Free online tool
Reading Speed Test
Read a passage at your normal pace, answer three questions, and see your words a minute. Your speed only counts when you understood what you read.
- Public-domain passages
- Speed checked by three questions
- Your text stays in your browser
Take the test
Choose a passage, then press Start reading.
Passage
Read the way you normally would, not as fast as you can. When you press Done reading the passage is hidden and you answer three questions.
Paused. The passage is hidden while the clock is stopped. Press Resume to carry on.
Answer from memory. Every question has one right answer.
This mode has no questions, so it cannot tell whether you took the text in. Treat the result as a rough figure. Choose text you have not read before, because a text you already know is not a fair test.
Paused. The text is hidden while the clock is stopped. Press Resume to carry on.
Already timed yourself? Enter the number of words you read and how long it took. The speed is the words divided by the minutes.
Your result
Take the test to see your speed
Your words a minute will appear here.
0200400600+ words a minute
Your recent results
Saved in this browser only. Nothing is sent anywhere.
How it works
How this reading speed test works
Your reading speed is the number of words you read divided by the minutes you took. You read a passage silently, then answer three questions, because a speed only means something if you actually took the text in.
Words divided by time
Press Start reading, read at your normal pace, and press Done reading. You can pause the clock. While it is paused the passage is hidden, so you cannot keep reading for free.
Three questions
The passage disappears while you answer. Get at least 2 of 3 right and the result counts as reliable. With fewer, you still see your speed, but it is flagged.
Effective speed
Your speed multiplied by the share of questions you got right. At 300 words a minute, 2 of 3 right gives 200 and 3 of 3 gives 300.
Six public-domain passages
Three fiction and three non-fiction excerpts from Project Gutenberg, 274 to 417 words each. The test offers one that is not in your saved results.
Your own text or numbers
Time yourself on any text of at least 50 words. Already have a time? Enter the words and minutes in the calculator.
Stays in your browser
The text you paste, the files you open and your results are not sent to us. Recent results are saved on this device, and you can clear them.
One short test is a rough guide. Speed changes from text to text, so take two or three passages and look at the pattern rather than a single number.
Average reading speed
What is a good reading speed?
The best figure we have found is an average of 238 words a minute for adults reading English non-fiction silently, with most adults between 175 and 300. Faster is not automatically better. A good speed is the pace at which you still understand what you read.
| Reader | Average words a minute | Range for most adults | About the figure | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adults, silent reading, non-fiction | 238 | 175 to 300 | The average in a review of 190 studies (18,573 participants). Most adults fall in the range shown. | Brysbaert (2019) |
| Adults, silent reading, fiction | 260 | 200 to 320 | Fiction reads a little faster. The review says word length predicts the gap, because non-fiction has longer words. This figure comes from a smaller study of 48 readers in the same paper, so it is less firm. | Brysbaert (2019) |
| Adults, reading aloud | 183 | No range given | The average from 77 studies (5,965 participants). Reading aloud is slower than reading silently. | Brysbaert (2019) |
All three come from one 2019 review of the research. It also reports lower rates for children, older adults and people reading English as a second language, and this page does not tabulate those. The review also says its estimates are lower than the numbers often quoted in popular writing, so be wary of sources that claim a much higher average.
Reading time
How long does it take to read a text at your speed?
Here is how long common lengths take at the low end, the average and the high end of the range where most adults read non-fiction. Times are in minutes and seconds, or hours, minutes and seconds.
| Words | 175 a minute low end | 238 a minute average | 300 a minute high end |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | 2:51 | 2:06 | 1:40 |
| 1,000 | 5:43 | 4:12 | 3:20 |
| 2,000 | 11:26 | 8:24 | 6:40 |
| 5,000 | 28:34 | 21:01 | 16:40 |
| 10,000 | 57:09 | 42:01 | 33:20 |
| 20,000 | 1:54:17 | 1:24:02 | 1:06:40 |
A text of 1,000 words takes 4:12 at the average. For other lengths, or to see speaking time as well, use the words to time converter.
Speed and understanding
Why the questions matter
Anyone can post a big number by skimming. The questions are there to show whether your speed came from real reading.
| Measured speed | Questions right | Effective speed | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 300 | 3 of 3 | 300 | Reliable |
| 300 | 2 of 3 | 200 | Reliable |
| 300 | 1 of 3 | 100 | Not reliable |
| 238 | 3 of 3 | 238 | Reliable |
Effective speed is your measured speed multiplied by the share of questions you got right. Both that formula and the two-of-three rule are our own choices, not published standards. They are there so a skimmed reading does not look like a fast one.
The check has limits. Every question has three options, so someone guessing every answer would still get two or three right about 26% of the time (7 in 27). It makes a skimmed reading less likely to pass, but it cannot rule it out.
Guide
How to take the reading speed test
- Under Passage test, choose a passage. The one pre-selected is not in your saved results.
- Press Start reading. Read silently at the pace you normally read a book or article, not as fast as you can. Do not re-read.
- Press Done reading as soon as you reach the last word. Use Pause if you are interrupted. The passage is hidden while paused.
- Answer the three questions from memory. Then press See my result.
- Read your Reading speed and Effective speed. The scale shows where you sit against the published range. Press Try another passage to repeat with fresh text.
- Want to time something else? Use Your own text for a text you paste or upload, or Calculator if you already know the words and the time.
The passages
The six passages
Each passage is a continuous excerpt from a public-domain book on Project Gutenberg. We wrote the three questions for each one, and every right answer is stated in the passage.
| Passage | Author | Type | Words | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Black Beauty | Anna Sewell | Fiction | 396 | Ebook 271 |
| Alice's Adventures in Wonderland | Lewis Carroll | Fiction | 274 | Ebook 11 |
| The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle | Arthur Conan Doyle | Fiction | 417 | Ebook 1661 |
| My First Summer in the Sierra | John Muir | Non-fiction | 282 | Ebook 32540 |
| The Voyage of the Beagle | Charles Darwin | Non-fiction | 339 | Ebook 944 |
| Up from Slavery | Booker T. Washington | Non-fiction | 410 | Ebook 2376 |
The wording, spelling and punctuation follow the books, including older forms such as bucaniers in Darwin. Curly quotation marks and long dashes are written in plain form, and the date at the start of the Darwin excerpt is left out. These are texts from the 1800s and early 1900s, and the averages above come from a wide range of studies, not from these passages. Treat the comparison with them as approximate.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Why does my speed change every time?
Speed depends on the text. Even the research shows it: Brysbaert (2019) found a different average for fiction and for non-fiction, and says word length predicts the gap. Beyond that, one short reading is one measurement. Take two or three passages and compare them. The history keeps your last 10 results, and its average counts only the ones that passed the check.
Does speed reading work?
Not in the way it is usually sold. Rayner et al. (2016) reviewed the research and concluded that readers are unlikely to double or triple their speed (for example, from around 250 to 500 to 750 words a minute) and still understand the text as well as at normal speed. Skimming gets through a text faster with moderate comprehension. The review says the way to read faster and keep high comprehension is to practise reading and build language skill, such as vocabulary.
Can I test with my own text?
Yes. Choose Your own text, paste or upload at least 50 words, and pick fiction or non-fiction so the result is compared with the matching average. This mode has no questions, so the result is flagged as unchecked. Use text you have not read before.
Why did I get no result?
A result is withheld if you press Done reading in under 5 seconds, or if the figure works out above 1,000 or below 20 words a minute. These cut-offs are our own, not figures from a study. They stop an accidental double click from showing thousands of words a minute, and a timer left running from showing a speed of a few words.
Is my text or data stored or uploaded?
The text you paste, the files you open and your results are handled in your browser. The test does not send them anywhere. Recent results are saved in your browser's local storage so you can see them next time, and Clear history removes them. Opening a PDF downloads the open-source PDF.js reader from the jsDelivr CDN, but your file stays on your device. The page also loads third-party scripts such as Google Tag Manager and Cloudflare analytics, so avoid pasting highly confidential material into any web page you do not control.
What file types can I upload?
TXT, MD, HTML, RTF, DOCX, ODT and PDF files of up to 10 MB. The file is read inside your browser. Text beyond 2 million characters is cut off, only the first 300 pages of a PDF are read, and a scanned PDF that holds only images has no text to read.
Sources
Sources
- Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate. Journal of Memory and Language, 109, 104047. Link
- Rayner, K., Schotter, E. R., Masson, M. E. J., Potter, M. C., and Treiman, R. (2016). So much to read, so little time: How do we read, and can speed reading help? Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 17(1), 4-34. Link
- Anna Sewell, Black Beauty. Project Gutenberg ebook 271. Link
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Project Gutenberg ebook 11. Link
- Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (excerpt: The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle). Project Gutenberg ebook 1661. Link
- John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra. Project Gutenberg ebook 32540. Link
- Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle. Project Gutenberg ebook 944. Link
- Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (excerpt: Up from Slavery). Project Gutenberg ebook 2376. Link
The five rules of this test are our own choices with no study behind them: two of three questions right for a reliable result, the effective speed formula, the 5 second minimum, the 1,000 words a minute ceiling, and the 20 words a minute floor.
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Last updated: November 2026