Is it really possible? I was watching an episode of Haken no Hinkaku and the main character sped read a report. (in Japanese ofcourse)

I have studied some speed reading in English, (I should finish the course). I just found it interesting ithat it can be done with Kanji. I am sure it can.

Does anyone have any experiance with this?
What is normal Kanji reading speed?
Do they have contests for speed reading?

Wisher

I'm only conjecturing here, but I think the nature of kanji might allow for faster speeds

I kind of speed-read through the JLPT2 reading part (skimming through the texts to find the relevant parts), so I guess that it shouldn`t be much of a problem for Japanese people to do it properly. Just like uberstuber I think that speed reading may actually be faster with kanji.

there is a text book out there for japanese language students about japanese speed reading.

"Speed Reading" isn't really like normal reading at all. It involves scanning a page and letting your mind sort out the important bits and put them together for you. So yeah, speed reading is possible in any language thanks to how our brains work.

Merely reading fast, however, would depend on the language. For Japanese, I would think it would be easier than english since each character contains so much information and conjugations are so standardized.

Just a pure conjecture, but I have a feeling that Chinese might be one of the fastest/easiest languages to speed read, given that

1. There is little or no grammar (or meaning embedded in grammar).
2. Many speed reading techniques advocate reading in snaphots, all Hanzi may be easier/faster to visually process than an alphabet/scripted language or a mixed Kanji/Kana language like Japanese.

favorite recommendations for software PC/nintendo DS ....
for help in improving one's japanese reading speed.
anyone?

Quote:favorite recommendations for software PC/nintendo DS ....

no software, but I found that watching a show with Japanese subs helps a lot. You have be as fast as the sub after all ;)

Words in english or other languages that use the Roman alphabet have shapes as well, its not really any different or slower than Kanji. You naturally don't "read" things like "the, of, as, any, or,etc" when speed reading so more or less grammar doesn't mean anything since you only focus on grammar that you can't derive from context(past, future, passive, active).

Speed reading has more to do, as another poster said, splicing things apart and also how you view a page of text. You have to learn how to widen your field of vision a little bit so you can keep scrolling down the middle and still be able to read.