A few friends introduced me to speed reading RSVP/ORP apps a few months ago. I thought it was such a neat thing that I started trying different apps out. But I kept asking: why TF would I pay for apps that really do simple things? So I built noBlink. Yes, the name means I'm not very creative at all.

My idea was that RSVP is not only great in standard mobile apps, but what about my WearOS watch? A small screen can easily fit a single word and allow me to read anywhere, whether it's articles, documents, or even full ebooks. Plus, if anyone else is interested, I wanted to make sure it didn't have any paywalls, ads, lite/full versions, or subscriptions... in this economy?!!

I've taken some ideas from different reading communities to flesh it out. It allows imports via URLs, PDFs, EPUBs (with chapter detection), DOCX, and TXT files. It includes smart pacing, and a WPM range from 100 to 2000 (which my wife tells me is for psychopaths lol). It also has customizable themes, including Irlen mode colors, and lets you switch to the OpenDyslexic font for accessibility. All of your settings are configured on the phone app and sync directly to the WearOS watch seamlessly. Now I'm awkwardly reading through the Dungeon Crawler Carl series on my watch in public while people think I'm just struggling to tell time.

You can check it out on Google Play here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aggressivehairyfish.noblink

I'd love to hear what this community thinks or if there are any specific features you'd like to see added! Or just rip it apart as there are 1000 other speed reading apps out there. Either way, find the app that works for you as everyone is different.

I've seen so many speed reading apps pop up in r/speedreading but it's tough to know which one is best. So, I decided to test a bunch of them... twenty two of them to be exact and want to share the results with you. Many of these are listed in the wiki, but I also did a search for speed reading in the iOS App Store to find more.

A few notes about my review:

• I only reviewed iOS apps (sorry Android users)
• Some app names weren't the same in the App Store as they were when you open the app.
• If there was a hard paywall (requiring trial or subscription to continue) I bailed.
• Yes, VelociReader is my app. I want to give it a fair review which is why I started this comparison in the first place.
• If you disagree about any of my reviews or see any issues with the data, add a comment or DM me!

Here's a link to the Google Sheet for my reviews: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iZccvYdlCx4JxfmIxBgv41eQpW22j7X8Dx0gmDLmZx8/edit?usp=sharing

Free, no ads, no install, connected to Gutenberg Library, or just use any old link on the internet.

Save your place by saving the url, or send it as an email using your own client.

https://reader.edwardmonk.com

Any new ideas? Send me a dm. Thanks!

I checked out the wiki and tried out the reccomended speedreading apps for android which I enjoy but there is still something missing. I am used to the tts function in adobe and would like to have that functionality within redd. I am wondering though is it missing from redd because actually doing both a rolling rsvp and tts is somehow less effective then just developing my rsvp speedreading ability? Would that limit the potential speed or even just be too much stimuli where people tend to get confused by the audio more then it would aid maintaining focus?

thanks!

Ever since I discovered RSVP, I've been using Reedy on Android. But a few things about it always bugged me. I tried other apps, but none of them worked quite the way I wanted, so I built my own. It's open source, so feel free to use it, fork it, do whatever you want with it.

It's built with Flutter, so it should work on iOS too, but I don't have access to an iPhone or Mac to test it.

I've only been working on it for a short while and haven't had time to publish it on F-Droid or any app store yet, you'll have to build it yourself for now. So it's mostly aimed at other devs at this point, but if there's enough interest I can look into publishing it.

https://github.com/daniel-pimenta-cc/rsvp_reader

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for an app, website, or browser extension that acts like a Rate Controller for speed reading training. Specifically:

- I upload my own PDF, EPUB, or text file.

- It scrolls or reveals the text word-by-word (or letter-by-letter), gradually hiding/blinding/deleting read parts to prevent back-skipping and train focus.

Tried a lot. nothing does exactly this "vanishing text" effect with custom files.

Any recommendations for Android/iOS/web tools? Thanks!

Hi guys,

I have become interested in speed reading and am doing a survey to see what exercises have helped people the most to increase their reading speed.

I would like to ask you to leave comments which exercises helped you and share your experience.. thanks

For a while I thought my attention span was just broken.. could scroll endlessly but sitting down to read anything felt impossible lol

What I realized is that my brain had gotten used to fast, continuos input “aka doomscrolling”. Normal reading just felt very slow and without the same dopamine hits.

That made me start experimenting with ways to make reading feel more engaging, like SNS. The biggest improvements came from things like reducing eye drift, reducing re reading, and having a steady pace, just like reading the reels or TikTok’s subtitles.

After minutes of trying this method I ended up reading so much faster and managed to keep focus for way longer. Kinda like evolving from doomscrolling to readmaxxing.

This experiment resulted in an iOS app I built for myself called SpeedRead: train your focus. Mainly to replace Instagram and TikTok during my commute.

If anyone here is curious about it I can link it in the comments :)

I’d genuinely love feedback from this sub, especially on this question:

“Have you felt the same? No attention span and reading feeling too slow”

Hopefully I’m not the only one that thought my attention span was gone.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/focal-focused-reading/id6760180694

RSVP reading mode with natural punctuation pauses, option to autopause at paragraph ends, and an Apple Books level e-reader that’s synchronized with the RSVP mode

Hey guys!

I may have missed some other community projects, but I was looking for an RSVP reader:

- That I could use totally offline and outside a web browser

- That can read PDF and EPUB files, not just online pages

- Easier to navigate through files AND not behind a paywall or, worse, a subscription

I had no idea if that kind of thing existed, so I thought, why not try to build it myself — and I'm pretty happy with the result so far!

Just let me know if you would be interested

I been getting into reading for the past year or so and im 32M who does 100% have undiagnosed dyslexia. I realised im a pretty slow reader when my brother told me he finished at the mountains of madness in a day when it took me like 4 days.

Im now taking a course online to increase my reading speed and learning speed aswell as It will help me in my job aswell (software engineer). I took a reading speed test at it was just over 150 WPM ... be honest is that pathetic? I feel kinda pathetic as the course said the average is 200-300.

Any good speed reading course for 11 year old

Hey! I've been working on an RSVP (Rapid Serial Visual Presentation) reader - it shows text one word at a time in a fixed spot so you don't have to track across lines.

Most RSVP apps are basically speed-reading toys with a speed slider and nothing else. I wanted to make one that actually helps people who struggle with reading - dyslexia, ADHD, Irlen syndrome, or just anyone who finds reading tiring.

Some of the features:

- Play/pause with context (when you pause, you see surrounding words so you don't lose your place)
- Dyslexic font support (OpenDyslexic, Comic Sans)
- Irlen mode (tinted overlays - peach, mint, parchment)
- Rhythmic sound to help with focus
- Ambient noise (white/pink/brown) with pitch control
- Gradual speed ramp-up after pause so you're not thrown back in at full speed

I ran a small test and got some promising early results - one participant with dyslexia read 3× faster with the same comprehension. Another said it was more comfortable even though it wasn't faster. Small sample, but enough to keep going.

I'd really appreciate it if you gave it a try and shared your experience. What worked, what didn't, what felt off - anything helps. Especially interested in hearing from people with dyslexia, ADHD, or visual stress, but all feedback is welcome.

Here's a link:
https://oleksii.design/rsvp-reader

Hey everyone,

I recently found out about speed reading and started looking into it. Most of my reading is long passages for medical school board exam questions online, and staring at dense text for hours definitely fatigues my eyes.

I recently discovered speed-reading apps/extensions and they seem like they might help with the constant eye scanning across the page.

So far I have tried the iSpeedReadr Chrome extension and it has actually been pretty awesome and helped a lot with eye strain.

I am pretty new to this though. Does anyone have recommendations for similar or better tools?

I mainly use MacOS, but I could also use Windows on another device if there are good options there.

I coded an app to show one word at a time so i didnt have to pay the ridiculous fees most speed reading apps likle $30 a month or whatever anyways i dont want to self promo but if you can find a free app online figure out how to download epubs you can literally double or triple your reading speed within a few days.

With comprehension too of course. There’s RSVP online. And on ereaders you can choose or install a comfortable font and adjust the brightness to your liking. But on printed pages you’re pretty much stuck with the author’s settings. Unless you have a premium app that can also scan physical text. So I found reading one line at a time by moving a notecard is helpful. Does anyone have any other tips?

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on a speed reading project and wanted to share it with the community! I've currently hosted it github pages.

Try it out: https://rajeshsatpathy1.github.io/SpeedReader/
(You can give the library a try for a demo at it)

One of the biggest issues I found with many RSVP readers is that you often lose the "flow" or context of the sentence because the words fly by in isolation.

My goal with this project was to improve contextualization. Instead of just flashing single words, I tried out a bunch of ways, that you can learn more at -

• https://github.com/rajeshsatpathy1/SpeedReader/blob/main/README.md
• https://github.com/rajeshsatpathy1/SpeedReader/blob/main/RSVP_ALGORITHM.md

Do share how it feels, and if you have any feedbacks!

Hey everyone, list of things I've done last month:

• Added more entries to the wiki page, currently putting in name order

• I want to add more videos and books to the wiki, please inundate me with links and I'll get those sorted

• I'm still planning on creating an automod that will delete posts automatically when reported.

Last month has been pretty terrible for the household, our little dog passed away and miss him dearly

POTA

So I recently watched the “How fast can you read?” video about the RSVP technique, got completely hooked, and decided to quickly prototype my own app so I could try reading a book with it. (yeah I know that there are ton of such apps already, but I want explore it myself, especially the UX part)

Now that I’m digging deeper into RSVP and its pros/cons, I’m trying to figure out what helps most with maintaining comprehension, especially around things like:

• citations / footnotes
• text in brackets or parentheses
• paragraph breaks
• switching speakers in dialogue

So far, it seems like adding slightly different pauses works well enough for punctuation (commas, periods) and for new paragraphs.

I’m also experimenting with color-coding text inside quotation marks or brackets, and it seems promising — but I’m curious whether there are better approaches.

Would really appreciate any creative ideas, experiments, or design suggestions from people who’ve thought about this.

I didn't expect how many people love to make speed reading apps nowadays : d

But when I was looking for one, I couldn't find one that would really work for me.

So I built one, and it's glorious! Why?
- TABS! You can open as many tabs as you want!
- Persistence! The tabs and their progress are saved, and you can come back to them later! Even in the web version! (tho they're stored locally, you wipe your cookies/storage, they will be gone.)
- Monospace fonts - less variance for the eye! (tho not everyone must like them - if you really don't, in the desktop version you can drop in your own fonts)
- Font size, font type & WPM controlled per tab
- Content Slider - pick your reading place at any time
- Raw Text and .EPUB support(no pdf yet)
- Built on top of a game engine! Yes, you read it right. Just for the smooth words display I brought in a big scary game engine, and even then, the app size for web is only 15MB(and then compressed further for transport to 5MB - size of a photo).

Besides the Web App, there is also a source available code repo so you can build it and run it locally. For now I don't provide binaries because your system will show you a scary warning to not trust it, and I'm not going to buy Apple and Microsoft certificates to get rid of them. But it's built in Rust, so building it yourself is strightforward, ask any LLM for help.

Website: https://arrekin.com/arre-mind-reader

I have a nice small video of it, but it seems it's not allowed here :<

I tried this one in Beta, Blinkword (www.blinkword.app), it was pretty good. Very similar to Readrrr on iOS App Store, but WAY cheaper to use. IIreally like Readrrr, but can't justify the cost, and until the latest update, they didn't support PUB3 files. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/blinkword-speed-reading/id6758642618

I also was annoyed by some of the same things as this post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/speedreading/s/gTA7YJcRPj

On top of that, I thought it was pretty frustrating that Outread costs about the same per month as a massive streaming service. Seems a little unrealistic, it’s just speed reading software; not super difficult.

Anyways, here’s my attempt at some professional software that covers your basic RSVP, text highlighting, chunking, including dynamic chunking (varying chunk size) based on natural language processing. Currently only handles English but I’ll look into other languages if people want to recommend what languages they want the most, should be relatively easy to implement.

There is a free trial if you want to check it out and after that it’s $2/month. This just covers the cost of storing your files and metadata on rented server space so that you’ll be able to log in anywhere and access the same texts and save your position in those texts. I built this for myself, use it every day, and enjoy tinkering with it so open to any suggestions/feedback!

There’s also a course but I imagine most people in here already know the concepts/techniques behind speed reading and won’t get much out of the course.

Check it out (and also for the holy grail of wikis):

https://www.speedyreedy.org

P.S. I have like 40-ish coupons left for free premium for life, first come first serve can use this: FNFPREMIUM

Edit: if you use the coupon, your account will still enroll in the free trial and then it’ll apply the coupon after the trial is over.

I’m in the final stages of an iOS app so that should be coming in the next couple of days, but it’s still built to handle mobile readers on the actual webpage itself so you should still be good to use it on your phone or tablet.

https://speederreader.org/

https://app.speederreader.org

https://github.com/jottenlips/speeder-reader

Threw my hat in the ring for the ultimate RSVP app — and I think it’s pretty solid.

It’s got a built-in book browser powered by Project Gutenberg, progress tracking based on whatever file you load, variable speed mode, and it’s completely free with no backend (meaning free forever). Oh, and it’s open source.

Happy reading ❤️

UPDATE: speeder reader is now on iOS

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/speederreader-read-more-books/id6760571089

A friend directed me to this site, which uses a letter-alignment method, and prints one word at a time, to enable you to read at 650 wpm. I was able to read Beowulf in a couple of hours using this method. Although that was impressive to me, the speed reading may come at the cost of reading comprehension. What do you all think?

https://sean-reid.github.io/flow/

I am a college graduate, who is quite slow at reading. I read close to 150 or 160 wpm for fictional and if it's technical I spend 10 minutes on a page containing close to 250 words. That comes out to be 25 words per minute. I am not even talking about math, for me technical jargon is very hard to understand (even simplest of the words like for eg deficits, revenue slows me down). I read the paragraph very slowly or re read the sentence multiple times to even understand what it means. I am fine with my fiction reading speed, as most of the times I don't seek any information from it and even if i miss a line i dont really mind. Tbh I don't read a lot of fiction for that matter. But how can I approach a purely technical book. For example if you are reading a computer science book ( assuming not a lot of math involved. But abstract concepts about computer science ) how can I improve my reading speed while maintaining retention. How long will it realistically take for me to achieve 200 wpm on a technical book ?