“I am the 2021 world speed reading champion and I read more than 250 books last year”. This is how Kamel Kaddition presents himself at 20 Minutes for the time of a video. This thirty-year-old, originally from Île de France, offers his tips and a demonstration of speed reading. While drawing an S with his finger, he quickly scans the pages of a diary of 20 minutesthen answers more or less well a series of questions about what he has read, and explains the secret of his speed: “peripheral reading”.
However, for a few days video by youtuber G Milgraminspired by a Futura media article, makes the networks react and points out the non-effectiveness of the ocular methods advocated by the defenders of speed reading. According to several scientific studies, it is impossible to increase your reading speed without compromising the understanding of a text.
What does science say about speed reading?
What is the “peripheral or parafoveal reading” referred to by Kamel Kaddition? To fully understand the mechanisms of this theory, it is important to take stock of the composition of the retina. Formed partly of cones and rods, it is essential for vision. The cones are found in the center of the retina. An area called the fovea centralis, located in the visual axis of the eye and where the perception of details is the most precise. The rods are positioned at the periphery of the retina. “They send us fuzzy information” and “do not detect colors but only black, white and shades of gray”, explains CNRS researcher Angelo Arleo. So when we look at the page of a book, we clearly distinguish certain words thanks to the cones and the rest of the page appears blurred to us because of the rods. So to read everything we advance our gaze over the lines and in a jerky way.
But for the followers of the fast reading we waste our time to proceed thus because it would be possible to get rid of these jerks and ocular fixations. In fact, we don’t use our sticks enough, even though they would allow us to scan an entire page in a few glances and to read more quickly. Nevertheless, for Saveria Colonna, professor of language sciences at the University of Paris-8, “the studies of K. Rayner and his collaborators (among others) show that peripheral vision indeed makes it possible to perceive information. But the further one moves away from the point of fixation, the less one sees clearly. Seeing a page and an entire line is impossible in a single fixation” Thus, this researcher considers that “we can go quickly if we are looking for precise information, but it is more skimming than reading” . Therefore, it is impossible to increase his reading speed without compromising his understanding of the text.
A response “to the almost unanimous media hype”
At the origin of the last doubts on speed reading we find the videographer G Milgram. The young man with a secret identity presents his investigation not as “a discussion, nor a 100% journalistic work giving the floor to everyone” but as “an investigation which responds to the almost unanimous media hype on this subject. In the end, what concerns him are as much the “extraordinary claims” as the absence, in the media, of questioning about the methods of the sprinters of reading. And for this point there is his little explanation: “When we learn that we, in France, we have a plethora of world champions in speed reading (…) capable of reading 300 pages in 17 minutes, I can understand that we then want to cover the subject. »
On their side Nadia and Kamel Kaddition defend themselves and consider that some scientists do not include the whole process of speed reading. “Today we think that speed reading is all about eye techniques, while the brain and the environment have very important roles. Indeed, according to them, “speed reading is a process where you put in place lots of concentration and note-taking techniques, which allow for more effective reading. Finally, and even if the young woman thinks that “speed reading has nothing more to prove”, it would be interesting for them to confront all of their methods with scientific tests. “An idea that we have in mind,” they confide.