Teaching reading: Where did the term Skimming (speed reading) derive from?

Some waterfowl skim their beaks along the surface of the water in order to gather food…

They are called “dabblers” as opposed to the ducks who dive for food, who are called…wait for it…“divers.”

And of course there’s the literal sense of the word as it’s used in relation to milk and other liquids.

Having had a speed reading course, I’d guess it has to do with the sense you get that you’re only scratching the surface, exactly as you would skimming butterfat off while milk. You learn to take in a whole line or multiple lines in a single glance instead of scrolling your gaze from start to finish of one line, reading each word and often pronouncing it inside your head before sweeping back to trace the next line. So your eyes skim straight down the middle of the page from top to bottom. It doesn’t even “feel” like you are reading anything. I was amazed to discover that I actually captured more information from the page by speed reading it than I did scanning every word and speaking it in my head.

That’s what it was called by Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics, who made that technique well known.