Speed Reading Calculating

To monitor if you’re making progress in reading speed, you should know how to calculate your reading speed. Don’t worry! Calculating the reading speed is a simple process. It’s just a time for reading a page of a book at a comfortable tempo. Simply count the number of words in the first five or ten lines, whatever you feel is representative of the page as a whole, and then count the total number of lines in the page. Then use the following formula:

the number of lines in the page divided by
the number of lines used for the word count multiplied by
the number of words in the word count divided by 
the number of minutes it took you to read the page.

The end result will be your calculated reading speed. Obviously, if you increase the number of lines in which you perform the word count, or the number of pages you read, the accuracy of your calculation will increase as well. One page is usually enough, though.

The average reading speed is often held to be around 265 wpm, though I've heard estimates ranging from 250 to slightly over 300.

To measure reading speed rate, locate appropriate reading materials and select a section of text. Mark the beginning of the selection. Read for a certain length of time (use a timer or watch) or for a certain amount of text. Mark the end of the selection, and note the total number of minutes spent reading.

Document the level of comprehension by recalling main ideas from the selection. If one reads for three minutes, one should remember three main points. If one reads for five minutes, one should remember five main ideas. Jot down these main points.

Count the number of words between the two marks, and divide that number by the number of minutes spent reading. This is the rate of reading, expressed in words per minute. There are two simple steps involved in creating your speed test. The first is to have something to read, the second is timing how long you will read it.

This simplest test is to read for a certain amount of time. This might be 1, 2, 5 or 10 minutes. After you have read for the allotted time, calculate the number of words read and divide by the number of minutes. This gives the words read per minute or wpm.

To calculate the number of words the best way is to estimate using the following method. Turn to a page in your book which is not the beginning or end of a chapter, and so is a "full" page. Pick a full line at random and count the number of words in the line. There are usually about 10 to 12 words per line. Now count the number of lines in the page. If you multiply the two numbers together you will have an estimate of the number of words per page in that particular book. This will vary from book to book, so you recalculate when you use a different book.

Let’s say you are going to do a 5 minute speed test. Have your clock ready or have a friend time you. Note the point where you have started in your book with a pencil, or write down the page number. Then signal your timekeeper and begin to read for understanding. When the 5 minutes is up, stop and note your position on the final page. Go back to your starting page and count the number of pages you have read.

Multiply the number of pages you have read by the number of words per page calculated earlier, then add the number of words you have read on your final unfinished page. This total will the number of words read in 5 minutes. Divide this number by 5 and you have your words per minute.

Note that it is advisable to start at the beginning of a chapter so the effect of half pages is minimized. Do not worry too much about the exact number of words read, as the estimates are reasonably accurate, and it is the increases in your reading speed which you will find most interesting. For example, going twice as fast, or ten times as fast.