Three habits that steal the time
Nearly every child has them, and none corrects itself.
- Regressions — The eye rereads the same sentence several times. The cheapest fix is a pointer.
- Words and topic too hard — The biggest real speed-up comes not from eye-movement technique but from knowing the language and the subject. On a text where every fifth word is new, no exercise will help.
- A narrow eye span — The eye takes one word instead of a group — the sentence falls apart and has to be read again.
How to measure progress
One number means nothing — you need two.
Words per minute
Reading aloud, always by the same method. We compare the child with themselves a month ago.
Comprehension
An answer to a question and a summary. If it has dropped, the pace was pushed up too early.
Once a week
More often is pointless: the differences between days are larger than the real gain.
Write it down
In a notebook or in your phone. Progress that cannot be seen is abandoned within two weeks.
Seven exercises
The first and the last every time; two or three of the others per session.
- A baseline measurement
One minute reading aloud, count the words. Then one sentence: what it was about. Write both numbers down — without them progress is invisible.
- The pointer
The child runs a finger or pencil under the line slightly faster than they normally read. The eye follows the movement and stops going back. 3 minutes.
- A paragraph against the clock
Start the timer and read a paragraph, aiming to beat last time slightly. Only once the pointer is working. 3 minutes.
- A column of words
A narrow column of text, the gaze sliding down the middle without darting left and right. This trains taking in groups of words. 2 minutes.
- Reading with a question
Set one question before the text that has to be answered. A purpose changes how a child reads more than any technique.
- A three-sentence summary
What it was about, what mattered, what was surprising. This checks comprehension, not memory.
- Five minutes reading aloud
Not for speed but for fluency. It helps wherever reading technique is not yet automatic.
What does not work: skimming diagonally and trying to "photograph the page". Speed without comprehension does not count.
Four weeks written into a table
This is what a measurement sheet looks like when the exercises are done properly. The numbers are illustrative — your child's will differ; what matters is how to read the result.
A record that looks like success
- Week 1: 105 words per minute, 4 answers out of 5.
- Week 2: 150 words per minute, 2 answers out of 5.
- Pace up by almost half — and exactly as much comprehension down.
- That is not progress but a move along the trade-off curve. With a novel it does not matter; with a textbook it costs a grade.
A record that shows real progress
- Week 1: 105 words per minute, 4 answers out of 5.
- Week 2: 118 words per minute, 4 answers out of 5.
- Week 3: 116 words per minute, 5 answers out of 5 — a worse pace, better comprehension, also a good week.
- Week 4: 130 words per minute, 4 answers out of 5.
- The rise is smaller, but comprehension never dropped below four answers — and only that kind of rise lasts.
One number is meaningless. Always record the pair, and compare it only with your own measurement from a week ago, on a similar text.
A baseline measurement — six minutes
The first of the seven exercises and the only one you cannot skip. You need a book, a stopwatch and five questions.
- Choose a text the child does not know
A textbook or an article, not a favourite book. A familiar text inflates the result and ruins the comparison.
- One minute of reading, the place marked
The child reads silently at their usual pace. At the signal they mark in pencil where they stopped.
- Count the words per minute
The words in three lines divided by three, multiplied by the number of lines read.
- Five questions on what they read
Three about facts, two about the point of the whole thing. The number right goes on the sheet next to the pace.
The result is a pair of numbers with a date — your zero. Every other exercise on this page makes sense from it, and none makes sense without it. Repeat the same measurement in a week, at a similar time, on a similar text — and compare only with that, never with tables off the internet, where you do not know what the text was or whether any questions were asked.
If the child reads slowly because they are still sounding words out or losing their place on the line, this measurement is meaningless — then the work is on fluency, and with clear difficulties it is worth having them checked by a specialist.
What the research says
One paper that sets the limit for all seven exercises.
Rayner et al., 2016 — a review of research on reading and eye movements
A summary of what is known about reading: sharp vision covers only a narrow part of a line, so “reading whole paragraphs at a glance” is physically impossible, and a large gain in speed comes at the cost of comprehension. The biggest real speed-up comes not from eye-movement technique but from better knowledge of the language and the subject.
Hence the shape of this list: the exercises remove habits that cost time (going back over text, reading with no purpose) rather than promising several times the speed. That is also why the fifth and sixth exercises are about comprehension, not pace.
The most common mistakes with these exercises
Four things that make the pace grow on paper rather than in practice.
Measuring pace alone
A single number always looks good, because you can always go faster. The questions about the text are the part of the measurement that guards against fooling yourself.
Practising on a book read for pleasure
A novel is read slowly, and that is not wasted time. Exercises go on texts you have to get through: a textbook, an article, a set of instructions.
Measuring every day
The result swings from day to day. Measuring once a week shows the direction; measuring daily shows noise.
Speeding up before fluency
For a child still assembling words, pace exercises have nothing to speed up. Fluency first, and that is a separate subject.
What to do at each age
Before about eight, pace is not pushed at all — and that matters.
| Age | What to do |
|---|---|
| Ages 6–8 | Fluency only: reading aloud daily, no timer. Pace follows by itself. |
| Ages 8–10 | Pointer, column of words, a measurement once a week. |
| Ages 11–15 | The full set plus reading with a question on textbook chapters. |
| Ages 16–18 | Large volumes against the clock and the three-sentence summary. |
Check attention and processing speed
Sometimes a child reads slowly not because of technique but because attention does not stay on the line. The free seven-minute test shows that separately from reading.
Take the free testshort test, about 7 minutes · no sign-up · instant result
Who wrote this
The same exercises our speed reading course starts with: remove regressions and aimless reading first, widen the span second, and always check comprehension.
Questions and answers
How many words per minute should a child read?
There is no single norm worth anchoring to: different sources give different figures. Measure your own child and compare with the same child a month ago.
Will this hurt comprehension?
It will if you chase pace alone. That is why every exercise ends with a question or a summary — without it we do not count the result.
Can we practise on a screen?
You can, though paper suits the pointer and the column better. Screens make it easier to drift off.
My child does not like reading — where do we start?
With very short texts they actually care about, and with the "reading with a question" exercise. Meaning first, speed second.
How long until results?
First changes usually show after two or three weeks of ten daily minutes. An hour once a week works worse.
Do we need special charts or apps?
Not really. A pointer, a timer and a book cover most of the work.
More on reading
What next
The course that takes this to the point of habit, and techniques for what has been read.
Speed reading course for kids
Speed and comprehension measured in every lesson with a coach.
Speed reading for kids
How we train reading speed together with comprehension.
Memory training for kids
Reading is half the job; the other half is making it stay.
Concentration exercises for kids
When the child reads but their mind is elsewhere.
Space Memory — online memory school
How classes work, terms and how to join.
If the exercises stall at home
In class a child does the same work in a group with a coach watching, and pace with comprehension is measured every month. The first lesson is free — a manager will suggest a time.
Request a callA manager will call and answer your questions