Why reading feels harder with ADHD
Reading asks you to hold the last sentence in mind while you take in the next one. When attention drifts for a moment, the thread snaps, and you reach the end of the page with the words read and the meaning gone.
In one study, children with ADHD remembered fewer of a story’s main ideas than their classmates, and the gap was linked to attention and working memory (Miller et al., 2013). It isn’t about intelligence or effort. It’s about how much of the text you can hold at once.
How to focus when you read
- Read in short rounds. Five to ten minutes, then stop while it’s still going well. It’s easier to start, and spreading practice over days helps memory more than one long sitting (Cepeda et al., 2006).
- Give the page nothing to compete with. One tab, notifications off, the phone face down or in focus mode.
- Use a pacer if you drift. A finger or a guide moving through the text stops your eyes wandering and re-reading the same line (Rayner et al., 2016). Keep it at a pace you can follow.
- Make the text comfortable. Bigger text, more space between lines and a clear typeface are easier to stay with.
How to remember what you read
- Close the page and say the main point. Pulling it back from memory keeps it better than reading it again (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006).
- Check yourself with questions. What was it about? What happened? What did it mean? If you can’t answer, that’s where to look again.
- Come back tomorrow. A second recall a day or a week later, spaced out, keeps more than cramming (Cepeda et al., 2006).
ADHD-maxxing your reading
The habits above work best when they’re easy and a little fun. That’s what Squeekly is built around: five-minute rounds, one task on screen, instant feedback in the drills, questions after every read and recall checks a day and a week later, with medals for showing up and no guilt for a missed day. Take the free reading test to see where you start: your speed, and how much actually stuck.
Questions
Why can’t I remember what I just read?
Usually because your attention slipped while you read, so the meaning never made it into memory, or because you read it once and moved on. Recalling it straight after, in your own words, and again a day later makes it stick.
Is speed reading good for ADHD?
Not the kind that promises 1,000 words a minute: understanding falls apart at those speeds for everyone. What helps is reading at a steady pace you can follow, in short rounds, and checking what you understood. Does speed reading work?
Is Squeekly a treatment for ADHD?
No. It’s a reading trainer designed with easily distracted readers in mind, and it fits alongside whatever already helps you.
Sources
- Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354-380.
- Miller, A. C., Keenan, J. M., Betjemann, R. S., Willcutt, E. G., Pennington, B. F., & Olson, R. K. (2013). Reading comprehension in children with ADHD: Cognitive underpinnings of the centrality deficit. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 41(3), 473-483.
- Rayner, K., Schotter, E. R., Masson, M. E. J., Potter, M. C., & Treiman, R. (2016). So much to read, so little time: How do we read, and can speed reading help? Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 17(1), 4-34.
- Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249-255.
