Calculate your reading speed

There is a formula you can use to calculate WPM. If you are reading a textbook or a longer book, you can calculate the WPM one time, and it will apply to every section of the book since the pages are laid out in the same way. In addition, if you like to read articles in a favorite magazine, you can calculate the WPM one time and it will apply to all of the articles in that issue, and, in most cases, other issues of the same magazine.

Formula to calculate your WPM

1. Find average number of words per line.

• Count 30 lines of print in the text (include partial lines).
• Count all of the words in all of the lines.
• Divide by 30. The answer is the average number of words per line in the text. Save this number. For example, 550 words divided by 30 equals about 15 words per line. Save this number.

Average Number of Words Per Line = Total Number of Words in 30 lines divided by 30

2. Find your total reading time.

• Look at a digital clock or an analog clock with a seconds hand.
• Write down the minutes and seconds you start; for example, 3:20 or 3 minutes and 20 seconds.
• Write down the minutes and seconds when you stop; for example, 6:34 or 6 minutes and 34 seconds.
• Subtract the time you started from the time you stopped; for example, 6:34 – 3:20 = 3:14, or 3 minutes and 14 seconds. This is the total time took to read the text. Round off the seconds to the closest number: 15, 30, 45 or 00. For example 3:14 is rounded off to 3:15, while 3:50 would round up to 4:00.
• Convert the seconds to a whole number and a decimal. For instance, 3 minutes and 15 seconds becomes 3.25, 3:30 becomes 3.5, and 3:45 becomes 3.75.

Total Reading Time = Time you stopped minus time you started (rounded off to a whole number and decimal)

3. Find the total number of words you read during the timing.

• Count the number of lines of text you read during the timing.
• Multiply the number of lines you read by the average number of words per line which you calculated in Step 1. For example, if the average number of words per line was 12, and you read 57 lines, the total number of words you read is 684 words.

Total Number of Words Read = Number of lines read x average number of words per line

4. Find words per minute.

• Divide the total number of words you read (Step 3) by the time it took you to read (Step 2). For example, 684 (total words) divided by 3.25 (time you read) = 210 words per minute.

Words per Minute (WPM) = Total number of words read divided by the time

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