# Average Reading Speed: What Is a Good WPM? — Get My Test Score > Adults read 200–250 words per minute with good comprehension. What speed-reading claims get wrong, and how players on this site compare. Source: https://getmytestscore.co.uk/average-reading-speed --- [Home](/) › [Guides](/guides) › What Is the Average Reading Speed? # What Is the Average Reading Speed? Adults read ordinary prose silently at **about 200–250 words per minute**, with a comprehension rate of 60–80% on a test of what they just read. University students average slightly faster, around 250–300 WPM, and skilled readers of familiar material reach 350–400. Claims of 1,000+ WPM "speed reading" do not survive testing: eye-movement research shows that above roughly 500 WPM readers are skimming, and comprehension falls in step. The test on this site times you on a passage and then checks understanding, because speed that loses the meaning is not reading. [Take the reading speed test — free, no sign-up](/reading-speed-test) ## How reading speed is measured Words per minute is the passage length divided by the time taken, but the number is meaningless without a comprehension check. The eyes do not sweep smoothly across a line: they fix on a point for 200–250 ms, take in about seven to nine letters clearly, then jump (a _saccade_) to the next fixation. Roughly one jump in ten goes backwards to re-read. Multiply those numbers out and you arrive at 250–300 WPM as the physiological ceiling for reading every word; the only way to go faster is to skip words, which is skimming. The test here uses passages of general non-fiction at a consistent difficulty, records your time, and then asks questions whose answers were in the text. ## What counts as a good reading speed? A large 2019 meta-analysis of 190 studies put the mean silent reading rate for adults in English at **238 WPM** for non-fiction and 260 WPM for fiction, with the middle half of readers between about 175 and 300. Reading aloud is slower, around 180 WPM, which is why audiobooks are narrated at 150–160. Proofreaders read at 200 WPM or below deliberately. Speed varies far more with the _text_ than with the reader: the same person reads a novel at 300 WPM and a tax form at 100. On this site, 150+ WPM is average, 250+ fast and 350+ very fast on the passages used. ## Speed reading: what the evidence says Keith Rayner and colleagues reviewed the speed-reading literature in 2016 and found no technique that raised reading speed substantially without a matching drop in comprehension. Rapid serial visual presentation apps (one word flashed at a time) prevent the backward glances that fix misunderstandings, so comprehension suffers most on exactly the sentences that need it. Suppressing "sub-vocalisation" does not help either, because inner speech is part of how meaning is built. What _does_ raise effective speed is vocabulary and background knowledge: a reader who knows the words and the subject fixates less often and re-reads less. Reading more is the only proven speed-reading course. ## How to read faster without losing comprehension - **Read more, and more widely.** Vocabulary is the single largest predictor of reading speed. - **Preview the structure.** Headings, first sentences and the conclusion tell you what to look for and cut re-reading. - **Match speed to purpose.** Skim to decide whether to read; read to understand; study to remember. Using the wrong gear is what makes reading feel slow. - **Fix the physical setup.** Comfortable font size, good contrast and short lines (50–75 characters) measurably reduce regressions. - **Get your eyes checked.** Uncorrected mild astigmatism is a common, invisible cause of slow reading in adults. ## Score bands on the reading speed test These are the bands the [reading speed test](/reading-speed-test) on this site uses for its result screen — Typical adult reading speed is 200–250 WPM. | Score | Band | | --- | --- | | 350+ words per minute | Very Fast | | 250–349 words per minute | Fast | | 150–249 words per minute | Average | | 0–149 words per minute | Steady | ## How players on this site compare Every completed [reading speed test](/reading-speed-test) adds an anonymous result to this site's histogram. This page shows the median and distribution once **20** results have been recorded (3 so far); until then the bands above are the guide. The live figures are always on the [benchmarks page](/benchmarks) and at `/api/data/norms`. ## Frequently asked questions ### What is the average reading speed? About 238 words per minute for adults reading non-fiction silently, and around 260 WPM for fiction, according to a 2019 meta-analysis of 190 studies. Reading aloud averages about 180 WPM. ### Is 300 WPM a good reading speed? Yes. Around 300 WPM with good comprehension is faster than about three-quarters of adult readers. Above roughly 500 WPM, eye-movement research shows readers are skimming rather than reading every word. ### Does speed reading work? Not as advertised. Reviews of the research find that techniques claiming 1,000+ WPM trade away comprehension. Vocabulary, background knowledge and regular reading are what genuinely raise speed. ## Related guides - [Average Typing Speed: What Is a Good WPM?](/average-typing-speed) - [What Is a Good Verbal Memory Score?](/what-is-a-good-verbal-memory-score) - [What Is a Good Number Memory Score? Digit Span Explained](/what-is-a-good-number-memory-score) - [Benchmarks: how scores on this site are distributed](/benchmarks) - [All free tests](/free-tests) Site figures are anonymous results recorded on getmytestscore.co.uk and describe this site's players only; they are not clinical norms and should not be used for diagnosis. Research figures are cited from peer-reviewed sources and summarised in plain English. --- _Get My Test Score — see [/llms.txt](https://getmytestscore.co.uk/llms.txt) for the full site map and machine-readable endpoints._