To monitor if you’re making progress in increasing your reading speed, you should know how to calculate it. Don’t worry! There is a simple way in doing this. In reading a page of a book at a comfortable tempo, count the number of words in the first few lines - whatever number of lines you feel is representative of the page as a whole. Count the total number of lines in the page, as well. The following formula can help you calculate your reading speed:
Divide the number of lines in the page by the number of lines used for the word count.
Multiply it by the number of words in the word count.
Finally, divide the answer by the number of minutes it took you to read the page.
Easy, isn’t it? Only 3 simple mathematical processes are what it takes to know your reading speed! Then again, if you increase the number of lines in which you do the word count, or the number of pages you read, the accuracy of your calculation will increase as well. However, one page is usually enough.
The average reading speed is about 265 wpm, though it usually ranges from 250 to slightly over 300.
To measure reading speed rate, consider a certain reading material and select a section of text from it. Mark the beginning of the selection you decided to read. Read for a particular length of time - use a timer or watch to help you time your activity - or for a certain amount of text (about three to five paragraphs or one page). Also, mark the end of the selection and note the total time you spent reading.
To measure the level of comprehension, recall main ideas from the selection. The rule is if you have read a particular text in a reading material for three minutes, you should remember three main points. If you have reads for five minutes, you should be able to know five main ideas.
Count the number of words from the beginning to the ending mark. Divide this total number of words by the number of minutes you spent reading. This is now your rate of reading expressed in words per minute. There are actually two simple steps involved in performing your speed test: a selection to read and the time it takes for you to read it.
The best way to calculate the number of words without counting it one by one is using estimation. Turn to a “full” page in your book, somewhere which is not the beginning or end of a chapter. Pick a full line at random and count the number of words. Usually, this line will consist of 10 to 12 words. Then, count the number of lines in the page so that if you multiply the first number you have to it, you will have an estimate of the number of words per page in that particular book. However, this will vary from book to book, so you should make a new calculation when you use a different book.
To illustrate the above procedures, let’s say you are going to do a five-minute speed reading test. Be sure to have your clock ready or have a friend time you. Mark the part in your book you will start reading with a pencil or take note of the page number. Signal your timekeeper to begin reading for understanding. When the 5 minutes is up, stop and mark your position on the final page. Go back then to your starting page and count the total number of pages you have read.
Multiply this number by the number of words per page calculated earlier. If you haven’t finished reading all the words on the final page, just add the number of words you have read on it on the product you got by multiplying the number of pages by the total number of words in each page. The over-all answer is actually the number of words you have read in 5 minutes. Finally, divide this number by 5 to get your words per minute.
Note that it is advisable to start reading at the beginning of a chapter so that the effect of half pages is minimized. Do not worry too much about the “exact” number of words read as the estimates are reasonably accurate, and it is the increases in your reading speed that you will find most interesting.
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