Average Reading Speed
By Age and Grade Level
Why should we be concerned about how to improve our average reading speed? The fact is, reading faster makes learning much easier. Reading speed affects our ability to comprehend text.
Table of Contents
- Overview
- By Age and Grade Level
- College Student Average Reading Speed
- Adult Average Reading Speed
- How to Read Faster
- Speed Reading Debunked
- Top Ways to Improve Your Reading Speed
- Summer Reading Program
- Next Steps
Average Reading Speed Overview
Reading too slowly impairs our comprehension. When you read too slowly, it is hard to hold a complete thought in place. The action of reading slowly is inefficient. Reading slowly makes it difficult to understand what you read.
Reading too quickly and speed reading can also lead to poor comprehension. When you read too fast, supporting details are often lost. People sometimes skim while reading and miss important parts. This makes me think of the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. This chair is too big, this one is too small, ah, this one is just right.
When your average reading speed is just right, you read fluently with comprehension.
So, the question remains, should we improve our reading speed? The first answer is yes. If you are a student and not reading at the average rate for your grade level, you should work on improving your reading rate. That will actually be the sweet spot, or as Goldilocks said, “This one is just right.”
Average Reading Speed by Age and Grade Level
The chart below includes the average reading fluency rates by grade level and age.
| Grade Level and Age | Words-Per-Minute |
|---|---|
| 1st Grade (Spring) 6-7 years old | 53 – 111 wpm |
| 2nd Grade (Spring) 7-8 years old | 89 – 149 wpm |
| 3rd Grade (Spring) 8-9 years old | 107 – 162 wpm |
| 4th Grade (Spring) 9-10 years old | 123 – 180 wpm |
| 5h Grade (Spring) 10-11 years old | 139 – 194 wpm |
| 6th-8th Grade (Spring) 11, 12, 13, 14 years old | 150 – 204 wpm |
| Highschool 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 years old | 200 – 300 wpm |
| College 18-23 years old | 300 – 350 wpm |
| Adults | 220 – 350 wpm |
Please note that the above reading rates do not take into account technical reading. Technical readings will be read slower than the average reading rates above.
In order to improve reading speed, there are specific skills that need to be nurtured. Any student, no matter what their age, can learn to read faster.
How fast do you and your kids read? Take the reading speed test.
Pages Per Hour Average Reading Speed (College Students)
Based on research from Rosalind Streichler, Ph.D., Center for Teaching Development, University of California, San Diego; Karron G. Lewis, Ph.D., Associate Director, Center for Teaching Effectiveness. Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment, The University of Texas at Austin; and research conducted at Cambridge University in England; we can assume that the average college student can read 250 words per minute and that the average textbook has approximately 800 words per page. Therefore, it would take 3.2 minutes to read one page, 32 minutes to read 10 pages, and a little over an hour to read 20 pages.
Adult Average Reading Speed
The average reader can read 238 words per minute (WPM) while reading silently. When reading aloud, the average reader can read 183 words per minute (WPM).
Previously, it had been thought that the average adult reads at a rate of 300 words per minute. However, Marc Brysbaert from Ghent University in Belgium analyzed 190 studies on reading rates. He found that the average adult reading rate has been overestimated.
Silent-reading adults average 238 words per minute. Adults who read aloud average 183 words per minute.
With more and more new research on neuroplasticity, we know that even adults’ brains can change their brain structure, make new neuropathways, and improve their learning skills. This is done most effectively through consistent practice in short intervals over days. It might be hard to teach an old dog a new trick, but improving your average reading speed is possible, even as an adult.
How to Read Faster
How do you improve your average reading speed (without sacrificing comprehension)?
The most effective way to improve your average reading speed is to do reading fluency training. Fluency training speeds up your ability to both decode and retrieve information from memory, RAN (Rapid Automatized Naming).
A second piece of improving fluency is to strengthen your eye movements (eye training). In order to read with skill, your eyes need to move smoothly across the page from left to right (visual tracking).
So, we should look for a moment at research on eye movements.
Rayner, in 1997, summarized 25 years of research on eye movements. Reading involves eye movements. These eye movements are called saccades. This is when the eyes are moving rapidly. Rapid eye movements and eye-tracking are separated by fixations when the eyes are relatively still.
Saccade movements typically travel about 6 to 9 letter spaces. They are not impacted by the size of the print. The complete perceptual span is larger, extending to 14 or 15 letter spaces to the right and 3 to 4 spaces to the left. It is the saccade movement to the left combined with the perceptual span length that assures that every letter of every word enters the visual field.
Understanding this visual span perception span combination leads us to realize that efficient readers do this easily. About 10-15% of the time, readers also shift back (known as regression) to look back at the material that has already been read. As the text becomes more difficult, saccade length tends to decrease, and regression frequency increases.
If you skip words, repeat words, or have trouble sounding out words, this throws fluency and the meaning of the selection off. However, these skills can improve with fluency training.
Fluency Training Improves RAN (Rapid Automatized Naming).
- A recent study (Wolff, 2014) showed that such training was widely beneficial for reading achievement.
- To help with reading fluency and visual tracking skills, you should have shapes, letters, numbers, or symbols listed from left to right. Then, have your students read the objects aloud to improve their rapid naming skills.
- Rapid Naming Drills
- Reading Fluency Drill
- Scholar Within’s Summer Reading Program
How to Improve Reading and Spelling Skills at Home
Reading and Spelling Program Details
- Grades K-8
- Reading Speed Training
- Comprehension Strategies
- 20-Weeks of Lessons per Level
- 45-60 Minutes a Day
- Video Spelling Lessons
- Self-Paced, Online, and Offline Activities
Speed Reading Debunked
Speed reading per se, the thought of reading at speeds of above 1000 words per minute—much higher than the 200-400 words per minute achieved by the average college-level reader sounds like it would be amazing. The problem though is that it is completely false.
Look back at the example of the visual span. All of the text that is outside of that tiny visual field area is blurry. So the idea promoted by speed reading that we can use our peripheral vision to grasp whole sentences in one go is just…biologically impossible.
Additionally, a study conducted by scientists from the University of California, MIT, and Washington University found that there is a trade-off between speed and accuracy. “Increasing the speed with which you encounter words, therefore, has consequences for how well you understand and remember the text.”
Top Ways to Improve Your Average Reading Speed WPM
So, when we talk about improving reading speed, we are NOT talking about speed reading! We are talking about improving your reading speed and accuracy along with comprehension to a physically sound rate for your age or grade level.
- Find your baseline or how many words per minute you currently read accurately. Take the free reading speed test to find out.
- Train your eyes with phonetic reading drills (just takes 5 to 6 minutes a day 3 to 5 times a week).
- Following the practice, read a short selection to continue the progress made with the reading drill and have an opportunity for comprehension practice.
- Set goals and monitor progress.
- Set a goal for 10, 15, 20, or even 25 more words per minute to pass the specific practice drill. It should take 3 – 4 days to pass your goal. Otherwise, you have not set the goal high enough. If it takes longer, then you’ve set the goal too high.
- Model reading fluency
- Read to your child so they hear the rhythm of a story, book, or selection.
- Take turns reading with your child every other paragraph or page.
- Choral read
- Choral reading is where you read aloud at the same time as another reader.
- Choral read with your child with both specific reading drills and stories.
- Choral read selections, rhymes, or poems.
- Use Tap to Read from Scholar Within
- Reading passages in Scholar Within’s Summer Reading Program come alive with Tap to Read
- Press play to listen and follow along with the highlighted text
- You can:
- Change the speed of reading
- Change font
- Increase font size
- Turn on and off highlighting
- Try Tap to Read below
Tap to Read – Read-aloud Technology from Scholar Within
Next Steps
At-Home, Online, & Self-Paced Summer Reading Program Program
This summer, your kids can improve their reading speed, comprehension, spelling, and more in our at-home and online summer reading program. This program is research-based and results-driven. The program takes 45-60 minutes a day and is 4 days a week with an optional Friday.
Learn More about the Summer Reading Program
Reading Speed Test
We have put together leveled reading passages that you can use to time yourself or your child. The free reading speed test will help you understand how your student’s reading speed and accuracy (reading fluency) compare to other students in their grade level.
Reading Fluency Training
Download the first drill of our custom-designed reading fluency training. The first sets of words have extra space between the letters, highlighting or emphasizing the letter or letter combination being studied. The fluency training program organizes the drills according to phonic rules and letter combinations. Each drill builds upon prior drills, providing continual review and mastery of all concepts.
› Download the Free Reading Drill
Download Free Reading Drill
Research Supports Reading Fluency
Students who read slowly typically have difficulty sounding out words, focusing, and attending to reading content. As a result, both their comprehension and writing skills are impacted.
Multiple studies by Palmer, Bashir, and Hook found a strong positive correlation between reading fluency, reading comprehension, and writing skills.
If a reader does not recognize words quickly enough, the meaning will be lost.
Reid Lyon, Ph.D., stated in 1997, “While the ability to read words accurately is a necessary skill in learning to read, the speed at which this is done becomes a critical factor in ensuring that children understand what they read. As one child recently remarked, ‘If you don’t ride a bike fast enough, you fall off.’ Likewise, if the reader does not recognize words quickly enough, the meaning will be lost… If the reading of the words on the page is slow and labored, the reader simply cannot remember what he or she has read, much less relate the ideas they have read about to their own background knowledge.”
A 2017 study by Taylor, Davis, and Rastle showed that learning to read by sounding out words (phonics) has a dramatic impact on both the accuracy of reading aloud and on comprehension. Researchers tested whether learning to read by sounding out words is more effective than focusing on whole-word meanings. Their results suggest that early literacy should focus on phonics (letters-to-sounds) rather than on teaching sight-word strategies (whole language approach).
What grade is your child?
Select a grade level to learn more about our reading programs:
