I'm skeptical of claims like this. How do the claimants define reading? If we mean extracting a subset of information from a particular, arbitrarily defined block of text, well then I can read tens or hundreds of thousands of words per minute: I know how to pick up a typical business paperback, flip to the last chapter (or even just the conclusion), and skim for the 1–3 big ideas.
But try to read a text like a complex SCOTUS majority opinion, or one of the Great Books, at anything close to that speed — good luck! Even trained and very experienced appellate attorneys can study such texts for hours, days, weeks, and still find important intricacies that require not just perception, but ingestion and digestion.
As an exercise, one might grab any text and have one's computer read it aloud at 900 WPM. If one were to glean a single sentence, let alone the important bits, let alone all of it, I'd be shocked.
But try to read a text like a complex SCOTUS majority opinion, or one of the Great Books, at anything close to that speed — good luck! Even trained and very experienced appellate attorneys can study such texts for hours, days, weeks, and still find important intricacies that require not just perception, but ingestion and digestion.
As an exercise, one might grab any text and have one's computer read it aloud at 900 WPM. If one were to glean a single sentence, let alone the important bits, let alone all of it, I'd be shocked.