By ADMIN
What is the Average Reading Speed of Americans?
Average reading speed is something that is often very difficult to compute. Many times, studies have shown that age, educational level, familiarity with the subject matter, and even the rate of speech have major impacts on the speed at which we read. Other times, studies have shown that these things do not, in fact, matter at all. What is consistent in all these studies is the simple fact: there is a huge variance in reading speed, across all age levels.
As the owner of this site and the developer of the many applications you find here, I’ve had a unique opportunity to study some of the results (of course, as the home page states, many people blatantly cheat). Taking out the extreme results has shown that most of the people who take the test on the homepage will score somewhere around 410 words per minute.
How do you calculate that? Simple: divide the total number of words by the number of seconds it took you to read the passage, and then multiply that number by sixty.
I decided to run a more detailed study of this test. What I did was I surveyed a number of specific individuals who worked in a variety of different professions, using the test on the homepage, and without teaching them anything about how it worked, I had them take all 5 different tests, and I averaged the results. What you see below is the results I recorded:
| People | WPM |
| 3rd grade students | 150 |
| 4th Grade Students | 170 |
| 8th Grade Students | 250 |
| 11th Grade Students | 350 |
| Average Adults | 300 |
| Low Scoring College Students | 340 |
| Average College Students | 450 |
| High Scoring College Students | 800 |
| Mid Level Executives | 340 |
| High Level Executives | 575 |
| College Professors | 680 |
| High School Dropouts | 240 |
As you can see, the average reading speed of individuals varied greatly depending on the profession of the person taking the test. Also notice what an impact the greater practice had on the test-takers. As young children aged, they got much better in reading speed, and many of those who had been out of school for some time ran into trouble – they were out of practice. People who do a lot of reading on the job were also doing much better than people who did not.
One other interesting connection to make from this study is the performance of college students. I was prompted to look at this when my brother-in-law dropped out of college after one year, and I had an inkling that the reading was too much for him. As it turns out, the dean’s list students seem to read an average of four times as fast as the dropouts. Perhaps that’s not surprising, but it does indicate that part of the average student’s struggles in college might be in keeping up with the workload. If a dropout and an “A” student were to study for the same amount of time, the “A” student would get through four times as much material as the future dropout.
What can we take from this? Reading is a thing that needs to be practiced in order for it to be mastered, so consider enrolling in a speed reading course, or purchasing some helpful speed reading drill practice software to get yourself up to the highest possible reading level. The other major concern here is for parents who are sending students off to college – take the extra precaution and teach your students how to read super-quickly before they go. They’ll thank you for it later!
