I’m a slow reader. Always have been. When I read, I say every word aloud in my mind. I’ve been reading online that this “subvocalization” actually slows reading WAY down and doesn’t help with reading comprehension (once you know how to read). Is this true, and if so, how can I read without subvocalization? I’d like to become a better reader that can read books in weeks, not months. Thanks for any help!
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I don’t think this will help you, but I’ve found that if I just push myself to keep reading eventually the inner monologue goes away and I just start to absorb the words. Everyone is different however.
It probably took me 6-7 years after noticing I was doing this to effectively eliminate it from how I was reading. I found that deliberately attempting to stop myself from doing so over time allowed me to start reading in sentence fragments instead of word-by-word. As a result, I don’t subvocalize all the words anymore. Though I might still subvocalize some fraction of them, it is greatly reduced, as well as its impact on my reading.
I do both, it just depends on how I feel. So what if it’s slower reading when subvocalising? It’s fun sometimes to make voices up for different characters and act out lines in the same speed and cadence an actor would in a movie. But other times I just “switch off the volume” and burn thru pages normally.