What Makes a Fast Reader? & How to Improve Reading Speed

Quite frankly, I have been asked the same question for million times!

How do you read so fast? To which I innately answer “I just read”.

As time passed, I gave some thoughts to this very question, which lead me to a myriad other questions such as,

Do I read that fast? What is considered as fast reading? How some people have become faster readers than the others?

This blog post is an attempt to retell what I learnt on the question “What makes a fast reader?”.

[Image: My kitty Pixie "reading" Physics lectures. Credits: David Hunter]

WPM, or Words per Minutes is a measure of reading speed. According to Brysbaert (2019)[1], the silent English reading speed for adults is 238 WPM (non-fiction) and 260 WPM (fiction). The slight difference in fiction and non-fiction rates are attributed to the longer words used in non-fiction in comparison to that of fictions.[1] For reading aloud, the rate is 183 WPM suggesting slower speeds for auditory readers. We’ll circle back to this with the concept of subvocalisation.

Interested in finding out your English reading speed? Check here [For fun only]. http://www.freereadingtest.com/

Next, let’s look at some of the factors that may be affecting the silent reading speed. By understanding these common factors, we can extrapolate to how to improve the reading speed, whether it is to enjoy reading more materials, saving more extra time for other activities, or just for the fun of it. This post is written with English Language readers in mind, nevertheless, the information can be applied to when reading in other languages.

Some Factors Affecting Reading Speed:

Reader specific:

1. Age[1] – Small children and some older adults may have slower WPM.

2. Readers with English as a second or foreign language reads slower than those with English as a native or tandem parallel first language.[1] This is because of the latter group is more familiar with the language and its structures.

3. The size of the English lexicon [1,2] – The readers with larger lexicon will easily process the information with less backtracking and running them to their dictionaries than a reader with smaller lexicon.

4. Subvocalisation rate [1,3] – Subvocalisation or the silent speech is the internal speech typically made when reading, which provides the sound of the word as it is read. While this is something almost everyone does naturally, and increases the comprehension rate, the process may also slow down the reader a bit.

5. Reader’s ability to read chunks of the text as opposed to reading word by word.[1,4] This technique is also known as reading groups of words/ chunking words. Adult English readers tend to read ~3-4 words at a time. However, every reader is likely to have an optimal language input rate above which the comprehension declines, but under which comprehension also falls because the information comes in too slowly to be integrated into meaningful chunks. So, it is advisable to find out your own optimal chunk size.

6. Certain reading disorders such as dyslexia can have impact on the reading speed as well as in comprehension rate.[1,5] Thankfully to the world we live in today, not only the reading disorders are treatable to some extent, but also have various technological advancements help readers with these disorders overcome the problems.

Reading material specific:

1. Vocabulary used in the material [1] – Some hard to read materials may contain advanced vocabulary that makes even most fluent readers run to their dictionaries. Furthermore, the use of a larger quantity of longer words may also slow down the readers.[1]

2. Readability of the material [1,2] – Readability is defined as the ease with which a written text can be understood by a reader. The readability of a particular text depends on both the complexity of its vocabulary as well as syntax.

As we have seen so far, the reading speed of oneself is not determined by one factor but a several. While, there’s nothing much we could do as a reader to improve the readability of a particular text, there are certain ways to improve the reading speed by paying attention to reader-specific factors. Some of these are learning and using new words/ phrases/ idioms, reducing subvocalisation rate, and chunking words. However, there going to be an optimal language input rate above which or below which the comprehension falls for any individual reader.

Something to think about – Practice makes it perfect! Reading regularly increases the reading speed, regardless of the language proficiency. Moreover, regular reading helps improve the language proficiency due to increased size of the lexicon and overall familiarity with the language.

References:

1. Brysbaert M., How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate, Journal of Memory and Language, (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2019.104047

2. Boudjella et al., Non-Native Speaker Readability Metric: Reading Speed and Comprehension, Journal of Applied Mathematics and Physics, (2017). 10.4236/jamp.2017.56107

3. Carver, R. P. (1990) Reading Rate: A Comprehensive Review of Research and Theory (1990). https://ltl.appstate.edu/reading_resources/RE_6120_Readings_CHAPTERS/Carver_reading_rate.pdf.

4. https://www.speedreadingtechniques.org/reading-word-groups.

5. https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/reading/conditioninfo/disorders.

~Eshani, Jan 1, 2023