Speed Reading Exercises

Four drills from the Speed Readingo method, free in your browser. Practise about 10 minutes a day and check your progress with the reading speed test.

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Pacer

Let the highlight set your pace and keep your eyes on it.

Speed reading drills work best in short bursts. Read with the highlight, not behind it. If it moves ahead of you, let it go and catch up at the next line instead of going back. After a few minutes the pace stops feeling rushed. Then set it fifty words per minute faster and do one more round.

Pace: 250 WPM

Let your eyes ride the highlight. In this drill you keep moving forward; on a real page a quick glance back is fine.

Word groups

Take in each lit group in one look.

Pace: 250 WPM

Take in each lit group in one look, not word by word.

⚡ RSVP reader

One word at a time, in one spot. Paste any text.

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🔢 Schulte table

Find 1 to 25 in order with your eyes on the centre.

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Practice texts

From Abdullah Yılmaz’s speed reading course. Read each one with the pacer first, then on your own, and notice how long the second read takes.

Give It a Meaning, Then Memorise It

If you repeat something a hundred times without giving it any meaning, the chances that it stays with you are very low. But if you give it a meaning and think about it even once, you have taken a real step towards remembering it. There is a world of difference between repeating the number 38 hundreds of times and picturing the 3 as a bagel split in half and the 8 as two whole bagels. Tying 38 to something you already know, such as a house number on your street, works the same way, because it gives the digits a meaning. That is the whole point of marking: you attach a meaning to whatever you want to remember. It does not have to be a single meaning. The more meaning you attach, the longer it lasts. Can marking work for everything? Yes, but it can take a lot of time at first, so it is a skill you build with plenty of practice. You can practise anywhere: a picture you see on the street, a word you hear. The more you practise, the stronger the memories you create. Over time you will notice which ways of giving meaning work best for you, and you will have your own marking methods. Marking uses the most basic logic of memory. Build this skill and it will make things easier in every part of your life.

Pace: 250 WPM

Let your eyes ride the highlight. In this drill you keep moving forward; on a real page a quick glance back is fine.

The short answer

Speed reading exercises train a steadier, faster pace: RSVP shows one word at a time, a pacer moves a highlight through the text, word-group reading lights up short phrases, and the Schulte table is a visual-search warm-up. Research says lasting gains come mostly from reading more, so keep drills short and then read real texts (Rayner et al., 2016).

A 10-minute daily plan

Minutes	Exercise	Why
1–2	Schulte table, 2–3 rounds	Settle your attention before you read
3–5	Pacer at your test speed, then +50	Hold a steady pace without slipping back
6–8	RSVP, 50–100 words per minute above your test speed	Push past the voice that says every word
9–10	A real page, read a little faster than usual	Carry the pace into normal reading

Once a week, take the reading speed test with the text you didn’t use last time, and look at speed and comprehension together.

What each exercise trains

Pacer. A moving highlight sets the pace, the way a finger or a pen guides the eyes. Your eyes stop drifting back over lines you have already read.
Word groups. Short phrases light up one at a time. The Speed Readingo course calls this resting your eyes on a few points per line and taking in the words around each one.
RSVP. One word at a time in a fixed spot. A short, intense drill; use it on a handful of texts, then go back to normal reading.
Schulte table. Find numbers in order while your eyes stay in the centre. A focus warm-up, not a reading-speed shortcut.

What the research says about drills

Drills are useful for breaking a slow, word-by-word habit. They are not a shortcut: the most reliable gains in reading speed without losing comprehension come from reading more and growing your vocabulary, and they come slowly (Rayner et al., 2016). That is why every exercise here ends on a real page, and why the test always checks comprehension along with speed.

The lessons explain the method behind each drill.

Questions people ask

How long should I practise each day?

About 10 minutes of drills, as the Speed Readingo course suggests, followed by real reading. People who read more have stronger reading and language skills (Mol & Bus, 2011), and that is where drill pace turns into everyday speed.

Which exercise should I start with?

Take the reading speed test first, then start with the pacer at your test speed. Add RSVP once the pacer feels easy, and use the Schulte table as a warm-up.

Do eye exercises make you read faster?

No study we found shows that eye-muscle exercises raise reading speed. Speed is limited mostly by how fast you recognise words, and the eyes are moving only about a tenth of the time while you read (Rayner et al., 2016).

Sources

Written by

Abdullah Yılmaz · Speed reading instructor · Founder of Fastemy

Abdullah Yılmaz built Speed Readingo and teaches speed reading and memory techniques. His Turkish course on Udemy has taught more than 49,000 students since 2018, with a 4.6 rating from over 10,500 reviews. The lessons on this site follow the same method, adapted for the web and for the app.

Udemy course: Speed Reading Techniques & Memory: Learn Like a Genius (49,126 · 4.6★) · About the author and the method