Bookmark this: If you’re wondering how to read faster, the honest answer is slow and steady: read often, pick books that suit your mood, and grow your vocabulary. Silencing your inner voice and flashing-word apps cost understanding. To read more, add minutes instead of speed. Ten extra minutes a day beats a 10% faster pace.
This one is for the reader who watches friends post their monthly stacks and quietly wonders what’s wrong with them. Nothing is wrong with you, and the fix probably isn’t the one speed reading ads sell.
Below: what a normal speed looks like, what research says about your inner voice, apps and skimming, a way to time yourself, and why reading more is mostly about minutes. Every claim names its source.
A 21-day reading speed experiment
- Day 1: Time yourself for 5 minutes in the book you’re already reading. Work out your words per minute (the formula is further down) and write one sentence about what happened in those pages.
- Days 2 to 7: Read at your normal pace, same chair, same time of day. Don’t push. You’re just collecting a fair baseline.
- Day 8: Time 5 minutes again and write your one-sentence summary. Note how tired you were, too.
- Days 9 to 14: Try the safe adjustments: preview headings before nonfiction chapters, and let your eyes move on when a sentence was already clear instead of rereading out of habit.
- Day 15: Time it once more. If your summary got vaguer, you sped past the story. Ease off.
- Days 16 to 20: Keep your pace and add one extra 10-minute reading slot to your day instead.
- Day 21: Compare total words read per day with Day 1. Which change added more pages: the speed work or the extra slot?
What is a normal reading speed?
Most adults read silently at around 240 to 260 words per minute in English. A 2019 analysis of 190 studies and 18,573 participants put the average at 238 words per minute for nonfiction and 260 for fiction, with most adults falling between roughly 175 and 320. A slower page isn’t a broken page.
Those figures come from 2019 meta-analysis of reading rate by Marc Brysbaert in the Journal of Memory and Language. He also found reading aloud averaged 183 words per minute, and that his estimates came out lower than the numbers often cited in popular writing.
Speed also changes with the book. In a r/NoStupidQuestions thread from someone who reads about 10 pages of a novel an hour, replies ranged from practice advice to the bluntest one: it’s not a race. Several noted that a dense textbook and an easy thriller don’t move at the same pace.
Want your own number? Use this:
- Count the words on three full lines and divide by three. That’s your words per line.
- Multiply by the lines on a full page. That’s your words per page.
- Read for exactly 5 minutes, count the pages, multiply by words per page, then divide by 5.
Small rule: time yourself in the kind of book you actually read for fun, not a hard one you’re dreading.
How to read faster without losing the story
The research answer to how to read faster is less exciting than the ads but far more reliable: read more often, build vocabulary, and read about topics you already know a little about. Expect modest gains over months, not a doubled speed by the weekend.
That conclusion comes from a 2016 review in Psychological Science in the Public Interest by Keith Rayner, Elizabeth Schotter, Michael Masson, Mary Potter and Rebecca Treiman. Its abstract says plainly that the way to keep high comprehension while getting through text faster is to practice reading and become a more skilled language user, because “language skill is at the heart of reading speed.” Schotter put it even more simply in a 2016 newspaper interview: “The hard part of reading is not seeing. The hard part of reading is making sense of language.”
In a r/52book thread on reading faster without losing comprehension, one commenter explained that after lots of World War II history, a phrase like “Operation Dragoon” no longer stops them cold, so the pages move faster. Background knowledge did the work, not a technique.
What that looks like in practice:
- Read in one area for a while. A run of books on the same subject or in the same genre makes each one easier than the last.
- Look up the word that keeps coming back. One quick lookup can save you twenty small stumbles.
- Remove the drag. Bad light, a buzzing phone and a TV in the background all slow you down.
- Let clear sentences go. Rereading out of nerves is different from rereading because you lost the thread. Only the second one is worth it.
Small rule: if you want faster, read more, and let the speed show up on its own schedule.
Does your inner voice slow you down?
Your inner voice may cap your top speed a little, but it isn’t a bad habit to train away. Research on subvocalization, the silent speaking many readers hear in their heads, finds that blocking it hurts reading comprehension, and it matters more as sentences and paragraphs get more complex. Quieting it slightly on easy material is fine.
Most top results tell you to stop “saying the words in your head” by humming or chewing gum. The research points the other way. As the overview of subvocalization research summarizes, experiments that tie up the speech muscles (for example, by having people repeat an irrelevant word while reading) show that this interference impedes reading comprehension but not listening comprehension. The inner voice seems to help hold a sentence in memory long enough to make sense of it.
Experienced readers describe a softer version of this. In the r/52book thread, one commenter said they turn the inner monologue down on light books and read faster without it, then switch it back on to reread when their concentration slips. Another said trying to force speed simply made them forget more. Let the voice get quieter on easy books and welcome it back when the prose gets dense.
Small rule: if you’ve stopped “hearing” a book and can’t say what just happened, your inner voice wasn’t the problem. Your attention was.
Do speed reading apps actually work?
Apps that flash one word at a time in the center of the screen can push your speed up, but understanding usually drops with it. Studies of this format, called rapid serial visual presentation or RSVP, found weaker comprehension and more eye strain. Training apps can bring modest gains, mostly by making you more aware of how you read.
The 2016 review explains why the flashing-word idea disappoints. According to the ScienceDaily summary of the review, eye movements account for no more than 10% of the time we spend reading, so removing them saves little. Worse, the format stops you glancing back at a missed word, which the authors found tends to make comprehension worse.
Testing one such app directly, Simone Benedetto and colleagues reported in a 2015 study of a flashing-word app in Computers in Human Behavior that the app they tested, Spritz, impaired literal comprehension and increased visual fatigue, with readers blinking less than usual.
The fairer news comes from a 2023 study in the Journal of Research in Reading. Klimovich and colleagues gave 30 undergraduates either app-based speed reading training, a training about their own reading habits, or nothing. Both trained groups read faster than the control group, though not as much as the app claimed, and comprehension didn’t differ. The authors suggest the gain came from readers paying more attention to their own reading process.
Small rule: if an app promises to double or triple your speed with full understanding, ask it for the study.
When should you skim, and when should you slow down?
Skim when you only need the gist, like a work report, a chapter you’re reviewing or a topic you know well. Slow down when the sentences are the point: literary novels, poetry, dense arguments and anything new to you. Skimming is a real skill, but it trades depth for speed, so choose it on purpose.
The 2016 review’s abstract notes that if a thorough understanding isn’t your goal, speed reading or skimming will get you through a text faster “with moderate comprehension.” The catch is that word moderate. In the r/52book thread, one reader said they slow down for a demanding literary novel and even read it two or three times, while they skim the repetitive stretches of a long fantasy series. Two speeds, both correct.
| What you’re reading | Best pace | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Comfort read or easy genre fiction | Let it run, skim the recaps | You know the patterns, so less is lost |
| Literary novel or poetry | Slow, reread lines you love | The wording is the experience |
| Textbook or study chapter | Preview headings, then read fully | The preview gives you a map before the detail |
| Work report or long article | Skim for the conclusion first | You often only need the gist |
| Nonfiction on a brand-new topic | Slower than usual | New words and ideas take more processing |
| Fifth book on a topic you know | Faster, with confidence | Background knowledge carries you |
If you mark pages as you go, a few sticky tabs make it easy to come back to anything you skimmed. Our guide on how to annotate a book has a simple key for that.
Small rule: decide your pace before you open the book, not halfway through a guilty chapter.
How to read more without reading faster
To read more, give reading more minutes rather than chasing speed. At a typical 250 words per minute, adding ten minutes a day adds about 2,500 words, while a hard-won 10% speed gain over fifteen minutes adds only about 375. Protecting time is easier, faster to see results from, and keeps the story intact.
Americans aged 15 and older spent roughly 15 to 16 minutes a day reading for personal interest from 2017 to 2023, according to federal time-use data summarized in 2024. Here’s the arithmetic at 250 words per minute:
| Change | Words a day | Gain |
|---|---|---|
| 15 minutes at 250 words per minute | 3,750 | Baseline |
| 15 minutes at 275 (10% faster) | 4,125 | +375 |
| 25 minutes at 250 (10 extra minutes) | 6,250 | +2,500 |
| 30 minutes at 250 (two 15-minute slots) | 7,500 | +3,750 |
One reply in the r/52book thread summed it up: they don’t read faster, they just spend more time reading instead of scrolling. Easy places to find those minutes:
- The first ten minutes of your lunch break, before you open your phone.
- Waiting rooms and the bus, with a paperback in your bag.
- A chair that’s already set up with good light, so starting costs nothing. These reading nook ideas use things you probably own.
If the bigger problem is that you’ve drifted away from books altogether, start with how to get back into reading first. Speed can wait until the habit is back.
Small rule: find one new ten-minute slot before you try to change a single thing about your pace.
Five speed reading myths, and what actually helps
Much of the advice on how to read faster repeats claims that sound scientific but don’t hold up when you check them. Here’s what the research says instead.
| Myth | What actually helps |
|---|---|
| You must silence your inner voice to read fast. | Blocking subvocalization hurts reading comprehension in experiments. Let it get quieter on easy books and keep it for dense ones. |
| Flashing-word apps let you read a novel in an hour. | Benedetto and colleagues found the app they tested hurt literal comprehension and raised eye fatigue. Read on a normal page, where you can glance back. |
| Train your eyes and you’ll take in a whole page at a glance. | The journal’s overview of the 2016 review says how much you take in per glance is limited by cognitive and language factors. Build vocabulary instead. |
| Going back to reread is a bad habit. | The review found that removing the chance to reread makes comprehension worse. Reread on purpose when you lost the thread. |
| Speed reading training is a total scam. | The 2023 trial found modest, real gains, likely from awareness of your own reading. Timing yourself at home gives you much of the same benefit. |
None of this means slow is better. The right pace is the one that lets you enjoy the book. For more on building the habit around that pace, the Reading Habits shelf collects every guide we’ve written on it.
So what would you read with ten extra minutes tomorrow?
Between chapters
Is it bad to be a slow reader?
No. A slower pace often means you’re taking in more of each page. Research on reading rate finds a wide normal range among adults, and the right speed is the one where you still follow and enjoy the book.
How do you remember more of what you read?
Write a sentence or two after each chapter or book, and mark lines you want to find again. A reader in the r/52book thread highlights passages and writes a few words after every book, which beats trying to memorize as you go.
Is it cheating to skim parts of a novel?
Not at all. You’re reading for yourself, not for a test. Skimming a long battle scene or a recap chapter is a choice about where your attention goes, as long as you slow down for the parts you came for.
Does knowing a topic help you read faster?
Yes. Familiar names, terms and settings take less effort to process, so the pages move faster. Reading several books on one subject is one of the most reliable ways to speed up without losing understanding.
When is slow reading worth getting checked?
If reading feels far harder than listening, words seem to jump or blur, or slow reading is hurting school or work, ask a doctor, school or reading specialist about an assessment. Commenters in the r/NoStupidQuestions thread suggested the same.
How we researched this: Book details (publication dates, series order, formats) are checked against the publisher and library catalogs. AI helped with an early draft; the writer rewrote it and checked every title.
Sources: Rayner, Schotter, Masson, Potter and Treiman, speed reading review abstract (2016), Psychological Science in the Public Interest; ScienceDaily (2016); Association for Psychological Science overview of the review; Boston Globe interview with Elizabeth Schotter (2016); Brysbaert, Journal of Memory and Language (2019); Benedetto et al., Computers in Human Behavior (2015); Klimovich et al., Journal of Research in Reading (2023); subvocalization research overview; National Endowment for the Arts on American Time Use Survey data (2024); reader discussions on r/52book and r/NoStupidQuestions.
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