For years, consultants have consistently been talking about the so-called “paperless office.” In daily office life, most managers are facing, at the same time, a massive increase of documents to read, on screen or printed. Of course, the situation changes from one job to the other, from one industry to the other. Artur Sosna, director at Berlitz Luxembourg, underlines the fact that there is no general answer: “Even within certain branches it varies from 20 to 60 percent depending on so many factors. It also depends on your job description… and what you count as reading, so no, there are no useful figures!”
The fact is that, in addition to one’s personal pleasure reading, there is a huge amount of informational reading, professional literature or internal documentation to be consulted, understood and used. Techniques for speed-reading have developed to help the reader to improve his pace. The level of improvement depends on the time dedicated to practice. “Generally speaking, the speed improvement is very good for the time invested. In our four hours seminars, increasing rates of 30 to 150 percent are possible, while keeping the same comprehension level for the text,” adds Sosna. “The values vary strongly, since a lot depends on the individual skill set and mental power. Being cautious, you can say that a 50 percent average speed increase, with the same comprehension level, is a realistic goal. So the four hours invested are ‘payed back’ quite fast.”

If there are no statistical figures for the amount of words to read, there are some for the speeds of reading. “An average reader has between a 180-240 words per minute rate (WpM)… Sean Adam, with 3,850 WpM, holds the World Record… At this speed, he still had a solid understanding of the text. But the 10th best reader has a speed of ‘only’ 1,560 WpM. From my point of view, a 1,500 WpM rate should be a number that people can reach, with a lot of intensive training, over several years… Of course not only with our four hours seminars.” Is there any difference in a method, depending on the language? Not that much, in fact… “It is true that Asian languages have completely different speed reading techniques. But for the western ones, the principles always remain more or less the same. And naturally reading in one’s mother tongue is always faster!”

There are some questions about the efficiency of the speed-reading methods, when it comes to the “long term memory” of what has been read. The fact is, acknowledges Sosna, that “just using techniques to increase speed won’t give you the perfect photographical memory. Learning-theory still applies. If you want to know something by heart you have to repeat it over and over. The best way is also to read it out loud, writing down the essence.” But the fast first reading can help the reader when it comes time to slow down to “traditional” reading: “With speed reading techniques you’ll find the important extracts of the text faster. And while others have read the text once, you already had time to repeat the important parts. There is actually a technique to increase the amount of information that is remembered. We also teach it in our training. It can also be used without the speed-reading techniques. The combination of both makes it really powerful.”