How to Improve Reading Speed for Exams

Why Reading Speed Matters More Than You Think

Let's do some rough maths. Say you have 8 textbook chapters to cover, each about 5,000 words. At the average student reading speed of 200 words per minute, each chapter takes 25 minutes just to read — not understand, not memorise, just read through once. That's more than 3 hours on reading alone, before you've started any actual studying.

Now imagine you read at 350 WPM instead. Same 8 chapters now take about 2 hours. You've just freed up an entire hour for practice problems, flashcards, or — let's be real — a nap you probably need.

Reading speed isn't about showing off. It's about making your limited study time go further. And the good news is: it's very trainable. Most students can improve by 50-100 WPM within a few weeks of deliberate practice.

Before you start improving, you should know where you stand. Take our free Reading Speed Test — it takes 2 minutes and gives you your exact WPM score.

Where Do You Stand?

Here's a rough breakdown of reading speeds and what they mean:

Tip 1: Stop Saying Words in Your Head

This is the biggest speed limiter for most readers, and you probably don't even realise you're doing it. It's called sub-vocalisation — that inner voice that "reads aloud" in your mind as your eyes move across text.

The problem? Your inner voice can only "speak" at about 150 WPM. So even if your eyes could move faster, your brain is stuck at talking speed.

How to reduce it:

• Hum or chew gum while reading — it occupies the "speaking" part of your brain so it can't sub-vocalise
• Focus on "seeing" words as images rather than "hearing" them as sounds
• Don't try to eliminate sub-vocalisation completely at first — just reduce it for familiar, easy text

Fair warning: this feels weird at first. You might feel like you're not actually reading. Stick with it for a week and your brain adjusts.

Tip 2: Read in Word Groups (Chunking)

Untrained readers process one word at a time. Their eyes jump from "The" to "cat" to "sat" to "on" to "the" to "mat" — six stops for six words.

Fast readers don't do this. They take in 3—5 words per eye fixation. Instead of six stops, they make two: "The cat sat" and "on the mat." Same sentence, less than half the eye movements.

Practice this deliberately:

1. Take a page of text and draw light vertical lines every 3—4 words
2. Practice jumping your eyes between the chunks, landing in the middle of each group
3. Start with easy material (a novel or blog post) before trying it with dense textbook content

This technique alone can push you from 200 to 350 WPM within a few weeks of practice.

Tip 3: Use a Pointer

It sounds childish. Using your finger to follow the text feels like something a kid does in primary school. But here's the thing — it works, and there's research backing it.

A pointer (finger, pen, or even a cursor) does two things: it prevents your eyes from wandering backwards (regression), and it sets a pace that your eyes naturally follow. Without a pointer, most readers re-read the same line 15—20% of the time without even noticing.

To use this for speed training: gradually move the pointer slightly faster than your comfortable reading speed. Your eyes and brain will adapt to keep up. It's like interval training for reading.

Tip 4: Stop Re-Reading (Regression)

This is related to the pointer tip, but deserves its own mention because it's such a massive time waster.

Regression is when your eyes jump back to re-read a word, phrase, or line. Sometimes you do it because you genuinely didn't understand something. But most of the time? It's just a nervous habit. Your brain processed the information fine — you just didn't trust it.

Research suggests that up to 30% of reading time is wasted on unnecessary regression. That means if you spend 3 hours reading, nearly an hour is spent re-reading things you already understood.

The fix: trust your first pass. If you didn't get something, make a small mark and come back later. Don't break your reading momentum every time you hit a slightly tricky sentence.

Tip 5: Expand Your Peripheral Vision

You don't have to look directly at each word to read it. Your peripheral vision can pick up words on either side of your focus point — you just haven't trained it to.

Try this: when reading a line, focus your eyes more towards the centre rather than starting at the very first word. Let your peripheral vision capture the first and last few words of each line. This means fewer eye movements per line and faster overall speed.

Think of it like driving — you don't stare at only the car directly in front of you. You take in the whole scene. Reading can work the same way with practice.

Tip 6: Practice Every Day (Even 10 Minutes Counts)

Reading speed improves like any skill — with consistent practice. You don't need to dedicate an hour to "speed reading exercises." Just 10 minutes a day of deliberate, slightly-faster-than-comfortable reading will compound into measurable improvement within a few weeks.

A good routine:

• Take the Reading Speed Test once at the start of each study session
• Note your WPM — the test saves your history so you can see the trend
• Try to beat your previous score by 5—10 WPM each time
• Use easy, enjoyable text for speed practice — not dense academic material

A Note About Comprehension

Every speed reading article needs to address this: reading faster is useless if you don't understand what you read. And some "speed reading" courses promise 1000+ WPM with full comprehension, which is, frankly, nonsense.

The techniques above aim for a realistic improvement — getting you from 200 to 350-400 WPM while maintaining good comprehension. That's a meaningful gain that translates to real time savings during exam prep, without sacrificing understanding.

The sweet spot is different for different types of material. You can read a novel at 400 WPM easily, but a dense Physics derivation might need 100 WPM with re-reads. Learn to shift gears depending on the difficulty of what you're reading.

Your Reading Speed + Other Tools

Once you know your WPM, you can use it to plan your study time more accurately:

Start with the reading speed test, figure out where you stand, and then pick 2—3 techniques from this list to practise. Within a month, you'll be covering material noticeably faster — and that compounds into a genuine advantage during exams.

All tools are free, no signup needed. Explore the full toolkit →