Speed-reading with Spreeder

September 20th, 2006 by jose

Some programs out there offer you the possibility of reading faster by avoiding eye movements and backtracking. The two most popular ones (web-based) are spreeder and  ZAP Reader.

Some links on the technology:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Serial_Visual_Presentat…
http://news.com.com/2100-1046_3-5785579.html
http://www.buddybuzz.net/rel/Web/index.html

The experience is jarring (as if reading online wasn’t hard enough on the eyes), but it does seem to decrease reading delays. Looks like spreeder’s also working on a login so you can track your speedreading progress.

Source: Teach yourself speed-reading with Spreeder - Lifehacker

Of course, your comprehension may be affected if you read on a difficult topic, but honestly, I can think of many things I read along the day that are easy and would benefit from a speed boost (blog posts being one of them).

However, the best implementation I have found is a little application called SpeedReader:

It’s not webbased (standalone) and the reading speed can be changed in real time. Check it out and see if this would work for you.

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About the author: Jose Quesada wanted to be a matador, an acrobatic pilot, or a painter, but found those activities not demanding enough, so he chose an academic career. He secretly hopes to orchestrate a system that produces papers without any human intervention (particularly, his).


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4 Responses to “Speed-reading with Spreeder”

  1. BrendanNo Gravatar Says:

    Can you post a link to speed reader?

  2. adminNo Gravatar Says:

    Sure Brendan, here you go:
    http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12576&highlight=speedreader&sid=0e13706dba76960a0f6c5a7445d20ae3

  3. Academic Productivity » Call to action: read at least one paper with speedReader, post your feelings Says:

    [...] have posted before about speed reading. Note that this term encompasses many different methods, some of which are based on dubious [...]

  4. Muhammad RashidNo Gravatar Says:

    I personally don’t feel this software will improve speed and comprehension will not be affected. Secondly I believe reading on computer is very different from reading a book. When you read a book you are more relaxed and don’t feel any eye strain as compared to reading on computer. Well, I haven’t tried SpeedReader yet so this is just a comment from personal experience of reading:)

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