21/03/2023
Interesting Facts About Reading
The average reading speed is about 200-250 words per minute, which equates to roughly 2 pages per minute.
5% of people read very slowly, at a pace of 180-220 words per minute, or about 1 page every 1.5-2 minutes.
Traditional reading comprehension is around 60%, while speed reading can boost it to 80%.
Eyestrain is less pronounced with speed reading compared to slow reading.
A person with average reading skills makes 12-16 stops per line of text, whereas a speed reader makes only 2-4 stops.
Typically, a person's visual span is 10 characters (1.5-2 words per line). A speed reader can process 200-500 characters (33-83 words across several lines).
Slow reading involves 0.5-0.7 unnecessary regressions per line. School children make about 20 regressive movements per line, and college students make about 15.
During traditional reading, 1/6 of the time is wasted on regressive eye movements.
Eyes spend 53% of the time focusing on the same letter and 47% on different ones. Of that 47%, 39% of the time the eyes diverge (left eye looks left, right eye looks right) and 8% they cross (left eye looks right, right eye looks left). These letters are usually close to each other, on average, two characters apart.
When reading, each eye sends a different image to the brain, but the brain merges them into a single image.
Every year, 360,000 new books are published in English alone.
The world's largest library is the Library of Congress in the USA, with about 115 million items in its collection. Established in 1800 on the suggestion of President Thomas Jefferson, it receives 7,000 new documents daily and employs around 5,000 staff members.
