Do you want to know how fast reader you are? Average? Above average? Slow as a turtle? Better than the rest? What is your reading speed?
If the answer to the first question is “Yes”, then you should test your reading speed. It’s not rocket science; everyone can take that kind of test.
Reading speed is usually measured in words per minute (wpm). Shows the number of words you can read in one minute. 270 words per minute indicates that you can read 270 words per minute, which is 4.5 words per second.
You can perform a reading speed test at home. Find a text and a timer to do it. Then proceed as follows.
1. Choose a text
2. Calculate the number of words in the text
3. Read the text and take your time
4. Find out your reading speed
Choose a text, which has 1 to 2 pages. The text should be nonfiction, so don’t take it from a novel. The difficulty of the text will also affect the results. The more difficult the text you choose, the slower your speed will be. A newspaper article is a good choice for testing.
Next, calculate the number of words in the text. You don’t have to count the words in the whole text. Instead, you can estimate it. For doing it:
1. Count the number of lines in the text
2. Choose a line of text and count the number of words it contains.
3. Multiply these numbers and you will get the number of words in the text
Now you are ready for testing. Start the timer and read. If you have completed the text, stop the stopwatch and check the time.
To estimate your reading speed you have to divide the number of words in the text by your reading time. For example, if you complete a 600 word text in 3 minutes, your speed will be 200 words per minute. You have to treat the minutes as decimals in that calculation. It means that if your time is 2 minutes and 45 seconds, then it is 2.75 minutes.
The average reading speed ranges from 180 to 250 words per minute. Faster than 350 wpm is great. If you can do 500 words per minute or more, then you are a speed reader. Very few people can read that fast without learning speed reading techniques.
But there is always room to increase your reading speed. Even if you can read at 1,300 words per minute, you can improve to 1,400 words per minute. If you are an average person, learning speed reading techniques will allow you to double your reading speed.