21st Century Reading

Around 1995/96 I taught myself speed-reading, using a simple technique outlined in a simple book, describing methodoloy developed by Evelyn Wood. What a sense of empowerment... all of a sudden I could read a book in a short evening, instead of over several days, or weeks. I went through about a book a day for years; well not every single day because of work duties or other obligations... let's say about four or five books a week, on average.

I read a lot of books for a while, there..! [Sigh........ the good ol' days..]

It was so enlivening: I could read faster, and retain more of what I read. Those were heady times... too much so, as it turned out, because I got cocky and set about to speed-read the dictionary, of all things. I thought about how "smart" I could become if I could remember every single definition in a good-sized dictionary. [Haha!! I always break out laughing whenever I revisit this memory, at the sheer lunacy of the idea. Like a lot of silly decisions we make in our lives, we often look back in wonderment at who this person was who temporarily commandeered our body and our mind and took us for a joyride.]

Anyway, my little experiment with the dictionary so totally burned me out that I lost my speed-reading "powers", and have struggled in vain to recapture them ever since.

Well: I accidentally found a battered copy of the glorious old book I had used over ten years ago to first teach me better reading skills, and I'm setting aside some proper time this weekend to sit down and figure out once and for all why I can't seem to reclaim the same mental skills I had so effortlessly taught myself that exciting weekend 13 years ago (yikes! 13 years... time flies).

Given the very smart commentors we're lucky to have here at Covenant Zone, I was wondering if anyone has some practical tips of their own, on how to improve speed of reading and ability to recall the information read. (I'm more concerned about the latter these days than the former, to be honest... I perceive my memory failing me at an alarming rate.)

IfIstarttowritelikethisnextweek,thenyouwillknowmysppedreadingskillhasreturned! ;)

I was also wondering if my regular reading online is having some negative effect on my reading and my recall. Have any of you noticed any change in reading abilities or habits as a result of shifting so much time towards online reading, and away from book-reading?