Thursday, September 17, 2009


SPEED READING

The British media report that Anne Jones started reading Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol at 8 am on 15 September at the Borders branch in Islington, London and finished it 41 minutes and 55 seconds later .

Personally I do not believe that she, or anyone else, could possibly read 510 pages of a complex novel in that time. It would have been interesting to have her sit a test on aspects of the story as soon as she had finished it to test her comprehension.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I believe it. Senior year of high school I was clocked at 800 wpm with 97% comprehension. And I haven't read his latest, but Dan Brown's other work isn't really THAT "complex."

Kris Madden said...

I agree with "anonymous" that it is possible.

There is also research that corresponds with this dating back to W. B. Secor's study in 1900 and E. B. Huey's book "The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading" (1908) that demonstrate multiple methods for reading and comprehension.