Visual reading: reading faster and understanding better

[Natalia]

I have always thought that reading faster would impede your understanding of the text. However, after working on translating and publishing of Shin's Visual Reading and the Snowball of Understanding I have to reconsider my thinking. The book sets a very ambitious goal - convincing readers that increasing their reading speed would not negatively affect their comprehension. In fact, quite opposite should happen: as you start reading faster your comprehension of the text should improve. The author's challenge towards the common perception of reading speed/reading comprehension dichotomy and the logic he uses to persuade readers is very interesting. He compares our processing of the written text with the way a film is played through the projector. Speed is the key to comprehension. Only when the film is played at a certain speed separate images in the film come to live to reveal a story. In the same way, to be able to fully comprehend written text, you have to achive a certain reading speed. The question is - what is this optimal speed?

What do you think?