How to Increase Reading Speed: 10 Best Methods in 2026
reviewed by Franz Jerby Delos Santos
Updated on March 2, 2026
Reading too slowly can prevent students from keeping up with academics. The good news is that the speed with which children read is not set in stone. Check the 10 effective strategies on how to increase reading speed without compromising comprehension. Usually, they work better when combined.
Key points
- Working with a professional tutor who uses personalized materials and teaches 1:1 lessons is an efficient way to increase reading speed for students of all ages.
- Turning reading into a daily habit, tracking words with a finger, and expanding your horizontal peripheral vision also help become a faster reader.
- To support your younger child or kid with dyslexia in reading better, you can eliminate distractions, offer a quiet environment, and buy books with more spacing between letters and colored overlays.
How can I improve my reading level fast?
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 on 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.
What is the average WPM reading speed?
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.
How to increase reading speed? 10 effective strategies
- Work with a reading tutor
- Try skimming
- Give scanning a shot
- Practice repeated reading
- Track words with a pointer or a finger
- Build your sight word vocabulary
- Practice reading on a daily basis
- Expand your horizontal peripheral vision span
- Minimize distractions during reading time
- Get books with more spacing between letters and colored overlays
#1 Increase reading speed with a reading tutor
Age: All ages
Best for: Children who require professional guidance and support
How to read faster with a tutor’s feedback?
The Brighterly 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, the Brighterly 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 exercises and fun, gamified activities. This makes lessons exciting and effective.
Brighterly 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. In Trustpilot reviews, parents praise the quality teachers who help achieve noticeable results.
Finally, Brighterly reading tutoring offers an affordable price, starting at $17.30/lesson, with an annual subscription plan and 20% discount (the price is actual if you book 3 weekly lessons). Moreover, children can benefit from free reading worksheets, sorted by grade level, for additional speed reading practice.
#2 Increase reading speed with skimming
Age: 8-14 years
Best for: Strong readers dealing with informational texts and building learning skills
How to skim headings and first sentences to read faster
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.
#3 Increase reading speed with scanning
Age: 8-14 years
Best for: Students who need to navigate long textbooks and prepare for exams
How to improve reading speed with scanning
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.
#4 Increase reading speed with guided repeated reading
Age: 6-12 years
Best for: Young students who read slowly or lack reading fluency
How to build speed through short, repeated passages
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 with repeated reading with the help of a guide, the Center for Literacy Training & Instructional Leadership at Lesley University provides the following tips:
- Reading aloud with your natural voice so that the teacher can monitor pronunciation
- Receiving support from an adult when needed
- Getting continuous feedback from the instructor in the process (so that reading doesn’t sound like a monologue) to improve both speed and accuracy
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.
#5 Increase reading speed by tracking words with a pointer or a finger
Age: 5-9 years
Best for: Early readers learning to track and students with attention difficulties
How to use a finger or pointer to keep a faster pace
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.
#6 Increase reading speed by building your sight word vocabulary
Age: 5-10 years
Best for: Beginner readers working on automatic word recognition
How to recognize common words instantly to read faster
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 (as suggested by some parents on this Reddit thread as of June 2025), 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.
#7 Increase reading speed by practicing reading on a daily basis
Age: 5-15 years
Best for: All students, especially during the summer and other vacations
How to improve your pace with 10-15 minutes of daily practice
One of the speed reading techniques that actually work in 2026 is practicing daily reading with the goal of turning it into a habit. 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.
#8 Increase reading speed by expanding your horizontal peripheral vision span
Age: 9-14 years
Best for: Students with decoding skills and reading capabilities who want to improve efficacy
How to take in more words at once and read faster
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 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.
#9 Increase reading speed by minimizing distractions during reading time
Age: 5-14 years
Best for: All students, particularly those with attention challenges or sensory sensitivities
How to set up a distraction-free routine for faster reading
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.
#10 Increase reading speed with more spacing between letters and colored overlays
Age: 10-19 years
Best for: Students with dyslexia
How to test spacing and overlays to support faster reading
To increase the 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 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.
How long does it take to increase reading speed?
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:
- Initial reading speed
- Strategies applied
- The effort exercised by a student
- The presence of any learning disabilities
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.
Conclusion: Improving reading speed with consistency
These 10 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, 1:1 tutoring like Brighterly 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.
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