Learning to read more effectively

Here is a little context on my unique and less known learning challenge, and a bit of information on my methods of reading. This may be insightful for anyone struggling with attention difficulties,  and improve learning goals associated with university and school, or general life goals. 

In my situation I have something called auditory processing disorder (APD). APD not only affects hearing, but also reading, and attention. Reading is particularly challenging for people like myself with APD because it relies heavily on phonological processing, which is the ability to recognise and manipulate sound structures like syllables and phonemes, and this demands significant working memory (memory which is actively being used and manipulated). For example, when we read, we often "hear" the words in our thoughts (i.e. inner monologue), a process that engages phonological processing to internally vocalise the words we read. This internal dialogue activates pathways in the auditory cortex and links these sounds with semantic content (or meaning) in the temporal lobe. APD disrupts this inner auditory experience, requiring additional cognitive effort to decode words and associate them with meanings, which probably explains why I always have eye strain due to the added pressure on visual processing to understand content. The added hurdles in processing disrupts fluency and comprehension, as the brain struggles to efficiently form comprehensible connections in the reading process by linking sounds (internally heard or not) and meanings that underpin understanding.

Often I have thought that I had some form of ADHD affecting my attention, but in later years and reading more recent research I discovered that actually APD affects this as well in its own way (albeit not as significantly towards attention). I’ve tried various strategies in studying content, from spending hours on the same content painstakingly writing down each thing that I saw in order to organise it into a hierarchy of connections. I’ve spent time mindmapping all the content that I saw, only to recognise that this takes up more time than is reasonable. I’ve also copied and pasted all of the content I was trying to understand better or remember better into AI tools to systematically organise the content for more efficient re-reading for deeper processing/understanding. I’ve even highlighted everything on each page that meant anything significant to me and later read over the same pages.

Unfortunately all these “hacks” are complete wastes of time, however, they come with little clues as to how to better read in the first place. When your trimester is crammed in a 12 week period reading time isn’t a luxury that you can afford, especially if you want a life to have anything to do with. 

So of course I have tried more methods than what I have listed, but all of my testing reduced and refined the actual time-critical answer that I needed. I follow a more simple process now that cuts out the bullshit:

1. I limit my time with not only my phone, but also social media, making sure to avoid ritualistic apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook or YouTube. If I need to check these apps I only allow myself to use messaging, and even that I have learned to limit. It goes without saying but if you’re planning to make reading “fun”, especially the boring stuff, you do not want to have too much “fun” with time wasting tools. 

2. I make sure to exercise at least once every 2 days. This is a more significant thing than I anticipated. Exercising provides a significant cognitive boost/memory boost and will make reading and self-control better overall. This effect is not mild, it’s quite significant. When you move your body and your heart pumping it moves more blood into your brain, oxygenating neurons and more. The body is designed to stand up and move and cardiovascular fitness makes your heart more robust causing a down chain and positive effect on the rest of the body. 

3. My entire reading process is done based on two systems: time-efficiency, and comprehension. If I understand something and all of the emphasis behind what the author of a page's content very clearly, I move on very quickly. There’s no point to spend extra time on a page when you thoroughly understand the underlying messages in the content and remember the key words. Also, your brain can only learn so fast, so it’s a waste of time. Secondly, comprehension is very important. If I don’t understand the context of the page, I don’t move on. I'll use a tool like Microsoft Edge PDF reader which allows you to drag over text and quickly select “Explain” so that I can move onto the next page quickly. The underlying idea is that if I don’t understand what is being said robustly, I do not move on. If I do, I move on very quickly. Adding a few minutes to reading one page to understand the content I’m reading is more valuable than spending 15 minutes making fancy connections on a mindmap or creating fancy notes using the Cornell note-taking method/or other methods like Onenote (or notion/google docs/etc). This might seem like an overly simplistic process, but it’s not. It’s impossible to grasp everything perfectly in an instantaneous fashion. When you spend extra time reading a page because you don't understand it you’re engaging in deep processing, and when you do you’re using self-control via metacognitive process (by actively monitoring your understanding). I guarantee spending a minute or two extra on one page you don’t understand is better than quickly moving on and cramming down a bunch of extra content that you do, plus it’s systematic and it helps to organise meaning effectively as most text-books or academic content is written in a hierarchy or story.