READING SPEED TEST
Reading speed test: how many words per minute do you read?
The average adult reads about 238 words per minute silently (Brysbaert’s 2019 meta-analysis). Read a short passage at your usual pace and this reading speed test works out your words per minute. Then three simple questions show how much of it stayed with you. The whole thing takes about three minutes.
- Press “Start reading”. The text appears and the timer starts.
- Read as you normally would, without rushing or going back to the start.
- When you reach the end, press “Done” and answer three questions.
Reading…
Test passage
Every weekday, Ana takes the 7:40 train into the city. The journey lasts twenty-five minutes, and for years she spent it scrolling through the news. She would arrive at work feeling tired before she had done anything at all.
Last spring her neighbour, a retired geography teacher called Mr Okafor, left a paperback on her doorstep with a note: “Too good to sit on my shelf.” It was a novel about a family of lighthouse keepers on a windy island in the north.
Ana slipped it into her bag mostly out of politeness. On Monday she read four pages and fell asleep against the window. On Tuesday she read eleven. By Thursday she noticed she was looking forward to the train, which had never happened before. She started keeping a pencil in the book and underlining sentences she wanted to remember, usually short ones about the sea.
The novel had 312 pages. Ana never read for long, but she read almost every day, and the pages added up faster than she expected. Some evenings she even took the book to bed instead of her phone.
On a grey Friday in May, the train reached the city just as she began the last chapter. Instead of hurrying to the office, she sat down on a bench on the platform and read the final nine pages while people streamed past her. Then she closed the book, sat still for a moment and smiled.
That weekend she gave the novel back to Mr Okafor with a note of her own. It said: “What should I read next?” He answered with a whole box of books.
Fewer than two right answers suggests the text went by too quickly. Try again, a little slower.
HOW WE CALCULATE
How to calculate your reading speed
Reading speed is the number of words you read divided by the time in minutes. The test passage has 272 words. If you read it in two minutes, your pace is about 136 words per minute.
Pages per hour assume 250 words per page, the same as in our reading time calculator. The questions don’t change your speed. They only show whether reading turned into skimming.
What is a good reading speed?
| Relaxed under 175 wpm | Common with a hard text, a second language, or when you read carefully. |
|---|---|
| Typical 175–300 wpm | How most adults read silently. The meta-analysis average is 238 words per minute. |
| Fast over 300 wpm | Fast readers. Worth checking that understanding keeps up. |
The ranges come from Brysbaert’s 2019 meta-analysis of silent reading in English. Languages with longer words are read at fewer words per minute, so compare your result with your own earlier results rather than other people’s.
Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? Journal of Memory and Language, 109. · Rayner, K. et al. (2016). So much to read, so little time. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 17(1).
Is faster better?
Not necessarily. A 2016 review by Rayner and colleagues found that speed reading techniques raise speed mostly at the cost of comprehension. When you read for pleasure, pace comes second.
This test gives you a number that helps with planning: how long a book will take, how many pages fit into fifteen minutes. Not a reason to race the whole internet.
How to read a little faster, without tricks
Read more often
Speed comes with practice. A few pages a day does more than one long evening a month.
Put your phone away
Every glance at a notification sends you back to the start of the paragraph. Focus mode helps.
Pick lighter books
Easier text is quicker and more fun to read. The classics will wait.
Read in longer blocks
The first minutes are a warm-up. After a few pages you find your rhythm.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Talemi
Reading time calculator Average reading speed: what research says How to focus while reading
What is the average reading speed?
In Brysbaert’s 2019 meta-analysis, adults reading silently in English averaged 238 words per minute for non-fiction and about 260 for fiction.
Is 300 words per minute fast?
It’s the top of the typical range. Only a small share of adults read faster, usually with a familiar kind of text.
Does speed reading work?
Research doesn’t support big gains in speed without a loss in understanding. Reading regularly works best.
Does the test store my results?
No. Everything is worked out in your browser. Nothing is sent or saved.
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