Evidence-based investigations into eye movements, saccades, phonological subvocalization, and comprehension dynamics. We replace 1970s commercial speed-reading myths with peer-reviewed cognitive science and actionable training drills.
How do you start speed reading without losing comprehension? A free 30-day plan of 15-minute daily drills, what the research says about each week, and how weekly retests show your real progress.
SpeedReadTest Team
Daily practice plan with weekly retests
Browse our core knowledge base spanning physiological optics, psychometrics, and digital pacers.
Offline paper worksheets optimized for print (@media print): 30-Day Routine Habit Tracker, SMART WPM Goal Calculator, and 900-Drill Vision Span Pyramids.
How do you start speed reading without losing comprehension? A free 30-day plan of 15-minute daily drills, what the research says about each week, and how weekly retests show your real progress.
What is the average reading speed for adults? Learn how to read faster with comprehension, use the 3 reading gears, and what eye-tracking research says about speed reading.
Anne Jones, Howard Berg and Kim Peek: the famous reading records, what can be verified, and what science says about how fast a human can read.
Skimming finds the main ideas and scanning finds one fact. See how to do each one, when to use them, and what research says about their limits.
How do you calculate Effective Reading Speed (ERS)? Learn the formula, what it can and can’t tell you about skimming, and normal WPM benchmarks.
What is subvocalization meaning in reading? Learn how to stop or reduce subvocalization, why it slows down reading, and what cognitive science says about inner speech.
What RSVP reading is, how an RSVP reader works, what studies found about comprehension and eye fatigue, and when it’s worth using.
What vision span is, how word pyramids and letter drills work, and what research says about whether they help you read faster.
What a Schulte table is, how to use one, rough practice times, and whether it helps reading speed.
How the 1X-2X-3X over-speed drill works, why your normal pace feels slower afterwards, and how to check whether it actually helped.
SpeedReadTest builds all testing passages, pacing intervals, and educational guides directly upon peer-reviewed empirical literature. We credit the researchers whose lab work established what human eyes and brains can truly do.
University of Massachusetts Amherst. A pioneer of eye-tracking research on reading. His work showed that readers use about 3–4 letters left and 14–15 letters right of where they're looking, debunking full-page photographic reading claims.
University of Missouri-Kansas City. Developed Rauding Theory, and argued that reading rate and comprehension should be judged together, the idea behind our Effective Reading Speed score.
Ghent University. Published the 2019 meta-analysis of 190 independent empirical studies (18,573 participants), establishing the gold-standard silent reading rate baseline of 238 words per minute for non-fiction English.
Test your baseline Words Per Minute, pace yourself with our reading pacer, or calculate speech run-times. All tools are 100% free and run completely inside your browser.