How RSVP works, how to get the most from it, and what happens to your text. Want the deeper science? See the About page.
It uses RSVP (Rapid Serial Visual Presentation): instead of moving your eyes across lines, it flashes each word in the same spot, one after another. Because your eyes stay still, you skip the time normally spent moving them and can often read faster.
One letter of each word is tinted red and held at the center line — the optimal recognition point — to help your eye lock onto each word instantly. Paste text or a link, set your words-per-minute, and press play.
Average adult silent reading is around 238 words per minute, and most adults land between 175 and 300. Start near 300 and nudge it up as your comprehension keeps up.
Once single words feel slow, try the “words at a time” setting to flash 2–3 short words together. Practice in short bursts — comprehension catches up to speed with repetition.
It can at very high speeds. Reading research finds a genuine trade-off between speed and comprehension, partly because RSVP removes two things skilled readers rely on: glancing ahead and flicking back to re-read.
RSVP shines for lighter reading and skimming. For dense or important material, slow down — or do a fast first pass, then re-read normally. There's more detail and sources on the About page.
Yes. Paste a URL into the “Read from a link” box and LightSpeedRead pulls out just the article text — no menus, ads, or sidebars — then starts reading.
It's best-effort: pages behind a login, paywalls, or sites that block automated reading may not extract cleanly. When that happens, copy the text into the paste box instead.
Yes. Text you paste stays on your device — the reader runs entirely in your browser, and nothing is uploaded or stored.
When you fetch a link, only the page address is sent to a public readability service to retrieve and clean the article, so avoid using the link feature for pages behind a login.
Space play / pause · ← → step back / forward · ↑ ↓ speed up / down · F fullscreen.
You can also click anywhere on the progress bar to jump to that point.
Yes — the layout adapts to small screens, and fullscreen focus mode works on mobile too. There's no app to install; it runs in your mobile browser.
It's free, with no account and no ads. Toggle dark or light from the switch at the top of the page (it's also in the reader bar so you can flip it in fullscreen).