From: utzoo!utcsrgv!utcsstat!wagner
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Title: Re: non-phonetic reading
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.279
Posted: Tue Aug  3 03:47:19 1982
Received: Tue Aug  3 04:37:21 1982
References: pur-ee.469

One thing that might help guard against sub-vocalization
is a device they used with us in grade school.  It was a film
strip projector specially equiped with a device that limited
the view to a small area of the screen (typically a line at
a time, but there were options to make it only a flying spot
about 2 words wide on the line, or up to several lines high
and no spot).  Using this special projector, we were shown
stories.  The object, clearly, was to teach us to read without
backtrack.  A second objective, always less important, was to
up the speed and get us to read quickly.  It didnt work 
entirely for me...I sometimes still backtrack a whole 
paragraph, convinced that I have missed something.  Only once
in my recollection over the last few weeks did I actually miss
a line, so clearly my fears are unfounded in the main.  And yet
I do it about once every 5 pages or so, depending on the
content.  But I deviate from the point - in flying spot mode
with the speed up, there was never time to vocalize the words.
If you didnt recognize the word by sight alone, there was no
hope of going back and trying to pronounce it for recognition.
We were taught to forge forward and go for comprehension of the
rest when we missed a word, and only to go back if at the end
of a unit (sentence or paragraph, dont remember which), we were
still in the dark as to the meaning.  While this helps reading
quickly a lot, I find I sometimes just ignore words I dont know,
and never bother to look them up (a bad habit, I am sure).

Does anyone have any references to this sort of stuff?  I
would be interested in reading more about this phase of
learning, now that my interest has been roused.

Michael Wagner, UTCS