Essentials Of The Wpm Approach Of Calculating The Read Time Of A Book

When was the last time you preferred a book only because the reading time was less? As a student, you already have a busy life. There are multiple assignments to write and tests to take, in addition to the vast syllabus that you have to cover. On top of that, when you have to read a tome of a book, it adds to the pressure. But with online character counters showing the reading time, you can now easily pick up the right book according to the amount of available time you have.

But how do you calculate the reading time of a book and choose the right option? The approach that a word count calculator takes is called the ‘Words Per Minute’ strategy. In this post, I will walk you through the essentials that you need to keep in mind while estimating the reading time of a book.  

• What does WPM mean?

The concept of Words per minute, or WPM, refers to the measurement of words with time as a parameter. ‘Words per minute’ is based on average reading time, which is subjective. While dog and rhinoceros are one word each, the time taken to read out both the words will be different. Since dog is a mono-syllable word, time taken to read it will be less as compared to a multi-syllable word like rhinoceros. So an online character counter defines a standard word to be five characters long.

• What are the parameters of WPM?

Some of the parameters that affect the readability score of a book are the type of font, size, and alignment of the text. A word counter tool also considers the number of paragraphs, the images in the book, and the bullets used in the content.

• How to calculate a book’s reading time manually?

It is considered that a middle-school student needs 1 minute to read 100 words on paper and 120 words on a monitor. To calculate the reading time of a book, you can check the word count of an e-book in its description. You can also use a word counter tool to check the words.

For example, if you find that the book has 12000 words, it would mean that the WPM for the book is 120 minutes (or 2 hours) for a middle-school student. Considering your age and hold of the language, you can decrease or increase the time taken to understand how much time you will take to complete reading the book.

Quite often, students take up reading a book and then leave in between because they do not have the time, or they get bored. When you calculate the reading time of a publication, you know how much time you will take to finish the book. This technique proves to be beneficial, especially when you have been asked to write a book review on a book of your choice. If you aren't much of a reader, then go for the ones with shorter durations.

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