The Promise of Speed Reading
Speed reading programs promise to increase your reading speed from the average 200–300 words per minute to 1,000+ words per minute — effectively allowing you to read three to five times as many books. The appeal is obvious. If you could read War and Peace in a weekend or finish a book a day, you would consume vastly more literature in your lifetime.
But does it work? The research is clear, and the answer is more nuanced than speed reading advocates want to admit.
What the Research Says
The most comprehensive review of speed reading research (Rayner et al., 2016, published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest) concluded that there is a fundamental trade-off between speed and comprehension. The key findings:
You cannot eliminate subvocalisation without losing comprehension. Speed reading techniques that claim to suppress inner speech (the voice in your head that "reads along") are asking you to skip a step that is integral to processing meaning. Studies show that eliminating subvocalisation reduces comprehension by 30–50%.
Skimming is not reading. Many speed reading techniques are actually skimming strategies — they teach you to extract key information without processing the full text. This works for low-information-density texts (news articles, business reports) but fails catastrophically for literature, where every word carries weight.
Eye movement training has minimal effect. Speed reading programs that focus on reducing eye fixations or eliminating regressions (re-reading) produce modest speed gains (10–20%) with measurable comprehension losses.
What Actually Works
Read more. The single most effective way to increase your reading speed is to read more. Experienced readers are faster because they have larger vocabularies, more background knowledge, and better prediction skills — not because of any technique.
Read easier books first. If you are a slow reader, you are probably reading books that are too difficult for your current level. Start with accessible, engaging fiction and work your way up. Speed comes with practice.
Reduce distractions. Most slow reading is caused by interruptions, not by slow eye movements. Put your phone in another room. Read in a quiet place. Twenty focused minutes of reading produces more pages than an hour of distracted reading.
Preview before you read. For nonfiction, skim the table of contents, chapter headings, and conclusion before reading in full. This primes your brain to process the material more efficiently — a genuine speed boost with no comprehension cost.
When Speed Matters and When It Doesn't
Speed matters when you are reading for information — scanning reports, processing email, reviewing research. Skimming techniques are genuinely useful here.
Speed does not matter when you are reading literature. You would not watch a film at 3x speed. You would not listen to a symphony at double tempo. Reading fiction — especially good fiction — is an experience, not a task. The pleasure is in the reading, not in the having-read.
Our Recommendation
Forget speed reading. Instead, focus on reading more often and reading better books. Twenty minutes a day of high-quality reading produces 12–15 books per year. That is a library. That is an education. And you will actually remember what you read.
For help choosing those books, explore our Rankings, browse by category, or read our guide to building a reading habit.