Subvocalisation: What It Is and Whether to Eliminate It

Speed reading courses have been telling people to eliminate subvocalisation since the 1950s. The claim is that the inner reading voice is a crutch left over from childhood learning, and that adults who can bypass it can read much faster. The neuroscience does not support this.

What subvocalisation is

Subvocalisation is the internal phonological activation that accompanies silent reading. When you read silently, the speech and motor cortex areas associated with language production are activated — not fully, as in speaking aloud, but measurably. You experience this as a sense of "hearing" words as you read.

This is distinct from:

• Lip-moving (external subvocalisation): Visible articulation of words during reading. This is a separate behaviour, less common in adult readers, and more clearly associated with slower reading speeds.
• Full phonological encoding: The complete activation of phonological representations, necessary for learning new vocabulary.

Most adults fall somewhere between these. Subvocalisation is not binary — it is a spectrum of phonological activation that varies by word, sentence, and content type.

The neuroscience

Subvocalisation is linked to the phonological loop — a component of working memory (Baddeley's model) that stores sound-based information temporarily during processing (Source: Baddeley, 1986, Working Memory). When you read a sentence with complex syntax, the phonological loop helps you hold the early part of the sentence in memory while processing the later part.

Research using articulatory suppression tasks — having readers repeatedly say "la la la" while reading — shows that suppressing phonological activity reduces comprehension of complex syntax more than it reduces comprehension of simple sentences (Source: Baddeley, 1986). This is direct evidence that phonological processing aids reading comprehension.

The implication: for complex or unfamiliar content, subvocalisation is a functional cognitive strategy, not a waste of time.

The speed reading claim

Commercial speed reading programmes typically argue:

1. Subvocalisation limits reading speed to the speed of speech (~130–180 WPM).
2. Eliminating subvocalisation allows reading at eye-movement speed, much faster.
3. Therefore, suppress the inner voice to read faster.

The first claim is wrong. The average adult reads at 238 WPM — already faster than speech — while subvocalising (Source: Brysbaert, 2019). Subvocalisation does not cap reading speed at speech rates. The second claim conflates eye movement speed with comprehension capacity. The third claim — that you can deliberately suppress subvocalisation to improve comprehension — is not supported by research.

Rayner et al. (2016) reviewed the evidence and concluded that subvocalisation suppression does not reliably improve reading efficiency when comprehension is included as a measure (Source: Rayner et al., 2016).

What actually happens with faster reading

When reading speed increases, subvocalisation naturally and automatically decreases — not because readers have trained it away, but because the time available per word decreases. At 500 WPM, there is simply less time for full phonological activation per word. This is a natural adaptive response, not a trained skill.

The consequence: at very high RSVP speeds, your brain processes words through partial phonological activation and visual word recognition rather than full sounding-out. This is adequate for familiar vocabulary. For new or complex words, comprehension may suffer.

Practical advice

Keep subvocalising for:

• Philosophy, academic texts, primary sources
• Unfamiliar vocabulary or register
• Legal or technical documents where precision matters
• Poetry and literary prose where rhythm is part of the meaning

Let it naturally reduce for:

• Plot-driven fiction you are reading for story
• Familiar non-fiction in your area of expertise
• Re-reading texts you already know

Don't try to deliberately eliminate it. Focus on finding the reading speed at which you are absorbed in content — that speed will naturally involve less phonological overhead than slower, more effortful processing. The goal is appropriate speed, not silent inner voice.

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