Thoughts about reading

Recently I started utilizing a new style of reading. But what varies between one reading style and another? Do people usually have different styles of reading or do they reuse the same one they learned as a kid? I know the way I was taught to read 'worked' for a very long time. Even though my method of reading was "good enough", was there no room for improvement? I used my skill of reading everyday but never thought, should I change how I read? This was a classic mistake of first order thinking thats trapped me in lots of suboptimal habits that I still exhibit today.

The last couple weeks I tried something new and very different from my normal type of reading. I tried reading very slowly and found that part of the experience was different. It was as if the words themselves had slightly different meanings when read slowly. This is because words DO have different meanings when read slowly. A sentence is really just a data construct. It expresses ideas using vocabulary interwoven into grammatical structures. Books are composed of paragraphs, paragraphs are composed of sentences, sentences of words, and words of letters. Within every level of this system there are rules that govern the combination and order of elements. Its these rules that allow us to read and comprehend (at least a certain amount of the info) our language so efficiently. So how exactly does reading slowly change anything. Well its my belief that reading slowly not only aids in the comprehension of the sentences material, it also allows the mind to get better at reading itself. Its this recursive improvement thats so exciting about reading slowly. Because we read so often. The ability to further enhance the speed and assurance at which one comprehends sentences is a worthwhile skill to invest in.

Another interesting idea to explore is how to write for the best comprehension. So where exactly is the best resolution(the lower limit being letters and the upper limit being entire books) for a concept to reside within this system? Letters by themselves communicate basically nothing. Its only combinations of letters that actually form words. But words themselves are also ambiguous. Nouns are the only words that actually mean anything by themselves. In fact, we often use sentences to define words for further use in other sentences. This procedure emphasizes the complexity of even the simplest communication. So I would say the smallest resolution of comprehension is really a sentence.To understand an entire sentence one must read it all completely. A sentence's meaning is changed by each word in specific ways. Words like and,  but, and or, all serve as words that connect concepts within a sentence together. The words have no meaning outside of the sentence. 

Anyways, both reading quicker and reading slower offer some advantages and should both be considered for use.