How Fast Should I Read? Average Reading Speed by Age

You should read faster than you talk. Speech runs at 150 words a minute, and most people read close to it for life. The average adult reads 238 words a minute on non-fiction and 260 on fiction. Children are slower while they learn, speed climbs through school, and then it stops, unless you train it. Redline trains it toward 750.

What is the average reading speed?

For adults, there is a solid number. The average adult reads 238 words a minute for non-fiction and 260 for fiction, reading silently, and the figures come from Brysbaert (2019), a review of 190 studies. Read aloud, the average is 183.

Reading	Words a minute
Silent, non-fiction	238
Silent, fiction	260
Aloud	183

You may have seen 300 quoted as normal. It is too high for most people. If you test near 240, you are not slow. You are typical.

Now put those numbers next to speech. People talk at 150 words a minute. The typical adult reads only a little faster than that, and the reason is simple: most readers say each word in their head, so their reading is tied to the speed of talking.

How does reading speed change with age?

It follows one clear shape, and the shape matters more than any table.

Early school years. A child is still working out the words. Every one has to be sounded. Reading is slow because it is still being built.

Later school years. Words become automatic. The child stops sounding and starts recognising. Speed climbs year after year, because school makes them read every day.

Adult life. Speed levels off. Not because of a limit, but because the practice stops. Nobody asks an adult to read faster. The pace you left school with is the pace you bring to every contract, report and novel for the next fifty years.

We are not going to print a words-per-minute figure for each age. We have a strong source for adults and we will not put numbers on children that we cannot stand behind. The pattern is what you can rely on: speed rises while someone is training you, and stops when they stop.

So is age the thing that matters?

No. Practice is.

Once reading is automatic, your speed is set by habit. Two habits, mainly. You say each word in your head, which holds you near the pace of speech. And your eyes jump along the line and back again, which costs time on every row.

Neither habit cares how old you are. A reader of twenty-five and a reader of sixty-five who both say every word are held to the same ceiling. And either one can train past it, because the fix is the same: words shown one at a time so the eyes stop travelling, and a pace that rises until the inner voice falls behind.

How fast should you aim to read?

Use speech as your yardstick. It is the pace you already understand words at without effort.

• 150 words a minute: the baseline. The speed of talking.
• 300: 2×. A strong first target, and faster than most adults ever read.
• 450: 3×. Reading by sight on most text.
• 750: 5×. The mark Redline trains toward.

Each of those is a real pace you can look at right now. The WPM tests show one passage at every speed, and the 300 wpm test is a good first one to try.

What you should not do is pick a number and force it. A pace only counts if you understand at it. That is why every read in Redline ends with a quiz, and why the pace moves up only when the answers hold.

How do you find your own number?

Measure it. It takes two minutes.

The reading speed test times you on a short passage and then asks four questions. You get your words per minute, your comprehension, and how many times the 150 baseline you read.

Take it twice on different days. One run is a reading. Two that agree is your number.

What do you do with it?

Train from it. Set Redline 50 words a minute above your result and read for ten minutes a day. Take the quiz after each read. Go up 25 when two quizzes in a row hold. The method is laid out in how to read faster.

Your age set your reading speed once, back when you were learning. It has not been in charge since. You are.