Speed Reading on Your Phone: How to Read Faster on Mobile

You can read faster on your phone, and the small screen is less of a handicap than it seems. The most useful change is to stop scrolling a narrow column of text and use a paced, word-at-a-time reader instead: large type at a fixed point, a speed you choose, and one or two words per step. Add a calm theme, silence notifications, and read in sessions of 5 to 15 minutes. That will not double your speed, but it makes reading on a phone steadier, more focused and easier to fit into short gaps in the day.

Is reading on a phone worse than on a computer?

Less than you might expect. In a 2016 study by the Nielsen Norman Group, a usability research firm, people read easy and difficult articles on either a phone or a computer and then answered comprehension questions. Across more than 1,600 article-and-quiz sessions, comprehension on phones was about the same as on computers; the small difference was not of practical importance.

Difficulty told a different story. On easy articles, readers were about as fast on both devices. On difficult articles, phone readers slowed down, spending roughly 30 milliseconds longer on each word, apparently to keep their understanding at the same level. The phone did not make them understand less; it made hard text take longer.

So the problem with phone reading is less about comprehension than about friction: constant scrolling, short lines, small type and an endless supply of interruptions. How screens compare with paper is a separate question, covered in reading on screen vs paper.

Why RSVP suits a small screen

RSVP (rapid serial visual presentation) shows text one word or short phrase at a time in the same place. On a phone that solves three problems at once:

• No scrolling. The text moves; your thumb does not. You lose your place less often.
• Bigger type. Because only a word or two is on screen, the font can be far larger than a phone column allows, which is easier on tired eyes and in poor light.
• A steady pace. The reader keeps moving at a set speed, which helps when your attention would otherwise drift to the next notification.

Researchers saw this fit early. Öquist and Goldstein, for example, built and tested an adaptive RSVP reader for mobile devices in 2003, when phone screens were tiny.

RSVP has real costs, though. It removes your ability to glance back at a word you missed, and those backward glances, called regressions, support comprehension. In a study of the RSVP app Spritz, Benedetto and colleagues (2015) found lower literal comprehension and more visual fatigue than with normal reading, and readers blinked much less. Use RSVP for prose where following the thread is enough, keep the speed moderate, and pause whenever you lose the meaning.

On a phone, RSVP is mainly a comfort and focus tool. It removes scrolling and lets you use large type; it does not let you understand text faster than you can process language.

How to set up your phone for speed reading

Most of the gain comes from settings you choose once. These are sensible starting points for a phone held in portrait:

If you do not know your normal speed, the free reading speed test works on a phone and takes a few minutes. You can open the reader with your result as the starting speed.

Read in short sessions

Phones are read in fragments: a commute, a queue, ten minutes before sleep. Paced reading suits that, because the text does not wait for you and holding attention on it is tiring. Sessions of 5 to 15 minutes are easier to sustain than one long block, and you can stop at any word and continue later.

• Decide what you are reading before you start. One saved article or one chapter, not a feed.
• Stop when the words keep moving but the meaning has stopped. Pause, step back a few chunks, and lower the speed by 50 WPM.
• Give your eyes breaks. The American Academy of Ophthalmology suggests looking at something at least 20 feet (about 6 metres) away for 20 seconds every 20 minutes, and blinking deliberately, since people blink less when they stare at a screen.

Eye strain from screens is uncomfortable but, according to the Academy, does not damage the eyes. Eye exercises and drills do not treat vision problems. If your eyes stay sore, blurry or red, see an optometrist or ophthalmologist rather than reading through it. For more on holding attention, see how to focus while reading.

How to speed read on your phone with Tachi

Tachi runs in the browser on iPhone and Android phones as well as on computers. It is free, needs no account, and keeps your texts in the browser on your device. An iPhone app is coming but has not been released yet; until then, the web app is the way to use Tachi on a phone.

1. Open the readerin Safari, Chrome or another mobile browser. If you like, add the page to your home screen from the browser's share or menu button so it opens like an app.
2. Tap + and choose "Paste from clipboard" for an article you copied, or "Upload file" to pick a PDF, EPUB or TXT file from your phone's files.
3. Open the text. Tap the word to pause and tap again to resume. Swipe left to step forward a chunk and right to step back. The controls fade while you read; tap anywhere to bring them back.
4. Adjust speed, chunk size, font size, theme and mode from the reader's controls. Highlight and Pacer modes keep the full text on screen with a moving marker, if you prefer to see whole sentences.

Your place is saved, so the text appears under "Continue reading" next time. Because everything is stored in that browser, your library and progress do not sync between your phone and your computer.

What to read on your phone, and what to leave for a bigger screen

• Good on a phone: articles you saved for later, newsletters, essays, fiction and the prose parts of non-fiction books.
• Better elsewhere: anything with tables, charts, equations or code, and documents you must study, check or sign. These lose their layout in a word-at-a-time reader, as explained in how to speed read a PDF.

A 10-minute phone practice routine

If you want to practise rather than just read, this fits into a commute or a coffee break. Do it five days a week for a month before judging the result.

1. 1 to 2 minutes: one or two Schulte tables at 4×4, tapping the numbers in order while keeping your eyes near the centre. The drill works well on a touch screen.
2. 6 to 8 minutes: read your own text in the reader at your normal speed plus 25 WPM, with one or two words per chunk.
3. 1 minute: without looking, say or note two or three things the text said. If you cannot, read at the previous speed next time.

Drills like this train attention and visual search; on their own they will not make you a much faster reader. What moves your reading speed over time is reading more, building vocabulary, and knowing when a text deserves only a skim. For a comparison of reading apps on phones and other devices, see the best speed reading apps.