How many words per minute is reading aloud?

Adults read aloud in English at an average of about 183 words per minute ¹. That figure comes from a 2019 review of reading studies, and it is the number to use when you want a single answer. The average covers ordinary adult readers, so a child, an older reader or someone reading in a second language will usually be slower, and an individual adult may be faster or slower than the average.

Reading aloud averages 183 words per minute, slower than silent reading

Marc Brysbaert's 2019 meta-analysis drew on 77 studies with 5,965 participants and found an average oral reading rate of 183 words per minute ¹. The same review puts silent reading of non-fiction for adults in English at 238 words per minute, and fiction at 260 ².

So reading aloud is slower than reading silently. The two averages come from different studies, and the oral figure does not separate fiction from non-fiction, while the silent figure given here is for non-fiction. These sources do not explain why the gap exists. What the numbers do show is that the spoken rate is the slower one.

Reading aloud sits a little below everyday conversation

Reading aloud is also a little slower than talking. Everyday conversation runs at an average of 196 words per minute when pauses are counted ³. The two figures come from different studies with different material, so the gap is a rough comparison, not a controlled one, but both point the same way.

Put side by side, the three familiar rates are:

Silent reading of non-fiction is about 1.2 times as fast as the overall conversational rate ⁴, so the two skills are not interchangeable. Reading a script aloud is slower than talking, so it will not give you the pace of a relaxed talk.

Averages hide who is reading

Brysbaert reports that reading rates are lower for children, for older adults and for readers who use English as a second language ⁵. A single adult average is a benchmark for adults, not a target for every reader. If you are judging a child's reading, compare them with children of the same age, not with the adult figure.

The studies we found do not give a separate oral rate for fiction and non-fiction, so the 183 figure covers both. It also comes from English-language studies, so treat it as an English benchmark.

Claims of much faster reading go beyond the evidence

Some programs promise reading far faster than average silent reading while keeping full understanding. A 2016 review by Keith Rayner and colleagues concluded that claims of reading at super speed with good comprehension are overstated and do not match what research shows about how language is processed ⁶. Brysbaert, summarizing that review, states that reading rates above 1,000 words per minute are impossible without a severe loss of understanding ⁷.

For the adult silent figures and what they mean in practice, see average reading speed. For children, see reading speed by grade. For the measure itself, see oral reading fluency.

What to do: time a passage read aloud

To find your own oral reading rate, use the same arithmetic as the research.

1. Choose a passage of plain prose, about 200 to 400 words, that you have not read before.
2. Start a stopwatch and read it aloud at your normal pace, without rushing.
3. Stop the watch, count the words in the passage, and convert the time to minutes.
4. Divide the word count by the minutes. For example, 366 words read in 2 minutes is 183 words per minute ¹, the adult average.

Read a second, different passage and compare the results. Reading aloud can depend on the material, so compare like with like. If you are timing someone else, use the same passage each time and record the result with the date.

The guide to speaking speed compares reading aloud with conversation, silent reading and narration, and the overview of typing and writing speed covers the rest of this subject. To compare reading with talking directly, see how many words per minute people normally speak. For the speaking side of a script, see the fastest speaking speed.