How to Increase Reading Speed: 12 Best Methods in 2026
reviewed by Franz Jerby Delos Santos
Updated on July 3, 2026
Key Points: Reading too slowly can prevent students from keeping up with academics. The good news is, the speed at which children read is not set in stone. Check the 12 effective strategies on how to increase reading speed without compromising comprehension. Usually, these strategies work better when combined. You can improve your reading speed fast by working with a professional tutor, practicing daily, expanding your sight word vocabulary, and avoiding distractions during reading time. Learning how to skim and scan, tracking text with a pointer, and increasing your horizontal peripheral vision can also help. While there are many ways how to speed up reading for children, the efficacy of these strategies depends on each child’s individuality and the unique reasons that are slowing them down. Still, the application of multiple techniques simultaneously tends to give better results as each one works on a different potential cause. The average reading speed for children is between 80 WPM in 1st grade and 250 WPM in 12th grade (according to the 2021 reports by Dimitrije Curcic). It’s 158 WPM for 4th graders and 204 WPM for 8th graders. Meanwhile, an average adult English speaker reads 238 WPM of non-fiction and 260 WPM of fiction when doing so silently (according to the 2019 research by Marc Brysbaert). Note: You can dive deeper into the reading speed by age specification in this article. However, reading fluency and speed are not the same thing. Kathryn Starke, National Literacy Consultant, explains the difference between reading fluency and reading speed. “In reading, we only discuss reading fluency and include speed under the rate of words per minute.” This expert explanation clarifies that while the number of words that a child can read per minute matters, it should be analyzed in the context of wider literacy metrics. Here is a visual data chart on the expected words per minute (WPM) for kids you can refer to to make sure your child is on track with their reading speed. Learn exactly how Brighterly helps students thrive through expert sessions, online tools, and proven feedback from thousands of satisfied parents Age: All ages Best for: Children who require professional guidance and support Our school-supplemental K-12 learning platform offers 1:1, online reading tutoring by professional ELA teachers that focuses on the exact needs of each student. After an initial assessment, a qualified tutor prepares a personalized learning plan that incorporates individualized reading materials and exercises. This is done with assistance from the parents to match everything with the child’s preferences and interests for an engaging experience. Meanwhile, our online reading program, as well as the homeschool curriculum, is aligned with the US state standards to make sure that students cover the nationwide requirements for their grade level. During the 1:1 sessions, reading tutors mix teacher-led instruction with level-appropriate speed reading techniques, exercises, and fun, gamified activities. This makes lessons exciting and effective. Our program is a strong candidate for the best reading program for kids, as it works not only on increasing reading speed but also on reading comprehension strategies for an integrated approach to the subject. Finally, we offer reading tutoring at an affordable price, starting at $17.70/lesson, with an annual subscription plan and 20% discount (the price is actual if you book 2 weekly lessons). Moreover, children can benefit from free reading worksheets, sorted by grade level, for additional speed reading practice.
Help your child read faster & comprehend more with Brighterly personalized tutoring. Age: 8-14 years Best for: Strong readers dealing with informational texts and building learning skills Another strategy on how to improve reading speed and comprehension is the so-called skimming method. According to the University of Tennessee, skimming is a popular technique that helps learners extract more information from a text in less time. This is a structured approach where you read the first couple of paragraphs of a text, after which you read in full only the first (topic) sentence of each paragraph before quickly going through the remainder of the paragraph. Skimming is particularly useful for older students who deal with longer, non-fictional texts and need to get a general understanding to be able to discuss topics and answer questions. Age: 8-14 years Best for: Students who need to navigate long textbooks and prepare for exams To increase your speed of reading with scanning, first identify the type of information that you need to extract from the text. This depends on why you’re reading this particular material – to gain new knowledge on a topic, to respond to questions, or for fun. When scanning, you move your eyes over the text to quickly locate specific information, such as characters or a setting. According to Butte College, this helps save time by focusing only on the details that you need from the book. Scanning is a speed reading practice that usually works well for students in grades 3-9. While it is similar to skimming, there are important differences, so these are two distinct strategies. Age: 6-12 years Best for: Young students who read slowly or lack reading fluency Guided repeated reading or the rereading of short passages is a simple speed reading exercise. This means that a student reads the same text several times under the guidance of a teacher or a parent. It helps develop automaticity so that the reader starts recognizing words visually instead of decoding them each and every time. To learn to read faster and develop reading automaticity, the Center for Literacy Training & Instructional Leadership at Lesley University provides the following tips: The repeated reading of the same text helps with reading fluency in general and reading speed in specific. That’s why it’s a good strategy for kids who are behind their grade level, especially young learners. Age: 5-9 years Best for: Early readers learning to track and students with attention difficulties To increase speed of reading, students can adopt the finger tracking method. This strategy helps young students, as well as students with attention deficit, increase the number of speed reading words per minute. Plus, the technique is easy to implement. All that the student needs to do is to use their finger, pen, or another sharp object to track the line they are reading and pace themselves. The approach is so effective because it helps avoid distraction and regression. It is particularly good for small kids and those with attention challenges, as it helps keep their attention on the book and reduces the habit of back-skipping to words they have already read. To practice it, ask your child to move their finger smoothly under each line as they read. Once they are comfortable, turn it into a short speed drill. You can ask them to try to move through each line in about two seconds. If you notice that reading comprehension drops, reduce the speed. This is a controlled pacing technique that will train their eyes to move forward more steadily instead of stopping on every single word. Start with easy texts, avoid challenging school reading. With this practice, your goal is helping your child build rhythm and confidence first. Once they can follow the line smoothly, they can gradually move to using the same method with more complex texts.
Brighterly boosts your child’s reading skills with personalized materials & lessons. Age: 5-10 years Best for: Beginner readers working on automatic word recognition To increase WPM reading, you can work on learning commonly used words, also known as sight words. Sight words refer to the words that you are able to recognize automatically without the need to decode them letter by letter. As a student becomes visually familiar with more words on the paper or the screen, they naturally start reading faster. Building your child’s sight word vocabulary should be done gradually. Start with a short list of words and expand over time. Make sure that you read repeated texts, use flashcards, make use of pictures and visual manipulatives, and search for these words in the world around you. Wondering why sight words are so important for reading speed? Simple statistics explain the reason. Note: According to Clarence Green, Kathleen Keogh, and Julia Prout’s 2024 research, the 100-300 of the most frequently used words in children’s literature make up about 50-70% of the total reading that a child does. It’s easy to imagine how you can boost the number of reading words per minute by adding these words to your sight word vocabulary. Age: 5-15 years Best for: All students, especially during the summer and other vacations One of the best ways to improve reading speed is developing daily reading habits. Students need to allocate at least 20-30 minutes per day to reading. Regular reading helps expand vocabulary, build a reading process, and turn reading into one of the healthy daily habits of a well-rounded individual. All these factors contribute to increasing speed, accuracy, comprehension, and overall fluency. Daily reading is particularly important during the summer vacation and other prolonged breaks to prevent summer slide and avoid reverting to slow reading. Families can enjoy the benefits of summer reading programs and online apps that offer personalized materials to continue working on reading skills during school breaks. Age: 9-14 years Best for: Students with decoding skills and reading capabilities who want to improve efficacy To improve reading speed, you can also work on being able to see a larger number of words with one look. This is known as horizontal peripheral vision span expansion, and to achieve it, you have to do special reading exercises. Untrained readers practice central focus, which means that they don’t use their peripheral vision. According to 2023 research by Ming Yan & Jinger Pan, unskilled readers can see and read about 11 characters to the right of fixation (after the letter on which their eyes are placed), while this number goes up to 15 for trained readers. By unlocking your peripheral vision, you gain the potential to see and read more words at once, which increases your reading speed. To grow your peripheral vision, you have to do exercises, such as moving your eyes in the shape of the number eight. In addition, it helps to use a finger or a pointer to guide your eyes during reading. These techniques of how to increase reading speed for students work for older children who have already developed basic reading skills and want to work on speed. Age: 5-14 years Best for: All students, particularly those with attention challenges or sensory sensitivities To increase reading speed online or offline, it is crucial to provide your child with a quiet, conducive environment. This means removing all possible distractions so that your kid can focus on reading without unnecessary noise and movement. Students, especially young ones, are easily distracted during study and reading time. This means that they lose the meaning, forget where they’ve reached, and need to reread the same sentence over and over again. That’s why minimizing sources of distraction during reading time is one of the simplest and yet most effective methods to help them go through books faster. To make this work, create a short reading routine. For example, put phones and tablets in another room during a 15-20-minute reading session, clear the table, and keep only the book, bookmark, and a pencil nearby. If your child is sensitive to background noise, and the area is not completely silent, you can try soft white noise or quiet instrumental music to block sudden sounds without adding new distractions. It also helps to choose the same reading spot and time each day. When your child knows where and when reading happens, they spend less energy worrying about the practice and settling down and focus on the text more. Age: 10-19 years Best for: Students with dyslexia To improve reading speed of your child with dyslexia, you can provide them with specialized books that use extra spacing between letters and colored overlays. A 2021 study by Steven Stagg and Nathan Kiss shows that reading materials with extra-large spacing between the letters and colored overlays help individuals with certain types of reading disabilities read faster and more accurately. While this strategy on how to increase your reading speed is usually recommended for children with dyslexia, it can work for other learners too. Young kids, for example, also benefit from larger print, more spacing, and strategically used colors. Age: 10-18 years Best for: Older students who read accurately but want to improve reading pace Subvocalization is the inner voice your child hears when they read. It is the habit of silently “saying” every word in your head while reading. If you think to yourself “how to increase my kid’s reading speed”, reducing subvocalization is one of the most effective ways to do it. It is a natural part of learning to read, especially for younger children and developing readers. However, once your kid is older and a more accurate reader, subvocalization can become a speed limiter. Helping your child reduce subvocalization can help improve their reading speed significantly. To help your child practice this, start with short and easy texts. Ask them to read the text in small word groups instead of word by word. For example, instead of reading “The / little / dog / ran / across / the / yard,” they can train their eyes to read “The little dog / ran across / the yard.” This way, they will process the meaning in chunks instead of individual words. The next method is a bit counterintuitive at first, but an effective one nonetheless. You can give your kid something simple to occupy their mind. This can be humming a song, counting 1-2-3 mentally on a loop, or even chewing gum. This can help to partially block their inner narrator without disrupting the reading comprehension. Another useful method your child can use is pointer pacing, which was already discussed. They can use a finger, a pencil tip, or a cursor as they read each line to pace their eyes slightly faster than their inner voice naturally moves. This trains their brain to understand the meaning of the text without having to pronounce every word. With that said, if your child starts missing the meaning, slow down again. Reading faster is not a goal in and of itself; it’s only useful when your kid still understands the text. Age: 7-18 years Best for: All students, particularly those working on reading fluency For students who think “how to improve my reading speed”, timed reading practice is a straightforward way to build reading speed and fluency. The approach is quite simple, and it also makes progress visible quite soon. Your child reads a passage for exactly one minute, you count the number of words they read correctly, and record the result. This will give you their base WPM score. Do this for several passages. Then, repeat the same passages two or three times over a week to get a clear and objective picture of how their reading speed and accuracy develop. To start with timed reading at home, at first, choose a passage slightly below your kid’s current reading level. This way, the challenge is on speed rather than decoding. You can track their progress on a simple chart, which can even be hand-drawn, which may include the date, passage title, words read correctly, and any notes you may have. You can keep the chart somewhere visible, as most kids respond well to seeing their own progress, and knowing that they are getting better at reading will make even reluctant readers want to practice more. If you notice that your child’s reading speed doesn’t improve even with regular practice, or if they read faster but stop understanding the text, you may want to look into getting external help. An online reading tutor can help you understand whether the issue is fluency, decoding, vocabulary, or comprehension, and work to fill the gap. When you start putting effort into improving your reading speed, it takes a few weeks to notice the first signs of faster reading. Within a few months, you can read significantly faster if you combine a few effective strategies. Ultimately, the required time depends on a number of factors: To be successful in this endeavor, you have to be persistent and consistent and to put deliberate effort into increasing your reading speed. Working with a private tutor as well as reading daily and using a tracker can accelerate the process and enhance the results. These 12 strategies can help students of different grades and with different needs increase reading speed. These methods usually work best when applied in combination. For example, reading daily while growing your sight word vocabulary and practicing peripheral vision expansion can help you achieve faster results than one of these techniques alone. If you want your child to start reading quickly without unnecessary stress, we offer 1:1 tutoring that can help. Ready to try it out? Book free reading lesson with no commitment to check whether this is the right choice for your child. Reading faster can hurt comprehension, but only when done wrong. If your child skims the text or rushes through it to shave off some reading time, this will likely hurt their comprehension. You can support them through the right techniques and training. Repeated reading, sight word practice, and peripheral vision training can help them recognize the words while still following their meaning. Slow reading speed can happen for several reasons, including weak sight word vocabulary, subvocalization, back-skipping, decoding difficulties, attention issues, or simply not enough reading practice. Before choosing how to increase your kid’s reading speed, the first step is to understand which skill exactly is slowing them down. Yes, your kid can learn speed reading techniques at different ages, but the right method depends on their level. For example, if younger children in K-4 can benefit the most from sight words and repeated reading, subvocalization and peripheral vision training can be important additions to older students in grade 5+. Subvocalization is the habit of silently pronouncing words in your head while reading. It can limit reading speed because your child will automatically read closer to the pace of spoken language, which is slower. When your child doesn’t read aloud, they can read much faster, as long as comprehension stays strong. Use a one-minute reading timer. Ask your child to read a grade-level passage aloud, count the number of words read correctly, and record their words-per-minute score. Take this as their base, and compare the progress that follows to this number. You can also use free online reading speed tests if you want a quick and simple tracking tool. Yes. Reading speed is the number of words a child reads per minute. Reading fluency, on the other hand, also includes reading accuracy, phrasing, expression, and smoothness. As reading expert Kathryn Starke explains in the article, reading speed is only one part of fluent reading. As a homeschooling parent, are you choosing between Miacademy vs Time4Learning vs Brighterly? I’m using my teacher expertise to review the three platforms and show you which one works best for your particular situation. I’ll make sure to highlight the main features as well as the pros and cons of each. Key points Brighterly is […] Jul 07, 2025 Reading comprehension strategies can make a real difference for kids’ growth. Why? They offer ways to learn to comprehend texts and words, gain new knowledge, and perform well at school and at home. Wonder how to apply them? Read on to get an insightful overview of key methods and useful tips to implement them. Top […] Jul 08, 2025
How Can I Improve My Reading Level Fast?
What Is the Average WPM Reading Speed?
Explore Brighterly Learning Experience
How to Increase Reading Speed? 12 Effective Strategies
Increase Reading Speed with a Reading Tutor
How to Read Faster with a Tutor’s Feedback?
Increase your child’s reading speed with professional tutors!
Increase Reading Speed with Skimming
How to Skim Headings and First Sentences to Read Faster
Increase Reading Speed with Scanning
How to Improve Reading Speed with Scanning
Increase Reading Speed with Guided Repeated Reading
How to Build Speed Through Short, Repeated Passages
Increase Reading Speed by Tracking Words with a Pointer or a Finger
How to Use a Finger or Pointer to Keep a Faster Pace
Improve your child’s reading speed with 1:1 tutoring!
Increase Reading Speed by Building Your Sight Word Vocabulary
How to Recognize Common Words Instantly to Read Faster
Increase Reading Speed by Practicing Reading on a Daily Basis
How to Improve Your Pace with 10-15 Minutes of Daily Practice
Increase Reading Speed by Expanding Your Horizontal Peripheral Vision Span
How to Take in More Words at Once and Read Faster
Increase Reading Speed by Minimizing Distractions During Reading Time
How to Set Up a Distraction-Free Routine for Faster Reading
Increase Reading Speed with More Spacing Between Letters And Colored Overlays
How to Test Spacing and Overlays to Support Faster Reading
Reduce Subvocalization
How to Stop Sounding Out Words Silently to Read Faster
Timed Reading Practice and Progress Tracking
How to Measure WPM at Home and See Real Progress
How Long Does It Take to Increase Reading Speed?
Improving Reading Speed with Consistency
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Reading Faster Hurt Comprehension?
What Causes Slow Reading Speed in Children?
Can Speed Reading Techniques Be Learned at Any Age?
What Is Subvocalization znd How Does It Affect Reading Speed?
How Do I Test My Child’s Reading Speed at Home?
Is There a Difference Between Reading Speed and Reading Fluency?
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