The Average Reading Speed
Have you wondered what the average reading speed is and how you measure up to it?
Short story answer? The average reading speed is about 200 words per minute!
Now if you are interested in the long story, read on…
200 words per minute (WPM) is actually the average for our recent times but did you know that we used to read faster back in the 50s? The average reading speed back then was around 300 WPM. We used to read a lot more efficiently back then. I think that it’s pretty unfortunate considering that we have more information available today than ever before.
We should be reading at a higher speed. There’s definitely a need for it.
If we take the 200 WPM average and look into it further, we will find that those that read 6-8 hours a day for their careers tend to have a higher than average reading speed. They tend to read at 300-400 WPM. The fundamental reason for this is because they practice. The more you read, the more skilled you become. Not only will you read faster, but you will also comprehend and retain that information longer. So what can someone do if they are interested in increasing their reading speed? It’s simple, just read the way the faster readers are reading…
Iris reading has dedicated the last 10 years to figuring out exactly what the faster readers are doing and why they can read double or triple the speed compared to the average reader. If you simply ask a fast reader how they read as fast as they do, they most likely wouldn’t be able to tell you. The truth is that they are doing things unconsciously without being aware of it. Simply put, they are doing things that the average reader is not. Iris has analyzed the reading style of the fast readers to discover exactly what it is they are doing.
If you are interested in learning what separates the average reader from the faster ones, then I recommenced that you check out one of our many resources we have available that covers all the areas you can work on to increase your reading speed. Hopefully once this information becomes more common and even taught daily in our schools, we can get the average reading speed back to 300 WPM or even higher. It’s absolutely possible and needs to be done to deal with the amount of information we handle today.
More Resources:
Joseph Rodrigues
Joseph is an Iris instructor based out of Toronto. He loves to share his personal knowledge as an entrepreneur, and credits a lot of his success to speed reading techniques and productivity strategies.
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