To read faster, read more often, start with books that are easy for you, and cut interruptions. Over time, practice and a bigger vocabulary make you quicker without costing you the story. Tricks that promise to double or triple your speed, like flashing one word at a time or bolding half of each word, don’t hold up in studies. And if your real goal is to get through more books, adding ten minutes a day does far more than reading 10% faster. The numbers are below.

More minutes beat more speed

Most people who search “how to read faster” want to finish more books. Here’s what the two options look like for someone reading 20 minutes a day at the average pace of 238 words per minute, taken from a meta-analysis of reading rate that pooled 190 studies. We assumed 250 words per page.

Change Pages a day Pages a week A 300-page book in
Starting point: 20 min at 238 wpm 19 133 16 days
Read 10% faster (262 wpm) 21 146 15 days
Read 5 minutes longer 24 167 13 days
Read 10 minutes longer 29 200 11 days

Getting 10% faster takes weeks of practice and saves you about a day per book. Ten extra minutes, say on the bus or before bed, saves five days, starting tomorrow. Both are worth having, but if you only pick one, pick minutes. Our guide on how many pages a day to read helps you turn that into a daily goal.

7 things that actually help you read faster

1. Measure your pace once

You can’t tell whether you’re improving if you don’t know where you started. Take our reading speed test: a short passage, three questions and your words per minute. Or use the book on your nightstand: read for 10 minutes and multiply the pages by 6. That’s your pages per hour.

2. Read a little every day

A large review of speed-reading research by Rayner and colleagues (2016) found one thing that reliably makes reading better and faster: practice in reading for understanding. Reading widely gives you a bigger vocabulary, and familiar words are the ones you read fastest. Twenty minutes a day counts. So do ten.

3. Pick books that are easy for you right now

Speed depends a lot on the text. In the same meta-analysis, adults read fiction faster than non-fiction (about 260 versus 238 words per minute). If you’re trying to get back into a rhythm, start with a genre you know and like. A dense classic can wait until reading feels easy again.

4. Cut interruptions

Every notification breaks your train of thought, and finding your place again takes time. Put your phone in another room or face down, and read in blocks of 15 to 30 minutes. More ideas in how to focus while reading.

5. Let yourself reread

Many speed-reading courses tell you never to go back. The Rayner review points the other way: when readers can’t look back at earlier words, they understand less, and that held for easy sentences as well as hard ones. Going back to a sentence is part of reading, not a flaw.

6. Skim on purpose, not by accident

Skimming is a real skill: you focus on headings, first sentences and key words, and skip the rest. According to the same review it works when you only need the gist. Use it for a work report or a chapter of non-fiction you’re reviewing. For a novel you want to enjoy, read normally.

7. Read at your best time of day

If you always read when you’re exhausted, you’ll always read slowly. Try a short session in the morning or at lunch for a week and compare it with your evening pace. A tired brain reads the same paragraph twice.

What doesn’t work

Trick What it promises What the research says
Apps that flash one word at a time 500+ words a minute You can’t look back, and comprehension drops (Rayner et al., 2016)
Bionic Reading (bold first half of each word) Faster reading No difference in reading times in a 2024 study (Snell, 2024)
Training your eyes to move faster Faster page turns Eye movements take up no more than about 10% of reading time, so there’s little to gain (Rayner et al.)
Doubling or tripling your speed 250 → 500–750 wpm with full comprehension Unlikely; there’s a trade-off between speed and understanding (Rayner et al.)

“Turn off your inner voice” is another popular tip. We didn’t find evidence that it makes you faster without making you understand less, so we leave it out of the plan.

A 4-week plan

  1. Week 1: take the speed test and write down your result. Pick an easy, enjoyable book. Read 15–20 minutes a day.
  2. Week 2: same book or a similar one. Move your phone out of reach while you read. Try one session at a different time of day.
  3. Week 3: add 5 minutes to your daily session. If you read non-fiction, practise skimming one chapter on purpose and then read the next one normally.
  4. Week 4: take the test again with a similar text. Compare both speed and how many questions you got right. If speed went up and the score didn’t drop, that’s real progress.

If your words per minute barely moved but you read more pages than in week 1, that counts too. It’s the more useful number anyway.

Should you read faster at all?

Reading speed is a planning tool, not a ranking. Most adults read somewhere between 175 and 300 words a minute, and that range is normal. If you want to remember what you read, slow is fine: see how to remember what you read. If you want to know how long a particular book will take at your pace, the reading time calculator does the maths.

Talemi helps with the part that works: reading more often. You log your page and, if you like, the minutes, set a daily goal and see your pace in your stats over weeks, not just one test. A gentle reminder at your chosen time helps with the ten extra minutes. For more on tools like this, see how to choose a reading tracker app. See how Talemi works or join early access.

FAQ

Can you learn to read twice as fast? Not without understanding less. The 2016 review of speed-reading research concluded that doubling or tripling a typical speed of about 250 words a minute while keeping full comprehension is unlikely.

How long does it take to read faster? Speed improves gradually with regular reading and a growing vocabulary. Give it a few weeks and measure again with a similar text; don’t expect a jump after one session.

Is reading with your finger a good idea? It can help you keep your place and stay focused. We didn’t find good research showing it makes you faster, so try it and keep it if it feels better.

Does Bionic Reading work? In a 2024 study by Joshua Snell, reading times were no different between Bionic Reading and normal text.

What’s a good reading speed? The adult average for silent reading is about 238 words a minute for non-fiction and 260 for fiction. Anything from about 175 to 300 is typical.

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