She’s a bit of a slow reader, she embarrassedly admitted. Holding a copy of Anxious People, by Frederick Brackman, my friend who prefers not to be named, says that she likes taking her time over books. She doesn’t like reading quickly: She prefers to pore over each word, scene and character arc.  If there’s a plot twist that unsettles her, she needs a break.  “So, you can imagine how long I took to read Lord of the Rings,” she chuckles.

A 1000 page fantasy novel filled with innumerable characters, twists, turns, can’t be read in a week. Perhaps not even a month, or even two. It deserves more, she says. Maybe, because of her reading style, she remembers each and every vivid detail, down to even the Elvish poems scattered through the book.

Meanwhile, her sister finishes books quickly. She speed-reads, and still remembers everything, or at least all the crucial dialogues, characters, and the like. She recites the full, One ring to rule them all...

Clearly, there's a strong case for both approaches: Slow, immersive reading and rapid reading. The debate rages on. As research shows, the key question is whether reading faster helps or hinders comprehension and retention. Speed reading promises efficiency, while slow reading emphasises deep understanding.

Don't feel low if you're a 'slow' reader. It's a good thing!

In 2016, cognitive psychologist Dr. Keith Rayner, an expert on eye movements and reading, found that comprehension declines significantly when people try to read faster than 500-600 words per minute (wpm). His research, published in Psychological Science, highlighted that readers who surpass 500 wpm often miss key details, relying on guesswork rather than true comprehension. Rayner's findings suggest that as we read a text quickly, we reduce the opportunity to deeply process and internalise information, which is essential for long-term retention.

While speed reading may help in skimming large amounts of text or quickly extracting surface-level information, it fails to support deep learning or retention of complex material. Rayner maintains that for deeper cognitive processing, we need to slow down.

According to Kanya Mathi, a Dubai-based psychologist, deep reading isn't just about leisurely enjoying a book. “It activates several important brain regions, including those responsible for memory, empathy, and critical thinking. When we read slowly and attentively, we engage in a process called ‘deep reading,' which requires sustained focus and mental effort. This process enhances our ability to encode and retain information, particularly because it involves multiple areas of the brain working together,” she says.

The slower we read, the more time we give our brain to process and store information, which strengthens our memory encoding. This is crucial when we're tackling complex ideas or trying to understand intricate details.

Indeed, slow reading does have far-reaching benefits. Yet, quick reading also has its advantages.

Yet, speed reading shouldn’t be dismissed. You're still reading, even if you read at lightning-speed. as Abu Dhabi-based Oindrilla Chatterjee's experience shows. She recalls how her son would devour book after book at lightning speed, yet remember every detail. “He would finish books in just a matter of hours. We initially thought he wasn’t really reading them, just skimming through. But it turned out, he remembered every word. And he applied the same technique to his studies,” she says.

A 1998 research on reading comprehension, published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, suggests that strategic skimming allows readers to retain the essence of a text without getting bogged down by every single detail. Speed reading forces readers to focus on important concepts and may improve global comprehension of the material.

As London-based psychologist Miriam Linley explains, “People can retain just as well if they read quickly too; they learn the ability to filter out unnecessary details and maintain the essential points. It doesn’t mean they’ve understood less,” she says, explaining how this ties into the ‘cognitive load theory,’ which addresses how our brain’s processing capacity impacts learning.

So, when we read quickly, speed reading helps lighten the cognitive load by filtering out irrelevant details and focusing on high-yield, crucial information. This is particularly useful in everyday tasks like skimming a news article or a report where the goal is to grasp the main points quickly rather than remembering every specific detail. In these contexts, quick reading helps readers absorb the core message without becoming bogged down by less relevant information.

It’s similar to how we might scan an email to understand its primary intent, or flip through a recipe for the key ingredients and steps before cooking. In contrast, slow reading would be more appropriate when you're diving into a dense academic text or a novel where each detail is important to fully understand the content and its nuances.

It’s simple, explains Linley: If you read more, you retain more.

There’s another advantage to reading quickly: Reading frequently helps with retention, says Linley. So, if it's too much to read everything in one go: Break it up into different sessions. By engaging with material quickly and consistently, speed readers can reinforce concepts through repetition, aiding in memory consolidation. Another 2011 study found that reading speed has a positive correlation with retention, when participants were encouraged to read more often. Instead of long, exhaustive sessions, short and frequent reading bursts help reinforce key points, which reduces the risk of mental overload and boosting recall.

You can cover more ground and revisit ideas in manageable chunks, making it easier to retain and recall important information. It doesn't mean you understand less: Speed reading can actually complement the process of memory reinforcement through frequent engagement with the book.

Ultimately, whether you choose to read slowly for depth or speed through texts for efficiency, both approaches have distinct benefits, depending on your goals.