Do speed reading apps actually work?

Short answer: they work for specific problems. A pacing app can cut regressions and mind-wandering, and that can move a typical reader from about 240 words per minute to somewhere in the 350 to 500 range on easy material. No app can speed up dense or difficult material, because comprehension there is limited by thinking time. Apps that promise 1,000 words per minute with full comprehension are promising skimming.

The three kinds of apps

Pacers keep normal text on the page and move a highlight, line, or cursor through it at a set rate. You follow the marker. This is the digital version of running a finger under the line.

RSVP readers show one word at a time at a fixed point on the screen, at a rate you choose. Your eyes stop moving entirely; the text comes to you. Full disclosure: we make one of these, readrrr, so discount our view accordingly.

Trainers give you drills and timed comprehension tests, and track your words per minute over weeks. Some combine drills with a pacer or RSVP mode.

What these apps genuinely fix

Regressions. Untrained readers' eyes routinely jump backward to reread lines they already understood. These jumps are mostly reflex, and they consume a meaningful share of total reading time. A pacer or RSVP stream removes them: with a pacer you would have to leave the marker, and in RSVP you would have to tap rewind. Rereading becomes a decision instead of a reflex, and most reflexive rereads turn out to be unnecessary.

Mind-wandering. On a static page you can drift for a full paragraph before you notice. With text arriving at a fixed rate, you notice within a second or two, because the words keep coming and you have lost the thread. Many people who download these apps for speed keep them for this reason.

Friction. Phone reading normally competes with notifications and other apps. A full-screen reader with your articles and books loaded, resuming exactly where you stopped, removes several of the small obstacles that end reading sessions early.

Slack pace. Without an external pace, most people read below their capacity. A set rate slightly above your comfortable speed pulls you along, and practicing at that rate for a few weeks raises your comfortable speed for real.

What no app can fix

Understanding takes time, and the amount depends on the material. A familiar novel at 450 words per minute is realistic after practice. A dense argument, a technical paper, or a contract is limited by how fast you can think, and an app that pushes words at you faster than you can think about them produces coverage without comprehension. Somewhere around 500 to 600 words per minute on ordinary prose, everyone crosses from reading into sampling. No presentation trick moves that line far, because the line is set by cognition, and the apps that claim otherwise are measuring gist recall and calling it comprehension.

Apps also cannot make you want to read, and a trainer's graph can tempt you into optimizing the graph. If your words per minute rises while your ability to summarize what you read falls, the number is measuring the wrong thing.

How to judge one in a week

Pick easy material. Set the pace at or just above your normal speed, around 250 to 300 words per minute for most people. Read ten minutes a day. After each session, write two or three sentences from memory about what you read. If after a week you are covering more text and your summaries are still accurate, the app is working for you. If the summaries got vague, lower the pace. Raise the pace only when the current one feels easy.

Common questions