How to Increase Reading Speed: Why Your Eyes Are Stuck in the Stone Age (And How to Fix It)
Reading is this weird skill you assume would get better over time, right? I mean, you’re doing it constantly—emails, texts, Reddit rabbit holes—but unlike, say, juggling or using chopsticks, it doesn’t improve with practice. Instead, you kind of just… plateau. And for most of us, that plateau feels annoyingly slow—like it’s our molasses-like reading speed that’s holding us back from diving headfirst into all the books we keep pretending we’ll read “someday.”
Why Are We So Slow at Reading?
If you’ve ever Googled “how to increase reading speed” or “how to read faster,” you’ve probably come across some well-meaning advice like:
• Stop subvocalizing.
• Use a pointer to guide your eyes.
• Try speed-reading techniques.
You probably tried them. And you probably still feel like you’re crawling through text at a snail’s pace. Or burning through pages but not remembering a single thing.
Here’s the thing: the problem might not be how you’re reading — it might be how your eyes are working.
A recent study on Neurolens suggests that slow reading speed and eye strain might be caused by a hidden issue called binocular vision dysfunction (BVD). Fixing that could give you a surprising speed boost.
But here’s the kicker — before you even think about Neurolens, there’s a simpler fix that most people overlook: just wearing glasses with your correct prescription. That alone can help you read faster — Neurolens just takes it to the next level.
Why Your Eyes Struggle with Reading
To understand why reading is hard, you have to go back about 300,000 years to the African savanna, where your great-great-great-great-times-10,000 grandparents were busy trying not to get eaten by lions.
The first ‘comments section’ in recorded history. Evolution did not prepare us for what was to come, and I am not just referring to reading effort.
Back then, vision was about survival. You needed to spot a predator from a distance, track moving prey, and generally keep an eye on the horizon. Your eyes evolved to handle this beautifully — which is why your eyes naturally align in a parallel position when you’re looking at something far away.
Then about 5,000 years ago, humans invented reading. Which, from an evolutionary perspective, might as well have happened last Tuesday. Suddenly, your eyes were expected to converge and stay focused on tiny symbols held just inches from your face — for hours at a time. Evolution did not prepare us for this.
Here’s how that plays out:
• Distance vision = natural eye alignment (easy).
• Near work (like reading) = eyes must converge (unnatural and tiring).
• If your eyes are even slightly misaligned — which is incredibly common — your brain has to work overtime to keep things in focus.
This drains mental energy and slows down your reading. Your brain is essentially burning extra calories just to keep two eyeballs pointed at the same word on a page. No wonder you’re tired.
The Neurolens Study
Researchers wanted to know if Neurolens could help by making it easier for the eyes to stay aligned during reading.
How the study worked:
• One group wore standard single-vision lenses (the control).
• The other group wore Neurolens, which contains a small prism to help with eye alignment.
• Both groups wore their lenses for a week.
• Reading speed was tested before and after.
The Results: Do Glasses Work? Yes — But Neurolens Works Better
The results? Just wearing glasses with the correct prescription gave a surprisingly solid boost:
• The control group (standard lenses) increased reading speed by 12 words per minute — not bad!
• The Neurolens group increased by 21 words per minute — about 9 WPM more than the control.
So, simply wearing glasses = faster reading. But Neurolens? That’s like adding turbo.
Why 9 WPM Matters More Than You Think
An extra 9 WPM might not sound like much. But stretch it over a year, and the difference is huge.
For the Voracious Reader
• If you read 35 books per year (about 70,000–100,000 words each), that’s roughly 2.45 to 3.5 million words per year.
• A 12 WPM increase from standard lenses would let you finish about 4–6 extra books annually.
• Add Neurolens, and you could finish an additional 5–8 books per year — nearly 20% more books without changing how much you read.
For the Office Worker
• If you read about 31 document pages (around 15,500 words) per day, a 12 WPM increase saves you about 25 minutes daily — that’s 2 hours per week or 12 full workdays per year.
• With Neurolens, you’d save an extra 7 minutes a day — enough to reclaim another 3 full workdays annually.
That’s three fewer workdays spent reading emails about Q2 growth projections. Not bad.
Why Evolution Dropped the Ball
So why are our eyes so bad at reading?
1. Humans evolved for distance vision, not near work.
2. Depth perception mattered more than sustained focus.
3. Modern life (reading, screens, close work) is unnatural for our eyes.
Basically, evolution made us excellent hunters and terrible readers. Your brain is working against millions of years of evolutionary programming every time you pick up a book or stare at a spreadsheet.
Simply wearing glasses helps because they sharpen vision and reduce some strain. But Neurolens goes further by fixing the underlying alignment issue — essentially patching up an evolutionary flaw.
Want to Read Faster? Fix Your Eyes First
If you’ve tried every reading hack and still struggle, the problem isn’t your brain — it’s your eyes.
Wearing standard glasses will give you a decent reading boost — 12 WPM is nothing to sneeze at. But Neurolens tackles the alignment issue directly, helping your eyes work together more efficiently. That means faster reading, less strain, and greater comfort — not because you’re reading differently, but because your eyes are finally working the way they should.
TL;DR: How to Read Faster
• Step 1: Get glasses with your correct prescription — you’ll read about 12 WPM faster.
• Step 2: Upgrade to Neurolens — you’ll gain another 9 WPM boost.
• Step 3: Reclaim hours of time every year — and finally make a dent in that reading list.
If you want to know how to increase reading speed or how to read faster, the answer isn’t to change how you read — it’s to fix how your eyes are working.
Dr. Burke is an optometrist practicing at Calgary Vision Centre. Opinions above do not constitute medical advice, and readers should consult with their optometrist and health care team if they have questions or concerns about their eye health.
