Reading to myself without taking the time to pronounce every word in my head.
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It takes a fair amount of practice...
As a rule, most people sound out the words in their heads (you can sometimes hear people sub-vocalising). This usually allows about 250 words per minute (somewhere between 150 and 300). You can speed up the voice in your head, and still understand the words; that takes you to about 800 to 1000 words per minute (about three times the average reading speed). But it's almost impossible to go much beyond 1000 words per minute with the voice in your head techniques.
The next step is to see the words only. This is done by essentially splitting each line into two or three parts. You grasp each part before going onto the next part. It's slower to start with, but a few days (maybe three weeks, reading every day) of practice, and you can start hitting 1500 to 2500 words a minute. That's about 10 times faster than the average reader.
There's a further step, and that's getting a whole line at a time, and then getting up to 10 lines at a single glance. This more like scanning a text than reading, but with the help of highlighters, you can mark the important words and phrases, and go through a thick text book in an hour, with practically full understanding of the concepts. It's not good for memorising poetry or plays, but you can state the concepts/definitions, the meat of a theory and even the consequences that arise from a theory enough to discuss the content of the book with real experts on the topic.
If you can get up to the 1500 words per minute, you'll be doing well -- some of the speed reading courses can help tremendously. And, if they have a one-on-one set of teaching sessions, you will probably do better than if you tried to learn from the Web or books.
As a rule, most people sound out the words in their heads (you can sometimes hear people sub-vocalising). This usually allows about 250 words per minute (somewhere between 150 and 300). You can speed up the voice in your head, and still understand the words; that takes you to about 800 to 1000 words per minute (about three times the average reading speed). But it's almost impossible to go much beyond 1000 words per minute with the voice in your head techniques.
The next step is to see the words only. This is done by essentially splitting each line into two or three parts. You grasp each part before going onto the next part. It's slower to start with, but a few days (maybe three weeks, reading every day) of practice, and you can start hitting 1500 to 2500 words a minute. That's about 10 times faster than the average reader.
There's a further step, and that's getting a whole line at a time, and then getting up to 10 lines at a single glance. This more like scanning a text than reading, but with the help of highlighters, you can mark the important words and phrases, and go through a thick text book in an hour, with practically full understanding of the concepts. It's not good for memorising poetry or plays, but you can state the concepts/definitions, the meat of a theory and even the consequences that arise from a theory enough to discuss the content of the book with real experts on the topic.
If you can get up to the 1500 words per minute, you'll be doing well -- some of the speed reading courses can help tremendously. And, if they have a one-on-one set of teaching sessions, you will probably do better than if you tried to learn from the Web or books.
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Pronounce "every word" in your head? Laughable.
Pronouncing ANY "word in your head" ≠ speed reading
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BTW. Placing a question mark at the end of a declarative sentence doesn't magically turn it into a question.
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Most speed reading uses 2 things, a pointer (such as your finger) and "reading in chunks", that is: NOT reading single words. This doesn't usually work very well for technical reading.
Pronouncing ANY "word in your head" ≠ speed reading
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BTW. Placing a question mark at the end of a declarative sentence doesn't magically turn it into a question.
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Most speed reading uses 2 things, a pointer (such as your finger) and "reading in chunks", that is: NOT reading single words. This doesn't usually work very well for technical reading.
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You have a long way to go as so far you haven't even managed to "slow read" the correct category for your question, which has nothing to do with astronomy