Appalachian State University



Figuring Out How Many Pages Students Can Read In a Specified Amount of Time

When planning your lessons, whether they are DRTA, literature circles, free reading, or homework, you need to consider what is a reasonable amount for your students to read in the time you have allotted.

You can use this formula to help you figure this out:

1. The expected words per minute that a student will read (silent or oral rate) X the # of minutes the student will read = total words read

• For example, we might conclude that a normal 5th grader reading silently would read 140 words in a minute (wpm=140).

• As a teacher you have planned 20 minutes for silent reading (a 20 page chapter).

• 140 wpm X 20 = 2800 total words (that you can expect a normal 5th grader to read in 20 minutes)

2. To get the number of pages read, the total words read needs to be divided by the average number of words on a page for the book being read.

• Total words read / # of words on the page = total pages read.

• For example, a typical 5th grade book has 200 to 250 words per page (let's say 200 in this example)

• 2800 words read / 200 words per page = 14 pages in 20 minutes

This example illustrates that for most situations, 20 minutes reading time might not be enough. So you would increase the amount of time you give students to read. So let's increase this to 30 minutes:

• 140 wpm X 30 = 4200 total words

• 4200 words read / 200 words per page = 21 pages (a bit more reasonable amount for an assignment and activity)

Use this formula to make sure you give your students enough time to read what they need to before completing an assignment.

Also, this example will help you see how important reading rate is for students. Suppose you have a 5th grader who is only reading 100 wpm. In 30 minutes he will have read 1,200 fewer words, 6 pages fewer than the normal reader. It would take this reader another 10 minutes to finish the same 20 page reading assignment. So think about what is reasonable to ask your students, all of them, to do when you assign reading, and give them enough time to read.

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