Words per minute calculator
A reading speed test. Read a short passage while a timer runs, and get your speed in words per minute, a comparison with the adult average, and a comprehension score from three questions.
The passage has 310 words and appears when you press Start. Read it once at the pace you would use to follow an article, then press Done. Three questions follow.
Words per minute from words and time
For a text you timed yourself, enter the number of words and how long it took.
- Words per minute
- 240 wpm
- Against the average
- 1% faster
How the speed is computed
Words per minute is the number of words divided by the time in minutes. The test counts the words in the passage and times the gap between Start and Done. If the passage takes you 80 seconds, the result is its word count divided by 80 and multiplied by 60. A chapter of 1,200 words read in 5 minutes is 240 words per minute.
The timer runs in your browser. Nothing is recorded or sent anywhere.
The average it is compared with
The comparison uses 238 words per minute, the average silent reading rate for adults reading English non-fiction. The figure is from Marc Brysbaert, How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate, Journal of Memory and Language, 2019, which combined 190 studies and 18,573 participants. The same review gives 260 words per minute for fiction and 183 for reading aloud, and reports that most adults fall between 175 and 300 for non-fiction.
The passage here is non-fiction, so 238 is the fair comparison. A result of 262 words per minute is 10% faster than the average. A result of 200 is 16% slower.
Limits of the number
One passage of about 300 words is a small sample, and a different text will give a somewhat different figure. Treat the result as a rough estimate and repeat the test on your own material with the calculator above.
Speed is also the less useful half of the result. A high figure with one question right means the passage was skimmed. The research on speed reading, reviewed by Rayner and colleagues in 2016, found a trade-off between speed and accuracy: readers are unlikely to double their speed and still understand the text as well. Finishing a text sooner does not mean more of it was understood, and the same applies to audio played at 2x. That argument is made at length in alternatives to Audible for people who listen to learn. To turn your speed into hours for a whole book, use the reading time calculator.
Common questions
- How do you calculate words per minute?
- Divide the number of words by the time in minutes. 1,200 words read in 5 minutes is 240 words per minute. If the time is in seconds, divide the words by the seconds and multiply by 60.
- What is a good reading speed?
- The average adult reads English non-fiction silently at 238 words per minute and fiction at 260. Most adults fall between 175 and 300 words per minute for non-fiction. A speed inside that range with all three questions right is an ordinary, sound result.
- What is the average reading speed out loud?
- About 183 words per minute, from 77 studies of oral reading reviewed by Marc Brysbaert in 2019. Audiobook narration is slower, at about 155 words per minute.
- Does reading faster reduce comprehension?
- Yes, past your normal pace. A 2016 review of the research on speed reading by Keith Rayner and colleagues found a trade-off between speed and accuracy, and judged it unlikely that readers can double their speed and understand the text as well. That is why this test asks three questions and reports the score next to the speed.
Understand reads an article or PDF aloud and stops when you ask a question. Open Understand