I took a speed reading course one summer when I was in college. My mother thought that it would give me an edge. First they test you and my reading speed was already on the high end of normal.

In the course I did theoretically more than double my reading speed. But my comprehension was based on the test they gave me. Plus I noticed that I tired quickly doing speed reading. I was a kid who loved to read and had no problem doing it for hours on end without tiring.

After the course I quickly discovered as I suspected that my real world comprehension suffered greatly by speed reading.

So what value did I receive from the course? After college there have been times I needed to quickly get the gist of a document and was under extreme time pressure. I found speed reading worked fine though in my business career I doubt that I used it more than once a year.

Bottom line my personal ROI would have been much higher if my Mother have hired a tutor to help me over the summer learn to paint or play blues harmonica instead.