Ear Reading

 You can't read with your ears no matter how much you love sticking a couple of buds in your ears and saying "I read that book". You didn't read it; you listened to someone else who did read it. They did it with their eyes. The simple truth is that reading isn't listening, it's having your eyes and your brain decode a bunch of letters and turn them into thoughts. Listening is hearing something from something or someone and then thinking it. The twain will never meet. I'm not being judgemental, it is a simple fact. Reading is not an easy job for many people who either have, or think they have, dyslexia. Most of the time if not diagnosed to be so, it's just plain not wanting to bother reading because it is too hard for them. And no one likes doing hard things. Reading is work.  Maybe you have never been taught to read with your eyes. It is a skill you can develop. Give yourself a little test to see if you need to up your eye reading skills.  Read a page or two while resting your hand lightly on the front of your throat. Do you feel your your throat moving slightly in a sort of silent "speaking" the words. If you are doing this, you are not reading with your eyes only. Speed reading is stopping yourself from "saying" each word as you read it. If your throat is moving while pronouncing each word silently, you are slowing down the process and there is no actual  reason for it. It just slows you down. Your brain is perfectly capable while reading words without "saying" them silently. It takes practise. If you teach yourself to read with your eyes only and not prounounce each word in your throat, you will find that it's much easier and quicker to get through a book. Lazy people don't read books, they watch the movie or listen to a recorded book. It's easier and easier is what most people like. They say they are too busy or they like doing other things while "reading" an audio book.  And that's okay, because your kind of reading is your business. If you are a student laden with having to do a great deal of reading and quickly, this method of stopping  throat reading will help you get through those long assignments that require a large number of pages. I learned to stop throat reading when doing the literature part of my university courses.  You don't need to throat read, it's a habit and one that can be unlearned. Test yourself and then try eye reading only.  Trust your eyes and your brain to do the job for you. They can. I knew one person who went to the library and searched up and down the aisles to find the thinnest books possible. He had to make a book report on a book, any book. He admitted he did this tricks and said he took the thin books, had a brief look inside to see if he was at all interested and it became his report. I wanted to tell him about eye reading, but the fact that he went to libraries and made an attempt to find a book, I was sure that eventually just by reading a lot of thin books, he would become a true reader and at last take out the fat books and become a reader, not just a listener.