Genetics and Reading Ability People with certain genetic types are more likely to have a better reading ability and may exhibit characteristics such as rapid reading skills, fluency, and better recall of text.
How easily children learn to read turns out to be heritable. Genetic differences account for most of the differences among children in reading ability. Reading ability, in turn, influences how much children read for pleasure.
When it comes to published studies, there is no recognized connection between speed reading and IQ or intelligence. If anything, the correlation is not strong enough for it to be considered factual.
Research shows that reading speed and IQ are not strongly correlated. You don't need to be a fast reader to be more intelligent. It also means that when you have a high IQ, you don't have to be a fast reader.
To be sure, reading speed varies a lot. Due to a variety of factors, some people just happen to be faster readers, Schotter said. They might have better working memory or are faster at processing information.
Turns out you might have a larger vocabulary. Speedier readers will be pleased to know that language skill is at the heart of reading speed. Research1 has found that the greater vocabulary you have, the faster you are able to read. So generally, faster readers may have greater language skill and vocabulary.
But most research points to the opposite conclusion: As speed increases, comprehension deteriorates. In the World Championship Speed Reading Competition, top contestants read about 1,000 to 2,000 words per minute, but they only understand about half of what they take in.
Processing speed deficits affect reading efficiency, even among individuals who recognize and decode words accurately. Children with ADHD who decode words accurately can still have inefficient reading fluency, leading to a bottleneck in other cognitive processes.
They read a lot
Because they're so curious, smart people are also inclined to be voracious readers, writes Cheikh Mbacke Diop. Indeed, many of the world's most successful people — Bill Gates and Oprah among them — say they educate themselves by reading anything they can get their hands on.
The average person should be able to read between 200 and 300 WPM. These statistics apply to college students and fully-grown adults. Avid readers can read even faster, with an average speed of 350 words per minute.
Successful readers read slowly to retain more of what they learn. Smart readers take deep reading a step further: they reread their great books. “The smarter you get, the slower you read,” says Naval Ravikant. Reading a good book multiple times guarantees knowledge transfer and retention.
The study contradicted general knowledge that the average reading rate is 300 words per minute. As adults age, their reading speed declines steadily. The figure below illustrates this. After 45, you may experience visual impairment that affects your reading speed.
Can older dyslexic students and adults learn 'speed reading' and if so, how? The short answer is YES, but it's only usually a subset of people who can do this. Young children who are still struggling with decoding are not good candidates for speed reading, but some upper elementary […]
People with certain genetic types are more likely to have a better reading ability and may exhibit characteristics such as rapid reading skills, fluency, and better recall of text.
Human brains are naturally wired to speak; they are not naturally wired to read and write. With teaching, children typically learn to read at about age 5 or 6 and need several years to master the skill.
It increases intelligence.
Exposure to vocabulary through reading (particularly reading children's books) not only leads to higher score on reading tests, but also higher scores on general tests of intelligence for children. Plus, stronger early reading skills may mean higher intelligence later in life.
Yes, it's okay to be a slow reader. In fact, numerous smart people don't read fast, and they have no problems with it. Many even agree that slow reading (up to a certain point) improves comprehension and retention.
No one is born a reader. In fact, neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf and author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain (Harper Perennial, 2007) said that “humans were never born to read.” Reading is a human invention, and, therefore, readers are made.
While there are many signs to indicate someone may be highly intelligent, the most common are a pleasant attitude and hardworking nature, excellent memory and recall capacity, good decision-making and problem-solving skills, high curiosity, good language proficiency, and high emotional intelligence.
Some of the more common reading problems in kids with ADHD are related to reading fluency, including skipping over words, sentences, and punctuation, rushing through the material, and losing track of their spot on the page.
Shankman: Simply put, ADHD is the brain's inability to produce as much dopamine, serotonin, and adrenaline as “regular” people's brains produce. Because of that, our brains have become “faster.” When managed right, that becomes a superpower. Have you found that you tend to think faster than most people? Yes.
There are plenty of things that can make some people with ADHD socially awkward. We can easily be discouraged, struggle to handle our emotions, or have low self-esteem. These traits might make us speak quickly to avoid confrontation as much as we can.
The fact that President John F. Kennedy mentioned in an interview that he taught himself speed reading and was able to read up to 1,200 words per minute probably helped make the practice popular. Subsequent presidents also enrolled in speed reading courses over the next decades.
Bill Gates is reported to read 150 pages per hour or ~625 wpm with 90% comprehension.
However, according to Raynor, the average college-educated reader only reads at 200-400 words per minute. If 500-600 words forms an upper bound, that does suggest that doubling your reading rate is possible, albeit as a hard upper limit.