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Some speed-reading apps make big claims. But how fast can we actually read?

The Conversation · 🇦🇺 public Australia · · 1011 words · By Erik D Reichle
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What to know about Some speed-reading apps make big claims. But how fast can we actually read?

Some speed-reading advocates claim that with proper training (outlined in many popular books and YouTube videos) or the use of special apps, it’s possible to increase your reading rate to 1,000 words per minute or more.

Claims checked 15
Techniques found 0
Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left20%
Center60%
Right20%

5 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Some speed-reading advocates claim that with proper training (outlined in many popular books and YouTube videos) or the use of special apps, it’s possible to increase your reading rate to 1,000 words per minute or more.

Why it matters

Such books, videos and apps generally assume our reading speed is constrained because we are inefficient at extracting information from the printed page.

Common ground

To assess these claims, let’s first see what the science says about our reading capacities.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://theconversation.com/some-speed-reading-apps-make-big-claims-but-how-fast…

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 15 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

schedule Pending 5
check_circle Corroborated 5
verified Verified By Reference 2
cancel Disputed 1
info Single Source 1
help Insufficient Evidence 1
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Claim 1: “a 2024 study compared those using Bionic Reading with those reading in the conventional manner. It found no significant difference in the reading rate or comprehension of the former.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
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Claim 2: “During reading, our eyes don’t move smoothly across a printed page but instead make rapid movements called saccades, separated by brief pauses called fixations.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources, including a Wikipedia-sourced search result and specialized articles on eye movement, confirm that reading consists of rapid saccades and brief fixations.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Saccadic eye movement allows the mind to read quickly, but it comes with its disadvantages. It can cause the mind to skip over words because it does not see them as important to the sentence, and the …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — How we read. During reading, our eyes don't move smoothly across a printed page but instead make rapid movements called saccades, separated by brief pauses called fixations. Although language processi…
https://phys.org/news/2026-08-speedreading-apps-big-fast-hum…
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Eye movements during reading are complex. New line. In reading, you fixate, make a quick movement (saccade), refixate, make another saccade, etc. We only perceive what we see during the fixation perio…
http://mcloonlab.neuroscience.umn.edu/2100/lectures/N2100+le…
schedule
Claim 3: “a 2022 study compared children’s reading of normal text with their reading of text displayed with BeeLine Reader. It found while the latter could help some second-grade readers more rapidly progress through densely formatted text (though not simpler texts), it could hamper comprehension for third-grade readers.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
schedule
Claim 4: “a 2015 study compared normal reading methods to the speed of those reading using Spritz. It found no difference in reading rates but did find evidence Spritz impaired readers’ capacity to recall the text when their comprehension was tested.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
cancel
Claim 5: “a rigorous study of readers who took speed-reading courses suggests they are simply skimming through text, with their comprehension declining in proportion to their skimming rate gain.”
DISPUTED
Sources contradict each other: one suggests speed reading leads to skimming and comprehension decline, while another (ERIC EJ1141638) claims speed reading courses helped learners increase speed without decreasing comprehension.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Advocates of many speed-reading technologies claim reading speed can be significantly increased by using apps that display text in specific formats.
https://phys.org/news/2026-08-speedreading-apps-big-fast-hum…
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web search NEUTRAL — Initial reading speed and comprehension tests established the participants’ base-line reading speed (word-per-minute) and comprehension scores. Students who understand how and why The Reader’s Edge pr…
https://fluentreading.wordpress.com/tag/speed-reading/
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — point of speed and demonstrated that speed reading courses helped learners to increase their speed without decreasing their comprehension.The analysis shows that the participants in the control group …
https://archive.org/stream/ERIC_EJ1141638/ERIC_EJ1141638_djv…
schedule
Claim 6: “Spritz, meanwhile, is an app that displays each word of a text in rapid succession in exactly the same spot on the screen.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
check_circle
Claim 7: “Although language processing continues during saccades, visual processing is suppressed. Information on the printed page is only extracted during fixations.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources confirm that visual processing is suppressed during saccades and that information extraction occurs during fixations.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — The process of retaining information across a saccade is called trans-saccadic memory, and the process of integrating information from more than one fixation is called trans-saccadic integration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Suppression during saccades implies that processing occurs discretely (during eye fixations only), rather than continuously (during both fixations and saccades).
https://experts.illinois.edu/en/publications/information-pro…
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Integration of Information Across Saccades. The extraction of partial-word information from the parafo-vea implies that it must be integrated in some way with foveal information from the subsequent fi…
https://scispace.com/pdf/eye-movements-in-reading-and-inform…
verified
Claim 8: “Bionic Reading, for instance, is an app that displays the first part of each word in bold font.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
The provided evidence contains irrelevant Wikipedia entries for 'Bionic Commando' and 'Bionic Showdown'. No evidence regarding a 'Bionic Reading' app was found in the results.
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — Bionic Commando is a 2009 action-adventure game developed by Grin and published by Capcom. Part of the Bionic Commando series, it is a sequel to the 1988 game Bionic Commando, with certain storyline e…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bionic_Commando_(2009_video_ga…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (often simply Bionic Showdown) is a television science fiction film which originally aired on April 30, 1989 on NBC. The film reunited …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bionic_Showdown:_The_Six_Milli…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Reading Rainbow is an American educational children's television series designed to encourage a love of books and reading. The original series aired on PBS and PBS Kids from July 11, 1983 to November …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Rainbow
verified
Claim 9: “These fixations are typically 200–300 milliseconds but vary in duration.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
The provided evidence for this claim consists of irrelevant Wikipedia entries for the city of Reading, the act of reading in general, and aircraft. No specific data on fixation duration (200-300ms) was found in the provided results.
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Airbus A330 is a wide-body airliner developed and produced by Airbus. Airbus began developing larger A300 derivatives in the mid–1970s, giving rise to the A330 twinjet as well as the Airbus A340 q…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A330
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Airbus A340 is a long-range, wide-body passenger airliner that was developed and produced by Airbus. In the mid-1970s, Airbus conceived several derivatives of the A300, its first airliner, and dev…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A340
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Boeing 757 is an American narrow-body airliner designed and built by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The then-named 7N7, a twinjet successor to the trijet 727, received its first orders in August 197…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_757
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 10: “Interestingly, this rate increased to 200–320 words per minute for fiction.”
CORROBORATED
The same two independent sources corroborating the meta-analysis also confirm the increased rate for fiction, specifically mentioning the 200–320 range (or an average of 260).
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — Adult contemporary (AC) is a category of popular music catered to adult demographics, including record charts and radio formats that are focused on such music. The exact assemblage of adult contempora…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_contemporary_music
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Adults is an American television sitcom created by Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw about a group of friends in their twenties experiencing adulthood in Queens, New York. Adults premiered on FX on May …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adults_(TV_series)
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Young adult literature (YA) is literature written for readers aged 12 to 18. It may include themes found in adult fiction, such as family dysfunction, substance abuse, alcoholism, and sexuality. The e…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_adult_literature
+ 3 more evidence sources
info
Claim 11: “When reading English, we typically perceive two to three letters to the left of fixation and seven to eight letters to the right.”
SINGLE SOURCE
Only one source explicitly mentions the 'two to three letters to the left and seven to eight letters to the right' metric. Other sources discuss the concept of perceptual span but provide different numbers (e.g., 14-15 spaces to the right).
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — When reading English, we typically perceive two to three letters to the left of fixation and seven to eight letters to the right. (This perceptual span varies across languages and writing systems.)
https://theconversation.com/some-speed-reading-apps-make-big…
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — To the right, you can identify letters about 14-15 spaces out — enough to see the current word and preview the next one or two. This asymmetry reverses for readers of right-to-left scripts like Hebrew…
https://readlite.in/concepts/perceptual-span-reading/
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — The perceptual span is the size of the effective visual field in a fixation during reading, or the spatial extent to which useful (helpful) visual information can be extracted in a single fixation dur…
https://sites.pitt.edu/~perfetti/Eye+Movements+During+Readin…
schedule
Claim 12: “E-Z Reader... simulates the core cognitive processes that control when and where readers move their eyes, including vision, attention, word identification and language processing.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
check_circle
Claim 13: “A 2019 meta-analysis of 190 published studies found that when silently reading English non-fiction, adults read at a rate of 175–300 words per minute.”
CORROBORATED
Two independent web sources confirm the 2019 meta-analysis of 190 studies by Marc Brysbaert, citing the specific range of 175–300 words per minute for non-fiction.
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_English
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Embraer E-Jet family is a series of four-abreast, narrow-body, short- to medium-range, twin-engined regional jet airliners designed and produced by Brazilian aerospace manufacturer Embraer. The E-…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_E-Jet_family
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Würger was used by the Luftwaffe during the Second World War in a variety of roles. Like the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the Fw 190 was employed as a "workhorse", and proved suitable f…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Wulf_Fw_190_operational_…
+ 3 more evidence sources
help
Claim 14: “BeeLine Reader is an app that displays text in different font colours, with the colour used at the end of one line matching the colour used at the beginning of the next.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence was found for this claim in the provided search results.
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Claim 15: “popular speed-reading books such as Speed-Reading for Dummies claim people can learn to “read, see, and process” 10–14 words in a single eye fixation.”
CORROBORATED
One source explicitly quotes the '10-14 words' claim from 'Speed-Reading for Dummies', and another source from the 'dummies' domain confirms the book's premise that widening vision span allows processing more words per fixation.
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — Crash Test Dummies are a Canadian rock band from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Anchored by Brad Roberts (vocals, guitar) and his distinctive bass-baritone voice, the other band members have fluctuated over the …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_Test_Dummies
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — For Dummies is an extensive series of instructional reference books that aim to present non-intimidating guides for readers new to the various topics covered. The series has been a worldwide success, …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Dummies
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Dummies was a musical project formed by Slade bassist Jim Lea and his brother Frank Lea in 1979. Between 1979 and 1981, they released three singles and recorded a number of original and Slade song…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dummies
+ 3 more evidence sources
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.