as you read them.

❗️Because you're able to read faster than you can speak, reducing this habit will increase your reading speed dramatacally ❗️

➖ The following 3️⃣ exercises are designed to keep you from mouthing or silently saying words as you read:

1️⃣ Audible Humming 🗣🎶

❗️Hum while you read the text. This occupies your mouth so you can't mouth or say words as you read:

◼️ To best survive, most animals live in groups, learning to hunt, forage, or migrate together.  When we talk about these groups, we use language that often mirrors their actions. We call a group of ants a colony or a swarm and a group of ducks a flock. Sometimes these names drift into more abstract descriptions: a school of fish, a bloat of hippopotamuses, a pride of lions. Our collective names for animals form rich images, such as an unkindness of ravens or a bouquet of pheasants, and at times they seem far-fetched, fanciful, and even poetic. They are oddly compelling, and their origins tell us much about how we use language to situate ourselves in our environment. ◼️

2️⃣ 1..2..3..4 Silent Counting 🔢

❗️Slowly count from 1 to 10 as you read the text. This helps keep you from mentally saying words as you read them.

Silently count to ten repeatedly:

◼️ We know little about Juliana Berners, other than that she was a 15th-century English noblewoman who enjoyed hunting , hawking, and fishing. She likely became a prioress, or head nun, of a nunnery in St. Albans, a town not far from London. But today she's best known for having written or compiled a section on hunting practices for The Book of St. Albans, a collection miscellany published in 1486. Berners included what she called "the company of beasts and fowls," terms given to groups of animals related to their actions (a busyness of ferrets), defining characteristics (a gaggle of geese),  or humans' use of them (a yoke of oxen). ◼️

3️⃣ Unaided Reading 📖

❗️Read the text without saying anything to yourself. This helps you understand words without saying them silently.

Read without aids:

◼️ Berners likely drew from existing names for groups of animals for her work in The Book of St. Albans, but she also extended her descriptions further. She went so far as to create a social hierarchy of birds or prey, with the eagle as emperor and the kestrel as knave, and she even put down what now seem humorous names for human professions: a melody of harpers, a superfluity of nuns, and an eloquence of lawyers. If these names have fallen out of favor, names for groups of animals have only grown. While many existed in usage before Berners collected them, putting them in print helped ensure they would persist throughout the centuries. ◼️

📝 For notes:

❓What is subvocalization? 🤷‍♂️

⭕️ Reading and speaking are separate activities, but some readers mouth words to themselves as they read. Even after learning to read silently, most readers continue to mentally say each word in their heads. This is what researchers call subvocalization, and it creates a natural limit to the speed at which we can read.

❓Why do we subvocalize? 🤷‍♂️

⭕️ When we first learn to read, we begin learning the sounds associated with each letter and how those are formed into words. When we read aloud, we pronounce each syllable of every word. This ensures that we read every word on the page and helps us comprehend  what we read. However, it also leads many people to continue to say words to themselves even as they become strong readers.

❓Why eliminate subvocalization? 🤷‍♂️

⭕️ When you subvocalize, you can only read as fast as you can speak. That results in a reading speed of around 150-200 words per minute. If you eliminate subvocalization, you can still comprehend all the words you read, but you won't be artificially limited by the speed at which you can talk. It takes some practice, but doing so can allow you to double your reading speed.