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I've always had this bad reading habit. Whenever I read something I instinctively vocalize it in my head as if someone was speaking it to me. I don't have any problems with comprehension, but obviously this significantly hinders the speed at which I can read questions and RC passages.

My question is: Has/does anyone have this problem as well? If I force myself to read "silently", I can do it, but then I sometimes become slightly less focused on what I'm reading and more focused on consciously avoiding to vocalize the words in my head. If I'm not thinking about it, I naturally revert to vocalizing. I think this is one of the obstacles I will have to overcome to significantly improve my LSAT score but I don't know where to start. If anyone has any input it'd be greatly appreciated.

Paraflam wrote:I've always had this bad reading habit. Whenever I read something I instinctively vocalize it in my head as if someone was speaking it to me. I don't have any problems with comprehension, but obviously this significantly hinders the speed at which I can read questions and RC passages.

My question is: Has/does anyone have this problem as well? If I force myself to read "silently", I can do it, but then I sometimes become slightly less focused on what I'm reading and more focused on consciously avoiding to vocalize the words in my head. If I'm not thinking about it, I naturally revert to vocalizing. I think this is one of the obstacles I will have to overcome to significantly improve my LSAT score but I don't know where to start. If anyone has any input it'd be greatly appreciated.

I do that, I think it's normal. I didn't really have any major timing issues on the RC section

Subvocalizing while reading not a "bad habit". It's how you were taught to read. Everyone does that, having been trained to read like that since kindergarten. Training yourself to not do it is really difficult.

I thought the idea was that since you can think faster than you can speak, subvocalizing slows down your reading speed. Is it really this common? That's kinda relieving.

Everyone is right. It is common. It is difficult to change. And it is slow. At the beginning of my studying I thought that I needed to change it in order to do better in RC, but as I've practiced my ability to tackle the questions has improved and I have had fewer struggles with time. If you are taking the June test, I don't think that it's worth it to try to change because it's very possible to do great on the RC section even with our slow method of reading and attempting to change the way you've been reading your entire life will take time. Just read however you can in order to get the most out of the passage and don't worry as much about speed reading.

Paraflam wrote:I thought the idea was that since you can think faster than you can speak, subvocalizing slows down your reading speed. Is it really this common? That's kinda relieving.

Yeah, it does increase your speed, provided you can teach yourself to stop. I attended a workshop on this in UG, and it was really, really difficult to not do it. From my experience, it wouldn't be helpful to retrain yourself how to read just for LSAT prep, because actively retraining yourself to read would eat up time you could otherwise spend on prepping for the test. It's not worth it to try and learn how to read like that right now.

I'm not taking the LSAT until June 2012, but if it's common to read like that and still be able to get good results then I'm not worried about it anymore. Thanks for the help everyone

Wouldn't it be more difficult to grasp what you're reading if you're not vocalizing?

Just make the voice in your head speak faster. Try imagining him as Bust-a-Rhyme or something like that.

YaSvoboden wrote:Just make the voice in your head speak faster. Try imagining him as Bust-a-Rhyme or something like that.

LOL

kapachino wrote:

Paraflam wrote:I thought the idea was that since you can think faster than you can speak, subvocalizing slows down your reading speed. Is it really this common? That's kinda relieving.

Yeah, it does increase your speed, provided you can teach yourself to stop. I attended a workshop on this in UG, and it was really, really difficult to not do it. From my experience, it wouldn't be helpful to retrain yourself how to read just for LSAT prep, because actively retraining yourself to read would eat up time you could otherwise spend on prepping for the test. It's not worth it to try and learn how to read like that right now.

How the hell do they try to teach you that?

naterj wrote:

kapachino wrote:

Paraflam wrote:I thought the idea was that since you can think faster than you can speak, subvocalizing slows down your reading speed. Is it really this common? That's kinda relieving.

Yeah, it does increase your speed, provided you can teach yourself to stop. I attended a workshop on this in UG, and it was really, really difficult to not do it. From my experience, it wouldn't be helpful to retrain yourself how to read just for LSAT prep, because actively retraining yourself to read would eat up time you could otherwise spend on prepping for the test. It's not worth it to try and learn how to read like that right now.

How the hell do they try to teach you that?

I found an online program that teaches it, one of the things they do is flash words on the screen and quiz you on what they said to train your brain to comprehend the words by seeing them, without taking the time to "speak" them in your head. Actually sounded pretty interesting but very difficult.

Interesting thread. I thought this was the norm.
I do it when I read and as I type as well. Funny thing I always hear different voices.

The problem with subvocalizing is that it makes you read each word, which is slow. When you're reading quickly you're reading chunks of sentances at a time.

That said you don't need to stop subvocalizing to read quickly. Try reading in sentence chunks while vocalizing only the first word of each chunk. So it goes something like: "agent directed amend reflect settlement expunging..."

It's how we're taught to read, and almost everyone does it. Most speed reading programs will try to break you of the habit. I know one of the methods people use is to count in their head while reading so that they can't subvocalize both. Or sing a repetitive song that you know by heart.

In any case, I wouldn't recommend a drastic change to your reading habits while studying for the LSAT.

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