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Reading speed test
The average adult reads about 238 words per minute, silently, in English nonfiction, according to a review of 190 studies (Brysbaert, 2019). Most adults fall between 175 and 300. Take the test below for yours, with three questions to check you understood.
Last updated
Reviewed by Mohammed Raqeeb
The reading speed test
Reading speed test
350 words
Read one short passage at your usual pace.
The clock starts when you tap Start and stops when you tap that you have finished. Read the way you would read an article you care about. Three questions follow, with the passage hidden.
About two minutes. Nothing leaves this page.
Passages written for this page. Research figures: Brysbaert, 2019 and Rayner and colleagues, 2016.
How it works
How the test counts your speed.
The test divides the words in the passage by the minutes you spent reading it. The passage on bridges has 350 words. Read it in a minute and a half, which is 90 seconds, and your speed is 350 words over one and a half minutes, or 233 words a minute.
Three things keep the number honest. The finish button stays off for the first moments, so a double tap cannot end the test. A finish faster than 1,000 words a minute gets no score, because reading for meaning cannot go that fast without losing most of the text (Rayner and colleagues, 2016). And the clock stops while the tab is hidden, since nobody reads a page they cannot see.
The questions are there because speed alone means little. Anyone can move their eyes down a page quickly. The questions ask about details only the passage gives, so general knowledge will not answer them.
Each passage also gets its own expected speed. Marc Brysbaert, the psychologist whose review gives the average above, found that long words slow everyone down, and gave a formula: 238 times 4.6, divided by the average letters per word in the text. In other words, the shorter a text’s words, the faster you can expect to read it. Both passages here use shorter words than typical nonfiction, so expect to read them a little faster than the average.
The research
What is the average reading speed?
The average reading speed for adults is 238 words a minute for nonfiction and 260 for fiction, read silently in English. Brysbaert reached those numbers in by pooling 190 studies with 18,573 readers, going back more than a century, and working out what they agree on (Brysbaert, 2019).
Fiction reads faster because its words tend to be shorter, the same rule the test uses for each passage. Reading aloud is slower, at 183 words a minute, about the pace of careful speech. Speeds are lower for children, for older adults and for people reading in a second language.
Silent, nonfiction
238words a minute
Most adults: 175 to 300
Silent, fiction
260words a minute
Most adults: 200 to 320
Reading aloud
183words a minute
Close to the pace of careful speech
You may have read that the average is 300 words a minute. Brysbaert traced that figure to a few older studies, some with short or easy texts and some with small groups of strong students, that textbooks went on to repeat. To check it against real reading, he ran his own book study, in which 48 regular readers timed themselves through a whole book each. Only 11 went faster than 300 words a minute, even on page-turners.
The books in that study averaged 107,000 words over 385 pages, or about 278 words a page. At the average speed that is about 51 pages an hour, and 7h 30m for a whole book.
How to read faster
How to read faster: what holds up.
Speed reading advice repeats four ideas. A review by five reading scientists, led by Keith Rayner, tested each one against decades of research on how eyes and minds handle text (Rayner and colleagues, 2016). Their finding: there is a trade-off between speed and understanding, and no trick escapes it.
The review puts that trade-off in numbers: readers are unlikely to go from about 250 words a minute to 500 or 750 and still understand the text as well.
The claim
Silence the voice in your head.
The inner voice, called subvocalization, is not a habit left over from school. It helps you recognize words and hold a sentence together. When people try to suppress it, they understand harder texts less well.
The claim
Train your eyes to take in whole lines.
Eyes pick up useful letters only about 14 to 15 letter spaces ahead of where they rest. Beyond that, print is a blur. Training people to use the edges of their vision, called peripheral vision, has not helped them read faster with good understanding.
The claim
Let an app flash one word at a time.
Your eyes move for only about 10% of reading time, and stay still on words the rest of the time, so removing eye movement saves little. These apps also stop the small backward glances skilled readers make 10 to 15% of the time, and those glances support understanding.
The claim
A course will double your speed.
In one study the review reports, a course took readers from 280 to 400 words a minute. Comprehension fell from 81% to 74%. In another, trained speed readers answered detail questions no better than people told to skim.
The review does name two things that help. The first is practice reading for meaning, across many kinds of text. Every time you meet a rare word it gets a little easier to read, and knowing more about a topic lets you predict what comes next. The review says this works slowly, with modest gains, and that language skill is at the heart of reading speed.
The second is skimming on purpose, when you only need the gist or one fact. Skimming runs 2 to 4 times faster than reading, with less understanding. Read the headings and the first sentence of each paragraph, then slow down where it matters. That is a choice to read less of the text, not a way to read all of it faster.
The real lever
More books come from more minutes, not faster eyes.
Reading more books comes down to minutes a day. Take the average speed of 238 words a minute, and a book of 107,000 words, the average in Brysbaert’s book study. Here is what a daily habit adds up to in a year.
Books a year at the average speed
- 10 min a day8.1 books1h 10m a week
- 20 min a day16.2 books2h 20m a week
- 30 min a day24.4 books3h 30m a week
- 45 min a day36.5 books5h 15m a week
- 60 min a day48.7 books7h a week
Compare the two ways to grow that number. Say you read 20 minutes a day. Lifting your speed from 238 to 300 words a minute, the top of the normal range, adds 4.2 books a year, if you could keep up your understanding. Reading ten minutes longer adds about 8.1, and costs no understanding at all.
One book, started on a Monday
A book of 107,000 words, first page on , . Each square is a day of reading.
As you are
Finished
20 min at 238 words a minute, 23 days. Twenty minutes a day at the average speed.
Faster eyes
Finished
20 min at 300 words a minute, 18 days. The same minutes at the top of the normal range, a pace most adults do not read at.
More minutes
Finished
30 min at 238 words a minute, 15 days. Ten more minutes a day at the average speed.
How you know it is working
How you know your reading habit is working.
Reading more is working when the minutes show up week after week, not when one test comes out faster. Write down the minutes you read each day for four weeks, then check one thing.
The test
Your weekly reading minutes hold at or above your target
for the last two of four weeks. At 20 minutes a day, the target is 2h 20m a week.
Counting the minutes is the hard part, because reading hides in small pieces: a chapter on the train, ten pages before sleep. A good way to track it counts those minutes from what you already write or say about your day, with no timer to start or stop. Most journaling apps stop short of that. They keep how the day felt, not where it went, so twenty minutes with a book never becomes a number you can watch.
One app built for this is Think in Numbers, a smart journaling app with time tracking built in.
You write or say your day in your own words, as it happens or all at once. The app reads what you wrote and counts the hours that went to each part of it: your reading, your phone, and the time you never mentioned (shown as unaccounted). Then it shows those hours over days and weeks. A daily reading habit and a target against your real hours show whether the minutes are holding.
For iPhone and Android. Try it on your own day before you pay.
At the end of week four, take this test again with the other passage. Expect your speed to have moved very little, since practice raises speed slowly. The books come from the minutes.
An example person's four weeks of reading and the phone
Reading a week
20m4h 20m
4h more in week four than in week one
Phone a week
19h 30m6h 45m
12h 45m less in week four than in week one
Week one
20mReading
19h 30mPhone
Ten minutes after dinner, twice. Hours on the phone every evening.
Week two
1h 45mReading
14h 45mPhone
About twenty minutes most days. A deadline and a dinner out cost two.
Week three
3h 5mReading
10h 30mPhone
Close to half an hour, one missed day, back the next.
Week four
4h 20mReading
6h 45mPhone
Every day, and the phone at an hour or less on six evenings.
An example person's four weeks, each day read and counted by the app. A made-up person, not a real user. Real output from the part of Think in Numbers that reads your words and adds up the hours (version v21), last run on with the app’s starter categories. Stored as written, not edited.
Books a year at each week’s pace
Each week’s reading as a daily habit kept for a year, at the average speed of 238 words a minute, worked out the same way as the table above.
Week one
2.3books
20m read that week, 3m a day
Week two
12.2books
1h 45m read that week, 15m a day
Week three
21.5books
3h 5m read that week, 26m a day
Week four
30.2books
4h 20m read that week, 37m a day
Same person, same speed. The books a year grew more than tenfold from week one to week four, and every bit of it came from minutes.
Close this tab, pick up the book you put down, and read for twenty minutes. Then write down that you did.
Sources
Where these numbers come from.
- Brysbaert (2019). How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate. Journal of Memory and Language.
- Rayner and colleagues (2016). So Much to Read, So Little Time: How Do We Read, and Can Speed Reading Help? Psychological Science in the Public Interest.
The passages and questions were written for this page. For more on building study time into a week, see how to study effectively and the study planner. For making a daily habit last, see how long it takes to form a habit. To see where a whole week goes, try where did my week go, or read about time journaling.
Keep reading.
- LearnAnswers about sleep, habits, study, people and work, in hours.
- How to study effectivelyThe methods with the strongest evidence, and a 4-week calendar.
- How long to form a habit66 days on average, and how to tell when yours has formed.
- Study plannerYour exam date in, hours a day and a calendar out.
- Where did my week go? calculatorEnter a typical day and see your week accounted and unaccounted.
- Time journalingThe method: write or say your day in your own words, then see it as hours.
Questions
Questions people ask.
What is a good reading speed?
For an adult reading nonfiction in English, anything from 175 to 300 words a minute is normal, and the average is 238. That comes from a review of 190 studies by Marc Brysbaert. A good speed is one where you still understand what you read. Two of three or better on this test is a fair sign that you did.
Is 300 words a minute fast?
Yes, a little. 300 words a minute is the top of the normal range for nonfiction. In Brysbaert's book study, only 11 of 48 regular readers went faster than that, and they were reading novels, which read quicker than nonfiction.
Does speed reading work?
Not the way it is sold. A review by Keith Rayner and four other reading scientists found a trade-off: as speed goes up, understanding goes down. In one study they report, a speed reading course raised readers from 280 to 400 words a minute, and their comprehension fell from 81% to 74%. Trained speed readers did about as well as people told to skim.
Should I stop saying the words in my head?
No. That inner voice, called subvocalization, helps you recognize words and follow meaning. The review by Rayner and colleagues found that when people try to suppress it, they understand harder texts less well. It is part of reading, not a bad habit.
Do apps that flash one word at a time make you read faster?
They show you words faster, but understanding drops. These apps take away the small backward glances your eyes make to check a word, and the review found those glances support comprehension. Single sentences survive the method. Whole passages do not.
How many pages can I read in an hour?
About 51 pages at the average speed, if a page holds about 278 words. That page size comes from Brysbaert's book study, where books averaged 107,000 words over 385 pages. Dense pages and small print hold more words, so you read fewer of them an hour.
How long does it take to read a book?
An average book in Brysbaert's study had 107,000 words. At 238 words a minute that is about 7h 30m of reading. At twenty minutes a day, it is about 23 days.
Why did I get a different speed on the other passage?
Texts differ, and so do you from one read to the next. Longer words slow everyone down, which is why the test shows a speed expected for each passage. How much you already know about a topic also matters: familiar ideas read faster. Take both passages and use the average of the two.
Is reading on a screen slower than on paper?
Not by much. Brysbaert's review notes that reading times on screens and paper are very similar, except in early studies with poor screens. Several studies find slightly better comprehension on paper.
Is my result saved or sent anywhere?
No. The test runs in your browser. Your time, your answers and your result never leave the page, and nothing is stored.
Try it on my day.
Write today down in your own words, and see where the hours went.
For iPhone and Android. Try it on your own day before you pay.