Silent reading

Silent reading is reading done silently, or without speaking the words being read.

Before the reintroduction of separated text (spaces between words) in the Late Middle Ages, the ability to read silently may have been considered rather remarkable, though some scholars object to this idea.

In contrast, reading aloud activates many more parts of the brain due to the dual-route of feedback when pronouncing and reading.

History

Scholars assume that reading aloud (Latin clare legere) was the more common practice in antiquity, and that reading silently (legere tacite or legere sibi) was unusual. In his Confessions, Saint Augustine remarks on Saint Ambrose's unusual habit of reading silently in the 4th century AD:

"When Ambrose read, his eyes ran over the columns of writing and his heart searched out the meaning, but his voice and his tongue were at rest. Often when I was present—for he did not close his door to anyone and it was customary to come in unannounced—I have seen him reading silently, never in fact otherwise."

However, another possible interpretation of this anecdote is that "what shocked Augustine was that Ambrose read silently in front of visitors and refused to share his reading matter, and his thoughts, with them."

In 18th-century Europe, the then new practice of reading alone in bed was, for a time, considered dangerous and immoral. As reading became less a communal, oral practice, and more a private, silent one – and as sleeping increasingly moved from communal sleeping areas to individual bedrooms, some raised concern that reading in bed presented various dangers, such as fires caused by bedside candles. Some modern critics, however, speculate that these concerns were based on the fear that readers – especially women – could escape familial and communal obligations and transgress moral boundaries through the private fantasy worlds in books.

Eye movement and silent reading rate

Reading is an intensive process in which the eye quickly moves to assimilate the text – seeing just accurately enough to interpret groups of symbols. It is necessary to understand visual perception and eye movement in reading to understand the reading process.