How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate

Abstract

had a reading rate of 3.9 words per second (234 wpm), the latter a rate of 7.3 words per second (438 wpm). Unfortunately, no information was given about how reading rate had been established. This encouraged Huey (1901) to reassess the issue. He selected 11 pages from an interesting novel, each containing 405 words, which presented no peculiar difficulties to the reader. Twenty university students were asked to read one page at a time while Huey measured the time with a stopwatch. There were 10 conditions. One was normal silent reading ("the way you like to read"). This rate was assessed twice. Another condition was to read silently as fast as possible, while still being able to follow the story line. Two other conditions of interest were reading aloud at a normal pace and at a maximal pace. 1 Huey reported reading rates of 5.35 and 5.91 words per second for silent normal reading (321 and 355 wpm), 8.21 words per second for silent maximal reading (493 wpm), 3.55 words per second for normal reading aloud (213 wpm), and 4.58 words per second for maximal reading aloud (275 wpm). The experiment was included in Huey's hugely influential book The psychology and pedagogy of reading (Huey, 1908), together with the data of Quantz (1898). As such, the very first estimates of normal silent reading were set between 300 and 350 wpm. Tinker An experimental psychologist very active in reading research in the first half of the 20 th century was Tinker. He published a series of over 20 papers addressing various variables that may affect reading speed, such as letter font and various layout options. In most of these studies he used the Chapman-Cook Speed of Reading test. It had two forms, each containing 30 paragraphs of 30 words. Toward the end of the paragraph there was an awkward word spoiling the paragraph. Participants had to tick off the word and finish as many paragraphs as possible in 1.75 minutes. An example of a paragraph was: "Yesterday I went downtown to buy some shoes and rubbers, but when I got home, I found I had forgotten to go to the flower-store to get them." University undergraduates typically finished some 18 paragraphs (540 words) in 1.75 minutes, making a reading speed of 309 wpm. In one of the rare studies taking longer than 1.75 minutes per condition, Tinker (1955) asked his participants to do the task for 30 minutes. They finished on average 317 paragraphs, given a reading rate of 317 wpm (30 words per paragraph and 30 minutes cancelling each other out). Unfortunately, the task was less than optimal, because the * means that the article is part of the meta-analyses

The Flamingo test: a new diagnostic instrument for dyslexia in Dutch higher education students

“…For instance, in meaningful text reading, semantic and conceptual top-down information contribute to the process of word recognition. In addition, Brysbaert (2019) reported an average reading aloud rate in typical readers of 183 words per minute, which is close to the reading rate reported for the Alouette Test (Cavalli et al 2018; see Table 6), but one standard deviation above the reading rate we observed with the Flamingo test (Table 6). A possible factor may be the length or imageability of the words in the text.…”

Literacy skill and intra-individual variability in eye-fixation durations during reading: Evidence from a diverse community-based adult sample

“…A number of key findings emerged in the global analyses of literacy differences in eye-movement control. Overall lower literate readers showed longer average first-pass reading times (first-fixation duration and gaze duration) as well as longer total reading times and slower reading rates, replicating prior work (Ashby et al, 2005; Brysbaert, 2019; Chace et al, 2005; Kuperman & Van Dyke, 2011). Beyond effects on average fixation durations, we focused specifically on the underlying fixation duration distributions to quantify individual differences in intra-individual variability in eye-movement control during reading.…”

“…We report two average measures of first-pass word fixation durations: first-fixation durations (duration of the first fixation on each word) and gaze durations (i.e., first-pass reading times: the sum of all first-pass fixations on each word before moving off the word), as well as total reading time (sum of all fixations on each word). In addition, we report an estimate of reading rate in words per minute in order to facilitate a descriptive comparison in gross reading speed between this sample and prior work (e.g., Brysbaert, 2019). Three saccade-based measures are also presented: the probability of regressing (i.e., that the eyes move left to an earlier word from the target), the probability of skipping (the proportion of words skipped during first-pass reading), and the probability of refixation (i.e., that a word was fixated more than once during first-pass reading).…”

Improving reading rates and comprehension? Benefits and limitations of the reading acceleration approach

“…Given the particular importance of good reading skills in current academic and professional settings, the investigation of reading rate (i.e., number of words or letters read per time unit; Brysbaert, 2019; Meyer et al., 1999) and reading comprehension (i.e., accessing and constructing meaning from written text; Johnston et al., 2008) represents a research field of high social and economic significance. In particular, the relationship between reading rate and the complex process of comprehension, which requires the coordination of multiple levels of language and cognitive functions (Landi & Ryherd, 2017), has been in the centre of interest for empirical and theoretical research questions.…”