What is the average reading speed?

Reading speed benchmarks

"Average reading speed" depends on what's being read and why. The best available estimate for adult silent reading in English is 238 words per minute for non-fiction and 260 wpm for fiction — from Brysbaert's 2019 meta-analysis of 190 studies with 18,573 participants (Journal of Memory and Language; as of 2025 still the largest synthesis). Most adults fall between 175–300 wpm on non-fiction; these are means across studies, and children, older adults and second-language readers read slower.

Reading aloud averages 183 wpm in the same meta-analysis (77 studies, 5,965 participants) — articulation, not comprehension, is the bottleneck. Professional audiobook narration is deliberately paced slower still, near 150–160 wpm by industry convention, which is why a 9-hour audiobook is only about an 80,000-word book.

Estimating reading time

To estimate silent reading time, divide word count by 238: a 600-word article ≈ 2.5 minutes; a 2,000-word essay ≈ 8.4 minutes. For a speech or presentation, divide by 130–150 instead — prepared speaking with pauses is slower than oral reading. The words-to-minutes calculator does this privately in your browser with the same paces, and accepts pasted text (nothing is uploaded).

How long does it take to read 1,000 words?

About 4 minutes 12 seconds silently at the meta-analytic adult average (238 wpm; Brysbaert 2019), or roughly 5–5½ minutes read aloud at 183 wpm. Dense technical material takes longer — study reading commonly falls below 200 wpm.

Is 500 words per minute possible?

Only by scanning. The 2019 meta-analysis found no evidence for distinct «reading gears» — the one real distinction is between reading (comprehending most of the text) and text scanning (searching for specific bits). Speeds far above the normal adult range mean you're scanning, which is fine when that's the goal, but it isn't reading in the comprehension sense.