The average person’s reading speed is slower than commonly thought
digest.bps.org.uk
digest.bps.org.uk
Abstract:
> Based on the analysis of 190 studies (17,887 participants), we estimate that the average silent reading rate for adults in English is 238 word per minute (wpm) for non-fiction and 260 wpm for fiction. The difference can be predicted by the length of the words, with longer words in non-fiction than in fiction. The estimates are lower than the numbers often cited in scientific and popular writings. The reasons for the overestimates are reviewed. Reading rates are lower for children, old adults, and readers with English as second language. The reading rates are in line with maximum listening speed and do not require the assumption of reading-specific language processing. The average oral reading rate (based on 77 studies and 5,965 participants) is 183 wpm. Within each group/task there are reliable individual differences, which are not yet fully understood. For silent reading of English fiction most adults fall in the range of 175 to 300 wpm; for fiction the range is 200 to 320 wpm. Reading rates in other languages can be predicted reasonably well be taking into account the number of words these languages require to convey the same message as in English.
Instead, I think we should try to measure multi-word expressions (MWEs) per second, and consider special characters (including spaces!) as words.
Why? Well, to start with, due to us already knowing about the Auerbach-Estoup-Yule-Zipf-Pareto-Mandelbrot-Simon-Price Law(s) only holding for multi-word expressions, not for phonemes, words, characters or syllables. Can't dig up the papers on that right now, tho.
(Personally however, I suspect that MWEs per second ain't the be all, end all, of reading speed, either. It ignores concepts like Paronomasia & Polysemy, as well as even more obscure things, like Polyphonemes. I just so far lack sufficient knowing of any possibly plausible hyperparameterizations which'd generally let one compile some metric for further complexity reductions.)
I'd elaborate on /how/ that (partially) answers the "why", but I lack the time to do so at the moment.
Does that include the time taken up by dismissing the "subscribe!" pop-up, and figuring out where you were when you got distracted by that?
I went through the content in about 30 seconds. What I remember:
1. "People read at closer to 240 wpm rather than 300 as was previously thought."
2. This was from a meta-study gathered over various studies spanning the twentieth century, in various languages based on the Roman alphabet.
3. There appears to be some variation in reading speed dependent on language.
- Spanish readers are faster than English
- A key reason for the discrepancy between previously measured reading speeds and the new results is recreational vs test-style assessment. Basically it sounds like people read faster when they are being assessed on their reading.
- It should take about 2 minutes and 30 seconds to finish reading the article.
And then doing a 30 second skim a second time I would have added the following:
- Reading speed depends on if the text is long or short. Shorter text can be much slower.
- Reading speed declines with age.
A third skim and I'd add:
- this is important for assessors, who shouldn't expect everyone to read at 300wpm.
Looking back and comparing my notes across the three reads I actually remember recognizing each one of those points the first time through, but I didn't reliably remember them all after each run. I almost think this might have more to do with the way that memory works than the way reading works.
But now I mostly read non-fiction, and in light of the fact that I remember maybe 8% in detail of the thousands of books I've read, I like to take things very slowly. I'll read a paragraph, stop, think about what I just read, and sometimes read it again just to help things stick.
I break up long articles into multiple sessions, and after each session I try to recall in detail what I just read, and try to form insights and draw connections which help to cement the data into my brain.
If I'm skimming for information, sure, I'll just churn over the text as fast as possible-- But these days I'm reading for knowledge's sake and not escapism. And even when I read fiction, I like to exercise my visual memory and try to imagine every last detail while I read at a leisurely pace.
I see nothing wrong with this approach and thusly I think WPM outside of a desk job is meaningless and not some number corresponding to intelligence that we should be trying to maximize.
You just made me realize that people can and do read fiction without visualizing the majority of things that happen in a story. That suddenly explains so much as to how some people read fiction so quickly.
But now I try to spend more time than before. I try to really soak in every paragraph. Whereas in school I took pride in being the most prolific reader around, there isn't much room in my adult life for such competitive, external motivations. Now the stimulation I receive from art and literature stems from my appreciation of the artist's prowess.
I don't do any of the tricky stuff that 'speed readers' do.
The only thing I'm aware is different is I don't hear the words in my head when I read as I'm often 'reading' a chunk of 3-4 words at once.
I thought this was completely normal til I spoke to an ex about it when she commented I demolished books.
I fall in the “not” category (the average-sized book is a 3-4 hour length for me), but I will occasionally intentionally subvocalize, just to slow myself down a bit.
Can on learn not to subvocalize?
This is what I do, though sometimes it's a second pass over a passage that I want to savor or really focus deeply on.
I've read all of the Discworld novels at least 3 times and a few like Hogfather more than a dozen (I re-read it ever Christmas).
Reading is one of lives truly great pleasures and it's one of lifes most democratic.
I've wondered if this is one of those thing that if you have not learned how to do it before a certain age, your brain can no longer learn it, like seeing in stereo etc...
Once I found books and authors I liked I became a voracious reader, from eight to adulthood it wasn't unusual for me to have 3-4 books on the go at once and to read 3-4 books in a week all the classic works of sci-fi, books on science, computers, geography, history, politics, biology I was a sponge, I'd read almost anything - I used to read while walking to and from school, I walked into surprisingly few lamp posts.
The more I read the less I vocalised the words in my head, I started with pointing at each word (as most kids do) and then I stopped doing that, then I started looking at the word shape rather than the word and not vocalising it at all, it wasn't anything conscious just a natural progression.
In a very profound sense that teacher and my mum altered the scope of my life for the next 30 years, the teacher by realising I just needed the time and the right material and my mum for scouring charity shops/2nd hand book shops to keep me fed with books as money was tight (bless her, she used to keep a list in her purse of all the authors I liked, what books they had written and which I'd read).
So I switched the extra processing power to making context-appropriate inflections, dramatizations, and intonations instead of the monotone my classmates were doing, which the teachers seemed to tolerate.
I do this too, and other people often comment on how well I read out loud.
I often find myself buffering words into vocalization while I read ahead a line or so and prepare the next sentence. I can insert pauses (or intone a clause as an aside) to make it easier for the listener to parse.
What tricks do you have?
The catch is that if I am thinking about something else simultaneously then what I am reading aloud doesn’t make it into memory; I can read for 20 minutes and then suddenly realize that I have no idea what happened in the story. The reading is on autopilot.
Your teacher probably tolerated monotone because your classmates were working hard just to get the words out, and they weren't ready to add inflection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjtPMiumixA Don't Read Like a Robot - Blazer Fresh | GoNoodle
It was stated that the only thing she inspired me to do was slow down my expression of reading speed. Reading faster than my peers and entertaining them is not something people get embarrassed about.
Her telling me to slow down was not a magical way to get me to add inflection out of the void. Being scolded for deviating from normal speed only reinforced the standard school mentality that any deviation = bad. It would have only discouraged me from adding inflections without first being instructed to do so.
>(other classmates) weren't ready to add inflection.
I don't recall my classmates even adding inflection by high school or beyond, let alone by the end of the trimester. At least where I'm from, elementary teachers do not try to add inflection in their students. I'd imagine being able to read itself is more than sufficient to send them on to the next class.
Teachers focusing attention on illiterate students probably took precedence over tinkering with subjective inflections in kids who were not only going to pass their K-5 standardized tests but were already reading at a high school level.
This is why my kids go to private school and I support school choice: when students are treated like widgets that only have to meet some minimum quality standard, that necessarily results in teachers doing exactly as you describe: tolerating mediocrity because mediocrity is the standard. It’s not the teachers’ fault, it’s the way public schools are designed: to output students at a minimum level of competency. Until parents start demanding something beyond the minimum and voting accordingly, just “passing,” is all that we can expect.
I love Philosophy and classic literature and I've yet to meet anyone that's managed to speed read Proust's "In Search of Lost Time", and then tell give me a detailed description of the plot, themes, artistic merit, and so on. Similarly with books like Ulysses. There's no possible way to speed read that book because it's so rich with allusions, references to religion, art, mythology, and philosophy. If you tried to "speed read" it, you would be missing half the point of reading it in the first place.
Reading great books isn't about numbers, you don't get rewarded for how many classics you read in a year. Reading great books is about slowly absorbing all the riches inside, something that just cannot happen if you're rushing. I've read The Brothers Karamazov and The Magic Mountain 4 or 5 times and each time I learn something new and gain a deeper understanding of psychology and life. I find it more rewarding to read and re-read the classics slowly, writing notes, using a critical guide (or book of companion essays), than smashing through as many crappy novels or modern popular non-fiction books (The Power of Now of any of Malcom Gladwells books are typical fodder for todays readers).
I too dismiss things that people enjoy as "crap" because I have such a gigantic brain from reading philosophy and looking down everyone else, and belittle them for believing that they read and understand fast in the wrong type of book.
I'm trying to rally against the crowd you always find in any thread on speed-reading who love to talk about how great they are for reading 10 books a day and gaining nothing from it.
One authors view - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/07/howard-jacobso...
Edit: And I like all of the above books/authors
Some books are quick to read, others slow. Ulysses was intentionally written to be difficult and Stephen King put great effort in making his books easy to read.
I think the reason some folks get defensive on this topic is that it's somewhat common for someone to claim to be an incredibly fast reader, but on closer inspection it is (almost always) revealed that they are reading very straightforward and simple fiction that is about as close to being designed for speed reading as possible. This makes the claim of speed reading feel disingenuous. There can be truly dramatic differences between novels in terms of the complexity of the language used and the nuance of characters and events. I don't think one should expect a particularly celebratory response if one is making other folks feel like slow readers when they actually have been reading far more complicated material.
Or just one that tells it like it is.
Not everything is of the same level (e.g. Bach and Nicky Minaj or Coltrane and Vanilla Ice), and not everything is equally "subjective". The same that goes for music, goes for literature, cinema, and so on.
Sure, USA was founded on a populist ideology, where no individual's tastes and cultural development is lesser than another's. Well, not all cultures agree with that.
>I too dismiss things that people enjoy as "crap" because I have such a gigantic brain from reading philosophy and looking down everyone else, and belittle them for believing that they read and understand fast in the wrong type of book.
Well, at some point someone has to belittle if not the people, surely the wrong type of book -- in other words, put it in perspective, not everything is a diamond -- else there's no art and no culture, just an indistinguishable blob of different works.
That and people over-estimate my intelligence because I know about lots of random things, they think I'm smart because of that but they could have done exactly the same thing if they'd chosen to which feeds nicely into nature vs nurture I guess.
I got hooked on books and my mum fed that addiction, that they didn't is the only difference.
It helps that the perception of computer programmers is that we are geeky but do something that is incredibly difficult (when I know the reality is except for certain domains, you really don't need much math beyond arithmetic and the rest is conscientious attention to detail and explaining the problem simply to a really high speed idiot).
That IS the tricky stuff speed readers do.
The author has a contract, all competition has been eternally removed from his mindset. He made it. Finally he can, drone on and on about some obscure infodump he found.
Or even worser, show it to those upper class snobs & critic, who claimed that writing good characters and prose is as far out of the league for sciFi, as if it where burried at a rainbows end.
With a little practice I got to the point where the reading material was entering my brain faster than I can normally think.
Apologies for the link, wikipedia article on RSVP is garbage (rare, but it happens.)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-apps-could-t...
It really doesn't make sense to compare wpm across languages.
Anecdotally, I've found computer literacy or usage skill to strongly correlate with the speed of reading and skimming. While it takes me or another computer enthusiast seconds to find an option in a busy menu, it may take some others a minute, which is a clear disadvantage.
I (and I assume maybe you) have a way of taking in the whole menu at once and pattern matching to the visual image of the word in my head. I don't read the words, I look for a visual match. The target word jumps off the page as quickly as if they were color coded.
Never got tested for reading speed in school like the article says some schools do. That's good for me as I would have failed the 300wpm mark.
Tried speed reading software in high school and college, my normal speed is around 150-200wpm. Even with faster skimming sessions it never got over 450wpm and reverts back to my normal range when not using software. Learned to be okay with it as it seems my comprehension / memory were optimal at my normal range.
That's something that makes me angry, because reading fast is a HUGE advantage in every setting (even taking into account the speed variability, depending on the topic).
I'm a very fast reader. To give you an example, I can (easily) read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings in english during during the weekend (2 days), and english is not my first language. In comparison, my brother, who has a LOT in common with me (including education level, and going to the same school as a child), reads pretty slowly and would never be able to do that. My dad and others members of the family are also very fast. BUT, we all learnt by ourselves: basically, we -somehow- managed to NOT learn the WRONG way that the teachers were teaching us (mostly: by "talking in our head when reading"). My mom told me that as soon as I started reading I was very fast.
To me, french lessons (middle-school, early 80s) were _torture_ because of that: the teacher assumed that we read slowly, and we would spend hours while a student was reading out loud; myself I was already 3 chapters later (because I was reading silent during his/her loud reading, I simply COULD NOT read that slow!). When we were assigned a new book (usually a couple hundred of pages), I read it in an hour. But the teacher did NOT understand that there were such huge differences between students. It was painful! In the end, my conclusion is that (because of stupidity) reading fast was de facto discouraged. :-((
I forgot to mention that I'm NOT talking about skimming (reading in diagonal with a severe -and acceptable- loss of understanding), when I skim I'm up to 10 times faster. I'm talking reading with almost total comprehension (barring remembering unimportant details like "the color of the cape of Frodo when he left the Shire", or whatnot).
Of course, it must be said that reading speed is a _meaningless_ concept by itself.
Your speed will (obviously) vary A LOT depending on the _context_: are your studying? Trying to memorize? Reading for leisure? Reading in a foreign language? Tired? What is the text's complexity/level? What is your education level? Etc.
Average speed does NOT exist without context. And most articles on the subject fail to put that context into account, it's even worse in the comments...
=> Of course, this article (and the study) detail the importance of that context.
So, every time I read an article about "reading speed", I know that it's going to be painful in the comments, because people who comment -almost- NEVER take the context into account.
BTW, one of the most infuriating things EVER is that in comments, you ALWAYS have a few people with an elitist attitude who raise the "but you are not appreciating the text if you read too fast", they fail to understand that I don't read poetry like a technical book like a children book, etc. Then you have the "you CANNOT understand if you read fast" crowd, because they don't know what is possible, they assume that their speed is "normal", when it's NOT, they cannot understand that they have been taught to read slowly...
Yep, that topic is one of my pet peeves ^^
And I believe what the parent was trying to say was that we've been conditioned to believe that a certain speed is normal, when perhaps most of us are capable of reading (and fully comprehending) at a much higher speed, though I don't know enough to have an opinion on that.
Non fiction may be different. Most times I read that to absorb the content rather then for pleasure, and often it doesn't require deep introspection during the process. It is limited only by the physical process and the intellectual decoding speed. In those cases I read very fast. I typically am continually and quickly scrolling a newspaper story on my phone, reading at least twice as fast as fiction.