What is the average reading speed in words per minute?

The average adult reads 238 words a minute for non-fiction and 260 words a minute for fiction when reading silently, according to Brysbaert (2019), a review of 190 studies. Reading aloud is slower, at 183 words a minute.

Is 300 words a minute a good reading speed?

Yes. At 300 words a minute you are reading about a quarter faster than the average adult does on non-fiction. It is a realistic first target, and most people can reach it with a few weeks of steady practice and a check on comprehension.

How do I find out my own reading speed?

Time yourself on a passage with a known word count, divide the words by the minutes, and then answer questions about it. A speed you did not understand at is not your speed. The free Redline reading speed test does all three in about two minutes.

Why is my reading speed different for different books?

Because the text is different. Fiction uses more common words and familiar structure, so the average rises to 260 words a minute. Dense or technical material pulls everyone down. Your speed is a range, not one number.

What Is the Average Reading Speed for Adults?

The average adult reads 238 words a minute for non-fiction and 260 words a minute for fiction. Those figures come from Brysbaert (2019), a review of 190 studies of silent reading in English. Read aloud, the average drops to 183. If you have heard 300, that number is too high for most people.

Where does the 238 figure come from?

For years the number passed around was 300 words a minute. It showed up in textbooks, in app descriptions and in every article about reading faster. Then the reading rates were collected and counted properly. Brysbaert (2019) pulled together 190 studies of silent reading in English and found the average was lower: 238 words a minute for non-fiction and 260 for fiction.

The gap between those two numbers is the first useful thing to know. Fiction is easier text. The words are more common, the sentences are more familiar, and you are carried by the story. Non-fiction asks more of you per sentence, so you slow down without deciding to.

The same review put reading aloud at 183 words a minute. That matters more than it looks, and the next section is why.

Why do most people stop near that speed?

Because most people say the words in their head. Reading aloud averages 183 words a minute, and silent reading sits only a little above it. The inner voice is not a flaw. It is how you were taught to read, and it never got retired.

The second reason is your eyes. They do not glide along a line. They jump, stop, jump again, and often jump backward to reread words you already understood. Each stop and each backward jump costs time, and none of it feels like wasted time while it is happening.

Put those two habits together and you get a ceiling. Most people sit at that ceiling for life and assume it is simply how fast they read. It is only how fast they have practiced.

What does 238 words a minute mean in real books?

It means the books you mean to finish take longer than you think. Here is the arithmetic at the average pace:

The Great Gatsby, about 47,000 words: 3.3 hours.
1984, about 89,000 words: 6.2 hours.
Pride and Prejudice, about 122,000 words: 8.5 hours.
The King James Bible, about 783,000 words: 54.8 hours.

Now run the same list at 400 words a minute. Gatsby takes under two hours. 1984 takes 3.7. The Bible drops from nearly 55 hours to under 33. Nothing about the books changed. If you want to see what 400 looks like before you believe it, the 400 wpm test shows you a passage at exactly that pace.

How do I measure my own reading speed?

Three steps, and the third is the one people skip.

Read a passage with a known word count at your normal pace, timed.
Divide the words by the minutes. That is your words per minute.
Answer questions about what you read. If the answers do not hold, the number does not count.

The reading speed test does all three. It times you on a short passage, asks four questions, and gives you your speed as a multiple of the 150-wpm baseline, the pace of speech. Take it twice on different days. One run is a reading. Two that agree is a number you can train from.

What is a realistic speed to aim for?

Aim for one step above where you are, not for a headline. If you test at 230, your next target is 280. If you test at 300, it is 350. Each step should come with the same comprehension you had before it, or it is not a step.

Then keep going. Speech runs at about 150 words a minute, and 750 is five times that. It is the mark Redline trains toward, one step at a time, with a quiz at every step. You can see each pace for yourself on the WPM tests, from 200 up to 1,000.

How does Redline raise it?

Redline takes away the two habits one at a time. Words appear one after another in the same spot, with one red letter to look at, so your eyes have nowhere to travel and nothing to jump back to. Then the pace rises in small steps, and on easy words the inner voice starts to fall behind and go quiet.

After every read there is a quiz. That is the part that makes the speed real. When the answers hold, you go up. When they do not, you come down a step and stay there until they do. The full method is on how it works.

Start with your own number. It takes two minutes, and it is the only honest place to begin.