Speed Reading is a collection of techniques used to read text faster without sacrificing comprehension.
Grouping is a technique in speed reading where instead of reading one. word. at. a. time, you read words in groups. The method is similar to what we call n-gram in NLP, and it’s used as a sampling technique. In the context of speed reading, this technique is based on the fact that human eye makes discrete movements while reading text. To change that behavior, you can use the Guiding Method with a pen/pencil as a tracer so you can make those movements smooth.
How does grouping work?
My guess is that your brain makes predictions of words analogous to how an ML-based language model can.
Is it effective?
It depends on whether you’re willing to potentially sacrifice comprehension. Even on familiar text, I’m not very confident while going through what I think are important paragraphs. I also can’t seem to do this on scientific literature. Some scientific literatures have mixed text and equations, which breaks your ability to predict words/symbols. Maybe I need to read more of those.
How to start?
I can’t just start grouping sometimes. I need to achieve flow (more on that later) before I can hit word grouping. To start grouping, I first start with 1-gram and then when I achieve flow, I slowly start with 2,3.. etc.