When I was younger, I thought you could only read one way, my way of course, LOL. Then I got this friend who claimed I was only "skimming" text. I remember when teachers taught skimming and I never understood what it was. But I certainly knew I read books, no skimming here.

Thing is he could only read as fast as he talked. Actually he silently mouthed the words. It confused me a lot. I didn't understand how you could read like that, how it was technically possible.

The only way I could read was.... I don't know what to call it. Eat text. Sure I look at everything. I don't just look for key parts. I read everything. But I don't read from left to right and only one line at a time. I remember when I was very little and we had to use slips of paper to cover all the lines below, I had no idea what I was reading. If I don't have stuff in advance, I cannot put it together in my head.

Sure words have to be in some kind of order and yes technically I do read from left to right and downwards, but not strictly. The word clusters I eat, the words put themselves in the right order in my head. And will create a flow, like a thought rather than a spoken sentence.

I used to like audio books but they are a TOTALLY different art form for me, a different experience. They are much more close to watching a movie.

So you'd think I am good at reading? Nope. Since I depend on how words look, I depend a lot on font face and line spacing. Modern books have to narrow lines and to big text so I can't do "my thing". Also I barely can read cursive. I cannot read caps only.

And I cannot read out loud. Not even inside my own head. While it is totally natural for me to look ahead when reading to myself, I find it totally impossible for any human being to do that while reading aloud, and it is needed! You know what will come or you cannot say the whole sentence! I cannot read aloud and read ahead at the same time. It is some kind of superpower people have.

I'm not sure it is possible to change the way one reads. If you read letter by letter, word by word you do. If you see the text like an image you do.

Now I should add focusing is another thing altogether. I'm just getting back to reading. I lost my ability to focus on books for a long time. I still don't have it back fully but I can enjoy books again which is super huge for me.

I remember being 15 and for some reason I had nothing to do in class so my teacher gave me Animal Farm to read. Which I finished in 40 minutes. Sure I pushed it to impress him, but I still read it. It's a rather short novel though.