We spend a very large fraction of
our working and leisure time reading so any way to improve reading would be
very helpful. Although computerized
text-to-speech has been available for at least 20 years, we still almost
exclusively use sight reading, probably because it’s faster than computer
speech and we tend to retain what we see better than what we hear. This hyperbook topic is an attempt to
determine what might be the best way
to present reading material for both speed and retention.
I have noticed that both the
Kindle and the Nook, which are electronic books, still format their documents
to resemble a traditional page of a book.
But there is no longer a need
to read documents formatted like this.
The reason for the format of a paper book is that the information is
actually contained on the page and the book just happens to be an efficient way
to present a lot of that information.
Since the information on a Kindle or Nook is contained in flash memory,
there is no need to continue to present it page by page. Here I have permitted the reader to view text
files presented in various ways in order to let them decide which is more
efficient. The question I am trying to
answer here is whether it is more beneficial to the reader to be able to have
all the page material available at one time (which might actually be a
distraction) or to just focus on rather small segments at any one view.
In Reading Experiment One, I have
chosen to present the chosen units of text in a manner similar to flash
cards. In Reading Experiment Two, I have
chosen to highlight the chosen number of units and then move the highlight
section after the appropriate interval.
Since I am competing with learning
and habits which took many years to develop, I would hardly expect the viewer
to be able to immediately improve his reading speed or retention via these
experiments, but maybe the viewer may see the potential for improvement here.