Reading speed test: how many words per minute do you read?
Take a free reading speed test: read a short passage, answer 4 questions and see your words per minute and comprehension next to the adult average.
Take the test
2. Read at your normal pace, then press Done. 3. Answer 4 short questions.
The timer starts when the text appears. Adult average: 238 words per minute for non-fiction, 260 for fiction. Nothing leaves this page.
Non-fiction · 347 words
Why bread goes stale
Most people believe that bread goes stale because it dries out. It is a reasonable guess. A loaf left on the counter feels hard, and a hard crust looks like something that has lost its water. But the main cause of staleness is not drying. It is a slow change in the starch inside the bread, and it happens even when no water escapes at all.
When dough bakes, the heat and moisture make the starch grains swell and loosen. Their long chains of sugar molecules spread out and hold water between them. This loose, open structure is what makes fresh bread soft and springy. As the loaf cools, the chains begin to move back together and line up in tidy, tight patterns, squeezing water out of their way. Food scientists call this process retrogradation. The crumb becomes firm and crumbly, and the water that was once held by the starch moves toward the crust, which turns leathery instead of crisp.
Temperature changes how fast this happens. Staling is quickest at cool temperatures just above freezing, which is why bread kept in the refrigerator often turns stale sooner than bread kept on the counter. Freezing, on the other hand, nearly stops the process, because the molecules can barely move. A loaf sliced and frozen on the day it was baked can taste close to fresh weeks later.
Heat can also undo some of the damage. Warming a stale roll in the oven loosens the starch again, and for a short time the bread feels soft. The effect does not last. Once the roll cools, the chains line up once more, often faster than before, so reheated bread is best eaten right away.
Bakers have their own tricks. Breads made with fat, sugar or milk tend to stay soft longer, because these ingredients get in the way of the starch chains. Whole grain loaves and sourdough can also keep well. For the ordinary home cook, the simplest advice holds: keep bread at room temperature for a day or two, and freeze what you will not eat in time.
Non-fiction · 326 words
The quiet work of earthworms
Few animals are as easy to overlook as the earthworm. It has no eyes, no legs and no bones, and it spends most of its life underground. Yet gardeners have long known that a handful of soil full of worms is a sign of healthy ground, and scientists have spent more than a century explaining why.
Charles Darwin was one of the first to take worms seriously. Near the end of his life he published a whole book about them. He had watched them for years, placing chalk and stones on a field and measuring how slowly they sank as worms carried soil up from below and left it on the surface. His conclusion surprised many readers: over long periods, these small creatures move enormous amounts of earth.
Worms do this work by eating. As they tunnel, they swallow soil along with bits of dead leaves and roots. The material passes through their bodies and comes out as small, dark pellets called casts. Casts are richer and finer than the soil around them, and plants can use them easily. In this way, worms turn fallen leaves into food for the next season's growth.
Their tunnels matter too. Each burrow is a narrow channel that lets air and rainwater reach deeper layers of soil. After heavy rain, ground with many worm tunnels drains faster and is less likely to stay waterlogged. Roots follow the same paths, pushing down more easily where a worm has already opened the way.
Worms need the right conditions to do this job. They breathe through their moist skin, so they avoid soil that is very dry, and they come to the surface when the ground floods. They also suffer when soil is dug over again and again, which breaks up their burrows. Gardeners who want more worms often do less: they leave a layer of fallen leaves or compost on top and let the worms pull it down on their own schedule.
Fiction · 342 words
The spare key
Nora found the key on the first cold morning of October, taped to the underside of her mailbox. It was small and brass, with a paper tag tied to it by a piece of red thread. On the tag, in careful blue handwriting, someone had written a single word: Tuesday.
She stood on the porch for a long time, turning it over in her fingers. She had lived in the narrow yellow house for three months and had never met the person who lived there before her. The landlord had said only that the previous tenant was an older man who had moved to be near his daughter. Nora had assumed he had left nothing behind except a few coat hangers and a jar of buttons in the kitchen drawer.
The key fit none of her doors. It did not open the shed, the side gate or the old wooden box in the attic. By Monday night she had nearly given up. Then, walking home from the bus stop, she noticed the community garden at the end of the street. Along its fence stood a row of small green lockers, the kind people use to store tools. Each had a number painted on the front. One of them had a faded day of the week painted underneath.
The key turned with a soft click. Inside she found a trowel, a pair of gloves worn thin at the fingertips, a packet of seeds and a notebook. The notebook was full of dates, weather notes and little drawings of carrots, beans and marigolds. On the last page, in the same blue handwriting, was a short message. It said that the plot by the fence had been his for eleven years, that the soil was good and that whoever found the key should plant the garlic before the first frost.
Nora read it twice. Then she pulled on the thin gloves, knelt by the fence and began to dig. Three weeks later, she wrote her own first entry in the notebook, under his last one.
Timer running
Your reading speed
0words per minute
0%understood
0:00reading time
0%vs. adult average
0200400600+
The short answer
The average adult reads about 238 words per minute silently for non-fiction and 260 for fiction, and most fall between 175 and 300. This reading speed test times you on a passage of about 340 words, then asks four questions, because speed only counts if you understood what you read.
Average reading speed
The best estimate comes from a 2019 review of 190 studies with more than 18,000 readers: adults read English silently at about 238 words per minute for non-fiction and 260 for fiction. Most adults fall between 175 and 300 words per minute for non-fiction. Reading aloud is slower, at about 183.
Reading
Average
Most adults
Silent, non-fiction
238 wpm
175 to 300 wpm
Silent, fiction
260 wpm
200 to 320 wpm
Aloud
183 wpm
Rates are lower for children, for older adults and for people reading in a second language. The often-quoted figure of 300 words per minute is higher than what most studies actually measured.
How the reading speed test works
Read one passage of about 330 to 350 words at the pace you use for an article or a book. The timer starts when the text appears and stops when you press Done.
Words per minute is the number of words divided by your reading time in minutes. 340 words in 1 minute 30 seconds is about 227 wpm.
Answer four questions without looking back. Three or four right means you read for understanding; fewer suggests you went faster than your comfortable pace.
One passage is a snapshot. Take the test on two or three passages and look at your typical number, not your best one. Your results stay in this browser so you can compare later.
Does speed reading work?
Not in the way it is usually sold. A major 2016 review of reading research found a trade-off between speed and accuracy: it is unlikely that anyone can double or triple their speed, say from 250 to 500 or 750 words per minute, and still understand a text as well as at their normal pace. Techniques and apps that push speed mostly teach skimming. Skimming is useful when you only need the gist, such as when deciding whether a report is worth reading, but comprehension drops.
The limit comes from how reading works. Your eyes jump along a line and pause briefly on most words, and in each pause you see only a small window of letters sharply. Speeds above about 1,000 words per minute are not possible without losing much of the meaning.
How to read faster with good understanding
Read more, and read widely. The same review concluded that the reliable way to read faster without losing comprehension is to become a more skilled reader, mostly through practice. A daily habit does more than any trick. See how to build a reading habit.
Grow your vocabulary. Language skill is at the heart of reading speed. Words you know well are recognized quickly; unfamiliar ones slow you down.
Know something about the topic. Background knowledge lets you predict what comes next. Start a hard subject with a shorter, easier book.
Match speed to purpose. Skim to find, read carefully to learn. Slowing down for a hard paragraph is part of good reading.
Remove distractions. Rereading a paragraph because your mind wandered costs more time than reading slowly. Read how to focus while reading a book.
What your speed means for a reading habit
At 238 words per minute, 20 minutes a day is about 4,800 words, so an 80,000-word book takes about 17 days. Reading 30 minutes a day at the same pace gets through that book in about 11 days. To turn minutes into a daily target, read how many pages you should read a day, and track books in the reading log.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good reading speed?
For adults, 175 to 300 words per minute on non-fiction is the normal range, as long as you understand what you read. Above 300 wpm with three or four questions right is faster than most adults.
What is the average reading speed for adults?
About 238 words per minute for silent reading of non-fiction and 260 for fiction, based on a review of 190 studies. Reading aloud averages about 183 words per minute.
Is 300 words per minute good?
Yes. It is at the top of the usual adult range for non-fiction and above the average of 238. The often-quoted idea that 300 wpm is average is higher than what studies actually measured.
Can you really read 1,000 words per minute?
Not with full understanding. Research on eye movements shows that speeds above about 1,000 words per minute mean skipping much of the text. Speed reading at that pace is skimming.
Does speed reading work?
It helps you skim, not read faster with the same understanding. A 2016 review found a trade-off between speed and comprehension and concluded that doubling or tripling your speed without losing understanding is unlikely.
How can I improve my reading speed?
Read more and read widely. Skilled readers are faster mainly because they know more words and recognize them quickly, so practice and a bigger vocabulary help more than tricks. Removing distractions also saves time spent rereading.
How long does it take to read 1,000 words?
About 4 minutes at the average adult speed of 238 words per minute, about 5 minutes at 200 wpm and a little over 3 minutes at 300 wpm.
Are my results saved?
Yes, in this browser on this device, so you can compare attempts. Nothing is sent to our server. Press Clear under your past results to delete them.
