Reading for meaning

rather than sound

Reading without vocalizing has a lot in common with listening to

someone speak. Imagine you’re listening to a friend describe a trip

to Mexico. Do you hear your friend’s words, or do you hear her

descriptions, thoughts, and ideas?

When someone speaks, you hear the words, but you only hear them

in connection with whatever thoughts and ideas the speaker is trying

to convey. The same is true of reading without vocalizing: You read

words for meaning, not sound, much as you do when listening to

someone speak. You see the word on the page and respond to its

meaning without the intermediary step of hearing the word’s sound.

You don’t read the words as words — you read units of meaning (like

ideas, thoughts, and descriptions) whose building blocks happen to

be words. (Head to Chapter 7 for more on units of meaning.)

Look at it this way: When you read a single word — generous, for

example — you don’t read it syllable by syllable: gen-er-ous. You

glance at the word — generous — and instantly understand its

meaning. Likewise when you read without vocalizing, you don’t

read word by word:

He — was — generous — to — a — fault.

You read thought unit by thought unit:

He was generous — to a fault.

This is exactly what happens when you listen to someone speak —

you respond to thought units, not individual words.