These days there seems to be so much text to get through that speed reading is a skill well worth acquiring. Spreeder provides a free online speed reading tutorial and also lets you copy in your own text to be read. So it doubles up as a method of learning to read faster and also a tool for reading your own documents quickly. To try Spreeder out you can copy and paste a document into the window on the main page and start reading it one word at time at speed. Then you can click on settings to read the text in larger chunks and at different speeds. Gradually it should be possible to read larger chunks of text at increasing rates.

The main ways this works are to get the brain to scan and read faster, and also to stop the habit of drifting off or continually reading back over text. With one chance to read a chunk of text you get in the habit of taking it all in at one glance. Spreeder has extra facilities, including a ‘bookmarklet’. This lets you select text in your web browser, open the Spreed bookmarklet in another browser window, and there you will find the text preloaded with no need to copy and paste. Some types of reading are best when done at a leisurely pace, but for much of the work we need to do it would be better to be able to get through it quickly, making Spreeder a useful tool and training resource.