Reading speed test

How to use the test

1. Choose a passage and a text size. The three passages use different lessons, so pick a new one each time you retake the test.
2. Press Start reading. The passage appears and the clock starts.
3. Read at your normal pace, the way you’d read an article you want to understand, then press I’m done.
4. Answer the 3 questions without going back to the text. The right answer and a short explanation appear after each one.
5. Your result shows words per minute, how many questions you got right, and where your speed sits among adults reading nonfiction.

How your score is worked out

Your speed is the passage’s word count divided by your reading time in minutes. A word is anything between two spaces, and the four lesson titles count too. Say a passage has 220 words and you press I’m done after 55 seconds: 220 ÷ (55 ÷ 60) gives 240 words a minute.

Comprehension is the share of the 3 questions you answer correctly. Each question is a third of the score, so it works as a rough check that you read the passage. It can’t pick up small differences in understanding.

Four rules keep broken runs out of your results:

• A run under 10 seconds, or faster than 1,000 words a minute, gets no score.
• Leaving the tab for more than 5 seconds while the clock runs voids the run. Shorter gaps are taken off your time.
• Above 300 words a minute with fewer than 2 of 3 right, the result says you may have skimmed.
• Above 400 words a minute, the result asks you to read the comprehension score before the speed.

The result also turns your speed into Scroll units. The median lesson in the app is 69 words, so at 238 words a minute it takes 17.4 seconds to read (69 ÷ 238 × 60). The longest, at 115 words, takes about 29 seconds. Your last result stays in this browser, and the reading time calculator can use it.

What a typical reading speed looks like

The best current figures come from Marc Brysbaert’s 2019 meta-analysis, which pooled 190 studies of silent reading with 18,573 adults reading English. The average for nonfiction was 238 words a minute, and most adults fell between 175 and 300. Fiction averaged 260, with most readers between 200 and 320. Reading out loud is slower: 183 words a minute across 77 studies.

Average adult reading rates in English, words per minute

Reading aloud183 wpm

Silent, nonfiction238 wpm

Silent, fiction260 wpm

You’ll often see 300 words a minute given as the average. The same review calls that figure an overestimate. Its averages describe adults reading in their first language; Brysbaert notes that children, older adults and second-language readers are slower, so the range is a fairer comparison than the single average.

Reading speed by school grade

For students, Brysbaert’s review reproduces grade norms from Stanford Taylor’s 1965 study of silent reading with comprehension. The data were collected around 1960. A 2011 replication by Spichtig and colleagues found lower rates in every grade except grade 2, so read the table as a historical yardstick.

Grade	Words a minute, with comprehension
1	80
2	115
3	138
4	158
5	173
6	185
7	195
8	204
9	214
10	224
11	237
12	250
College	280

Speed reading and understanding

Rayner and colleagues’ 2016 review of how reading works found a trade-off between speed and accuracy. They concluded that readers are unlikely to double or triple their speed, from around 250 words a minute to 500 or 750, and still understand the text as well. Skimming is a fair choice when you only need the gist, and you’ll miss details.

The review found the gains that hold up come from practice and stronger language skills, such as a bigger vocabulary. Neither comes quickly, which is why this test reports comprehension next to speed.

Why the passages are Scroll lessons

Each passage joins four lessons from the Scroll app, each from a different category, and the questions are the quizzes the app asks after three of them. Each of these lessons is 45 to 90 words long and names its source in the app. They make good test material because each is a complete text on one idea, with a four-option question about it already written.

A passage of 200 to 240 words takes about a minute at the average speed. That’s short for a reading test. A half-second slip on Start reading or I’m done moves a 55-second result by about 1% (our calculation), and Brysbaert reports that longer texts give steadier numbers: two texts of about 7,300 words each agreed with a correlation of 0.95. Take a few passages and look at the spread before you settle on your number.

What the result doesn’t tell you

One short passage, read on a screen, gives a rough number. Your speed changes with the topic, how hard the text is, your interest and how tired you are, and a subject you know well reads faster. Brysbaert cites studies that found slightly better comprehension on paper than on screens, with similar reading times.

A slow result isn’t a diagnosis of anything, and a fast one doesn’t mean you’d follow a contract or a textbook at that speed. If reading feels hard in a way that worries you, a teacher or reading specialist can assess it properly. To turn your speed into hours for a whole book, use the reading time calculator.