快餐式阅读:重新引起人们速读兴趣

Reading these days is often a few minutes on the phone in the grocery-store line, not an hour curled up with a book on the couch. This quick-hit reading is sparking a renewed interest in the art of speed reading.

在当下，阅读常常就是在超市排队时拿着手机看上几分钟，而不是蜷在沙发上拿着一本书读上一个小时。这种快餐式阅读重新引起了人们对速读艺术的兴趣。

People read more than ever on mobile devices and usually in 10-minute bursts, according to research by e-reading subscription services. To tap into this, there's a revival in traditional speed-reading classes as well as new apps that promise to make reading on a small screen easier.

据电子书订阅服务机构数据，如今人们在移动设备上读书的频率比以往任何时候都高，每次通常是读上10分钟。为了利用这一点，传统速读课程正在复兴，旨在使小屏幕阅读更加便利的新应用软件也在不断涌现。

(How fast do you read? Time yourself and try speed-reading tips in an interactive.)

（你的阅读速度有多快？测测你的速度，并尝试一下互动图里的速读窍门。）

When Brett Kirby, age 33, reads the news in the morning, he doesn't grab a newspaper or browse a website. He picks up his phone and has his articles flashed to him, one word at a time, 650 words a minute.

早上读新闻的时候，33岁的布雷特·柯比(Brett Kirby)不看报纸也不看网站。他拿着手机，让文章在眼前一个词一次、一分钟650个词地闪现。

Mr. Kirby, a research fellow in medicine at Duke University, is a beta-tester for Spritz, a mobile app that claims to help people read faster without the bother of classes.

柯比是杜克大学(Duke University)的药学研究员，他这样做是在为手机应用“Spritz”进行β测试。这款应用声称有助于人们不去上速读课就能够提高阅读速度。

Promises of blazing through 'War and Peace' have been around since the Evelyn Wood speed-reading classes of the 1960s, and demand for in-person classes is growing, says Paul Nowak, founder of Iris Reading LLC, a Chicago-based company that hosts similar courses. Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics, based in Mission, Kan., still offers workshops, DVDs and other resources, though it is smaller than its heyday. (Calls to its offices weren't returned.)

芝加哥速读课程公司Iris Reading LLC的创始人保罗·诺瓦克(Paul Nowak)说，从20世纪60年代伊夫琳·伍德(Evelyn Wood)开办速读课以来，就一直有人允诺可以让人们迅速读完《战争与和平》(War and Peace)，对于当面授课课程的需求也在增长。堪萨斯州米逊市(Mission)的“伊夫琳·伍德阅读动态公司”(Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics)仍然在提供速读培训班、DVD和其他资源，不过赶不上它全盛时期的规模了。（打给该公司办公室的电话没有得到回复。）

Spritz Technology Inc. co-founder and CEO Frank Waldman says using the app is a more modern way of reading. The company's goal isn't to help undergraduates cram for exams, he says, but to change how people keep up with mobile news. 'You wouldn't really want to read classic lit or Shakespeare on [Spritz],' he says. 'We want to work on focused reading on the go.' Samsung Group's new Galaxy S5 phone and Gear 2 smartwatch come with the Spritz app preloaded.

Spritz Technology Inc.的联合创始人兼CEO弗兰克·瓦尔德曼(Frank Waldman)说，利用应用软件是一种更加现代的阅读方式。他说，公司的目标不是帮助本科生突击备考，而是改变人们随时阅读手机新闻的方式。他说：“你不会真的想拿Spritz来阅读古典文学或莎士比亚。我们是想解决移动过程中集中精力阅读的问题。”三星集团(Samsung Group)的新手机Galaxy S5和智能手表Gear 2预装了Spritz应用。

The average college graduate reads about 250 words a minute, says Michael Masson, professor of psychology at the University of Victoria in Canada. A 7-year-old reads about 80 words a minute, while a sixth-grader reads about 185 words a minute. People who use Velocity, a $2.99 iPhone and iPad app that launched in September tend to go with its default speed of 300 words a minute, says the app's co-creator Matthew Bischoff. But 400 and 500 words a minute are also popular presets.

SpritzSpritz应用旨在帮助人们提高阅读速度。这款应用按照用户选择的速度向他们闪现文字。加拿大维多利亚大学(University of Victoria)心理学教授迈克尔·梅森(Michael Masson)说，大学毕业生平均每分钟阅读250个词左右，七岁儿童每分钟读80个词左右，六年级学生每分钟阅读185个词左右。iPhone及iPad应用“Velocity”（2013年9月份发布，2.99美元）联合开发者马修·比肖夫(Matthew Bischoff)说，使用这款应用的人往往采用其每分钟300词的默认速度，但也有很多人预设为每分钟400词到500词。

Spritz says its studies show people who were reading 250 words a minute sped up to reading 400 words a minute after using Spritz for 20 minutes with no loss in comprehension.

Spritz说，其研究显示，在使用该应用20分钟之后，每分钟阅读250词的人速度提高到了每分钟400词，同时理解程度没有降低。

Can you really boost your reading speed so much so quickly? Going from 250 to 400 isn't beyond the realm of possibility, says Dr. Masson. But in general, comprehension gets worse the faster people read, he says.

真的可以这么快地提高阅读速度吗？梅森博士说，从250词提高到400词并非不可能。但他说，从总体上讲，读得越快，理解程度越低。

In a 1987 seminal study on speed reading, Dr. Masson tested the text comprehension of three groups: people reading at a normal speed (about 240 words a minute); people skimming at 600 words a minute; and people who had taken an Evelyn Wood course and read through the text at 700 words a minute. (The three groups read on a TV monitor.)

在1987年的一次开创性研究中，梅森博士测试了三组人的文字理解程度。一组以正常速度阅读（约每分钟240词），一组以每钟600词略读，还有一组曾经参加伊夫琳·伍德的课程，以每分钟700词的速度阅读。（三组人都是在电视屏幕上阅读。）

The skimmers and speed-readers did much worse at answering comprehension questions afterward, especially ones about specifics or technical material. 'One can have the impression of being able to immediately identify what those words are, but if they are going by at such a high rate, it's virtually impossible' to come away with coherent ideas from the text, Dr. Masson says.

略读者和速读者在事后回答测试理解程度的问题时成绩差了很多，特别是那些有关规格或技术材料的问题。梅森博士说，“人们可以在印象中记得当时能够马上认出那些词是什么，但如果以这么快的速度阅读”，从文本中获得条理分明的观点“几乎是不可能的”。

Mobile speed-reading apps use 'rapid serial visual presentation,' or RSVP, in which words are flashed on the screen at a preset rate. The technology is based on the premise that a lot of reading time is wasted by moving our eyes back and forth.

手机速读应用采用了“快速序列视觉呈现”(RSVP)技术，让词汇以预先设定的速率在屏幕上闪现。这项技术所依据的假定是，我们的很大一部分阅读时间都浪费在目光的前后移动上面。

RSVP hurts comprehension because it doesn't let people look back at previous words, says Keith Rayner, a psychology professor at the University of California-San Diego. In a study he co-authored, 40 college students read passages at their natural pace and also while using a technology that didn't allow them to refer back. In the first trial, subjects had 75% comprehension accuracy. In the second trial, they had only 50% accuracy.

加州大学 地亚哥分校(University of California-San Diego)心理学教授基思·雷纳(Keith Rayner)说，RSVP有损理解，因为它不允许人们回顾前面的文字。在他跟别人合作的一次研究当中，40名大学生以自然速度阅读段落，然后采用一项不允许他们往回看的技术阅读。在第一次实验中，实验对象的理解准确率为75%；第二次实验当中，他们的准确率只有50%。

Last year, nearly two million people participated in Iris's in-person courses, compared with 417,000 in 2012 and 22,517 in 2007, when the company began.

去年接近200万人参加了Iris公司的当面授课课程。2012年人数为41.7万，2007年（该公司成立的那一年）有22,517人参加。

The company teaches a three-step process involving 'preview' (look at headings and subheads for main ideas), 'overview' (read the first sentence of every paragraph') and 'read' (go from beginning to end, but only if the previous two steps have convinced you the article is worth reading).

这家公司传授的方法分为三个步骤，包括“预览”（看标题和副题了解大意）、“概览”（阅读每个段落的第一句）、“阅读”（从头到尾地读，但前提是前面两步让你相信这篇文章值得读）。

None of this is possible using an RSVP app. In 2010, Iris launched its own free RSVP app, AccelaReader. 'People still have to read on the printed page or on a full screen, so people need to know how to read well in both situations,' Mr. Nowak says.

使用RSVP应用是无法实现这三个步骤的。2010年，Iris推出它自己的免费RSVP应用“AccelaReader”。诺瓦克说：“人们仍然需要在印刷页面上阅读或整屏阅读，所以需要知道怎样在两种情况下都能读好。”

San Francisco-based startup Plympton Inc. has a different solution for people reading in short bursts on their phone. In March, Plympton launched its first iPhone app, the $4.99-a-month Rooster subscription service. Rooster can send users a 15-minute chunk of a novel-selected every month by Rooster's team-each day. (The 15-minute chunk is calculated using an average speed of about 200 words a minute.) Upcoming selections include 'The Kreutzer Sonata' by Leo Tolstoy.

旧金山初创公司Plympton Inc.为在手机上短时间阅读的人们提供了一套不同的解决方案。今年3月，该公司推出它的第一款iPhone应用“Rooster”，月订阅费4.99美元。Rooster可以每天向用户发送一段15分钟的小说文字，这些文字每月由Rooster的团队挑选出来。（15分钟是采用每分钟约200词的平均速度计算的。）即将发送的选段包括列夫·托尔斯泰(Leo Tolstoy)的《克鲁采奏鸣曲》(The Kreutzer Sonata)。

Rooster's approach is designed to make the thought of starting a book more appealing, says Yael Goldstein Love, Rooster's editorial director and a novelist.

Rooster编辑总监、小说家亚埃尔·戈尔茨坦-洛夫(Yael Goldstein Love)说，Rooster的做法是为了让开始读一本书的念头更有吸引力。

Readers can choose to read on to the next installment if they've finished their 15-minute daily read. 'You can binge read,' Ms. Goldstein Love says. ' 'Binge read' sounds like a funny thing to say because that was how we read normally, but people no longer feel like they have time to read a 300-page thing.'

读完了15分钟的每日必读内容之后，读者可以选择继续阅读下一个章节。戈尔茨坦-洛夫说：“你可以大篇幅阅读。‘大篇幅阅读’这个词听起来很好玩，因为我们正常情况下就是那么读的，但如今人们不再觉得有时间读一本300页的长篇巨着了。”