Slow reading is the intentional reduction in the speed of

reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

, carried out to increase comprehension or pleasure. The concept appears to have originated in the study of

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

and

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

as a technique to more fully comprehend and appreciate a complex

text Text may refer to: Written word * Text (literary theory), any object that can be read, including: **Religious text, a writing that a religious tradition considers to be sacred **Text, a verse or passage from scripture used in expository preachin ...

. More recently, there has been increased interest in slow reading as result of the

slow movement Slow movement may refer to: *Slow movement (music) *Slow movement (culture) *Bradykinesia Hypokinesia is one of the classifications of movement disorders, and refers to decreased bodily movement. Hypokinesia is characterized by a partial or comp ...

and its focus on decelerating the pace of modern life.

Related terms

The use of slow reading in literary criticism is sometimes referred to as

close reading In literary criticism, close reading is the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of a text. A close reading emphasizes the single and the particular over the general, effected by close attention to individual words, the syntax, t ...

. Of less common usage is the term, "deep reading".Birkerts, Sven. (1994). ''The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age''. Boston: Faber and Faber.
Selected passages
Open Book Systems] Slow reading is contrasted with

speed reading Speed reading is any of many techniques claiming to improve one's ability to read quickly. Speed-reading methods include chunking and minimizing subvocalization. The many available speed-reading training programs may utilize books, videos, s ...

which involves techniques to increase the rate of reading without adversely affecting comprehension, and contrasted with skimming which employs visual page cues to increase reading speed.

Philosophy and literature

The earliest reference to slow reading appears to be in

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, Prose poetry, prose poet, cultural critic, Philology, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philo ...

's preface to the 1887 '' Daybreak'': "It is not for nothing that one has been a

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

, perhaps one is a philologist still, that is to say, a teacher of slow reading." Birkerts, in his book ''The Gutenberg Elegies'', stated "Reading, because we control it, is adaptable to our needs and rhythms. We are free to indulge our subjective associative impulse; the term I coin for this is deep reading: the slow and meditative possession of a book." Birkerts' emphasis on the importance of personal control over the speed of reading is echoed by Pullman, who additionally argued that taking control of the pace of one's reading is a form of personal freedom, and develops an appreciation of democracy. A similar view was stated by

Postman A mail carrier, mailman, mailwoman, postal carrier, postman, postwoman, or letter carrier (in American English), sometimes colloquially known as a postie (in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom), is an employee of a post ...

, who noted the character of the ordinary citizen of the 19th century, a mind that could listen for hours on end to political orations clearly shaped by a culture favouring text. Postman warns that reading books is important for developing rational thinking and political astuteness. Lindsay Waters, Executive Editor for the Humanities at

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirem ...

, declared a worldwide reading crisis resulting from our global push toward productivity. He asserts that young children are learning to read faster, skipping phonetics and diagramming sentences, and concludes that these children will not grow up to read

Milton Milton may refer to: Names * Milton (surname), a surname (and list of people with that surname) ** John Milton (1608–1674), English poet * Milton (given name) ** Milton Friedman (1912–2006), Nobel laureate in Economics, author of '' Free t ...

. He foresees the end of graduate English literature programs. "There is something similar between a reading method that focuses primarily on the bottom-line meaning of a story in a novel and the economic emphasis on the bottom line that makes automobile manufacturers speed up assembly lines." He advised re-introducing time into reading: "The mighty imperative is to speed everything up, but there might be some advantage in slowing things down. People are trying slow eating. Why not slow reading?"

Slow movement

Carl Honoré Carl Honoré (born 29 December 1967 in Scotland) is a Canadian journalist who wrote the internationally best-selling book ''In Praise of Slow'' (2004) about the Slow Movement. In 2008, he came out with a new book, ''Under Pressure: Rescuing Ou ...

, an advocate of the

, discusses slow reading in his book ''In Praise of Slow''. He recommends slow reading as one of several practices to decelerate from the fast pace of modern life. Laura Casey points out that the increasing availability of instant communication technologies, such as

texting Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile devices, desktops/laptops, or another type of compatible compute ...

and social media like

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

, may be contributing to the decline of slow reading. In 2008, novelist I. Alexander Olchowski founded the Slow Book Movement to advocate for reading practices related to the slow movement, including reading light material at a relaxed pace for pleasure, reading complex materials slowly for insight, reading materials of local interest and by local authors, and community building around local libraries and reading events.

Research

While there is substantial research about involuntary slow reading, which can arise from a lack of fluency and is a predictor of

dyslexia Dyslexia, also known until the 1960s as word blindness, is a disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one's age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, r ...

, there are a few studies which demonstrate the positive value of voluntary slow reading. Nell (1988) showed that there is substantial rate variability during natural reading, with most-liked pages being read significantly slower. Sherry Jr. and Schouten (2002) suggested that close reading could have commercial application as a research method for the use of poetry in marketing. Advocates of speed-reading point out that

subvocalization Subvocalization, or silent speech, is the internal speech typically made when reading; it provides the sound of the word as it is read.Carver, R. P. (1990) Reading Rate: A Comprehensive Review of Research and Theory (1990)Cleland, D. L., Davies, ...

slows the speed of reading, but studies by Carver found no other observable negative effect on the reading process, and observed that the slower pace seemed to improve comprehension.Carver, Ronald, P. (1990). ''Reading Rate: A Review of Research and Theory''. San Diego: Academic Press.

References

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External links

Deep Thinking and Deep Reading in an Age of Info-Glut, Info-Garbage, Info-Glitz and Info-Glimmer. From Now On: The Educational Technology Journal

The Free Lance Academy: Home of Slow Reading