I’ve written similar content in here and here. You may consider this an update of those two articles since I’ve used SuperMemo for a much longer time, and thus, understand it at a deeper level.

TL;DR: Incremental Reading is about spacing your reading materials so you don’t necessarily have to finish reading in one setting.

SuperMemo/Anki = Spacing your remembering; Incremental Reading = Spacing your reading

Meaning of Incremental Reading in SuperMemo’s Sense

If you’re from Anki, you can think of Incremental Reading as pasting a reading material to the front and leaving the back side blank. You can consider this one big “reading card”. With this flashcard, your job isn’t to recall any answer but to read it and highlight important parts. After reading (whether you finish or not), you’re done with this “reading card” and press “Next” to move on. Like any other types of flashcard, it has its own schedule for when you’ll see it again.

Incremental Reading is about:

I. Reading the source material from start to finish in a spaced manner

II. Re-reading extracts (highlighted materials) in a spaced manner

III. Knowledge crystallization: Extracts –> clozed/Q&A items in a spaced manner (Incremental Extract Processing)

IV: Repeat the above steps for different reading materials

“Incremental Reading” connotes different meaning and steps:

“Incremental” in “Incremental Reading” refers to the reading schedule, just like any clozed/Q&A card has. The schedule means when SuperMemo will show this “reading card” to you. “Incremental” doesn’t mean you have to read slowly; the main focus is that your progress of a particular “reading card” happens gradually over time (point I above). For example, when you first read a particular “reading card”, you finished 50% and pressed “Next”. Then 4 days later, SuperMemo showed it to you again and you completed the remaining 50%. You’re done with this “reading card”. The alternative, traditional reading method would be reading from start to finish in one setting, e.g., in one hour. In this case, it’s 4 days vs. 1 hour. I believe this is the meaning of “Incremental” in SuperMemo’s sense.

The intervals between each step are usually ever-expanding, i.e., weeks if not months. For step I, it might take a month to finish reading chapter 1 of a book. For step II, it might take another month until you decide what to do with it (Reasons Incremental Extract Processing). Going from step I to step III might take months.

“Reading” in “Incremental Reading” can mean two things:

A. Original reading materials (step I above)

B. Extracts produced from step A (incremental re-reading; step II above)

Why Read This Way?

Generally speaking, any spacing schedule aids learning, deepens understanding and promotes memory retention. Further explanation: Three Secret Sauces Behind the Magic of SuperMemo’s Incremental Reading

Incremental Reading Is All About the Spaced Reading Schedule

Reading thousands of articles at the same time without getting lost.

Incremental Reading is touted as reading a lot of materials at the same time. You might be confused by the possibility (or absurdity) of such idea. In my opinion, what is most significant is not the sheer number of reading materials but the reading schedules. I believe this spaced reading schedule is the biggest and secret-est sauce behind the magic of Incremental Reading. You’re potentially refreshing your memory for thousands of different materials in one day. It could be a few paragraphs of book A, a quote from book B, an equation from Book C.

For example, in the outstanding queue, if you isolate the reading and reviewing materials from the same source, it might be:

March 1st: chapter 1: First reading; made some extracts; finished 40%

March 2nd: Reviewing extracts from chapter 1 (1st re-reading; step II above)

April 5th: Reviewing extracts from chapter 1 (2nd re-reading; step II above)

April 12th: chapter 1: Continue reading; picking up where you left off (40% reading point) a month ago

So what happens on March 3rd, 4th, April 10th and so on, all the days that no reading and reviewing is scheduled for this source? You’re doing the same for other materials. Since you’re doing this for every source, you benefit from the spacing effect for every learning material.

If you’ve accepted the premise that spaced reading, rather than massed reading, is a better strategy, then how do you implement it? This is where SuperMemo comes in.

Automatic Spaced Reading Scheduling in SuperMemo

Since all of the reading materials and the extracts have to be scheduled in a spaced manner, SuperMemo takes care of all the scheduling so you don’t have to calculate and keep track of them.

Manual Incremental Reading = Using the Leitner System

It’s essentially impossible to do “Incremental Reading” without SuperMemo. You need a knowledge management software like SuperMemo to keep track of all the dates for the reading materials and extracts. Without SuperMemo, it would be difficult to do so even for just one book. Two books? Probably still fine. Three books? Already overloading with hassle and difficulties. This is just simple maths: one book with 50 extracts means 51 dates to keep track of (not including step III of turning extracts into clozed/Q&A items which could further produce items). It would be extremely exhausting and wasting mental energy on these trivial matters. Remember, not only the reading dates of the original material but also the extracts produced. Once your reading materials grow to a certain point, it won’t be manageable. It would be extremely difficult, if not improbable, to manual implement Incremental Reading.

Incremental Reading outside of SuperMemo is a lot like doing paper flashcards with the Leitner System. You can but you just wouldn’t. It is theoretically possible to keep track of thousands of flashcards, but using a Spaced Repetition Software like SuperMemo or Anki just makes the whole reviewing process immensely more convenient. Manual Incremental Reading is more difficult than normal paper flashcards because it will generate extracts to keep track of along the way. Why calculate the dates yourself when you can use a software to do it for you? You’re wasting time calculating the intervals when you could spend it on actual learning. Even if you don’t mind doing the calculation for every card, you can determine the optimal reading intervals only with the SM-2 algorithm but not the SM-18 proprietary algorithm.

Source: Wikipedia

Closing Remarks

In essence, Incremental Reading is just spacing your reading. Period. I will explain the benefits of this spaced reading in another article. Stay tuned!

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