How I Engineered a 'Humanized' 700 Word Per Minute Reader

Published on Dec 28, 2025 • Read on Substack

"The intent wasn’t to consume “more words faster”, but rather to make constrained reading windows more productive without sacrificing clarity."

Use my reader at: ireadfaster.com

Reading is an integral part of my morning routine. It helps me get oriented before my daily tasks. However, the time necessary to ground myself is limited, so I am not always able to engage with the reading materials as deeply as I would like.

The inspiration for Cadence came from observing the untapped potential of the human mind. A demonstration of rapid visual processing highlighted a fascinating truth: our brains are capable of comprehending words significantly faster than our eyes can scan them. The traditional mechanics of reading, such as line tracking and page turning, act as a bottleneck for our cognitive speed. In other words, the intent wasn’t to consume “more words faster”, but rather to make constrained reading windows more productive without sacrificing clarity.

(Note: This is a video demonstrating the RSVP reader in action.)

By employing Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP), Cadence delivers content directly to the “optimal recognition point” of your vision, allowing you to bypass the physical limitations of eye movement. It transforms reading from a passive scan into a high-velocity stream of information, empowering you to consume curated content at the speed your mind is actually capable of processing.

The Proof

The first version of Cadence worked technically, but reading felt mechanical and exhausting. Something was missing, words were hard to keep up with, and I felt my eyes needing to adjust based on the length of the word. The breakthrough came when I realized I was optimizing for speed alone, not for the experience of reading.

The first iteration revealed to me that your eyes and brain do not process “the” and “philosophical” at the same rate. Your eyes have a fixation point when looking at words, and that point is the optimal viewing position, called the ORP or “Optimal Recognition Point.” This point is the center of the word that allows the minimal amount of viewing time or saccades (rapid, jerky eye movements that shift your gaze between points of focus) to recognize a word.

Next, it is natural that longer words would require a longer time to process. In the original implementation of Cadence, all the words were presented to me at around 100 milliseconds per word. Words like “perspicacity” and “the” had a vastly different mental toll, yet my implementation was treating them identically.

Therefore, “Smart Delay” was added.

How “Smart Delay” works:

1. The Base Beat: We start with a standard time based on your target WPM. (For example, at 300 WPM, the base time is 200 milliseconds per word).
2. Size Adjustments:
   • Short words (< 4 letters): We speed them up by 20% because your brain recognizes them instantly.
   • Long words (> 8 letters): We slow them down by 30% to give your brain an extra fraction of a second to process the complex shape.
3. The “Cadence” (Punctuation & Flow):
   • Commas & Pauses ( , ; : ): We add a flat +50ms pause.
   • Sentence Endings ( . ! ? ): We hold these words 2.5x longer. This gives your brain a moment to comprehend the full thought before the next sentence begins.

The difference was immediate. The text stopped feeling like a robotic stream of data. Instead, it felt like a natural internal monologue. By respecting the brain's need to pause and process, the tool finally became usable. I wasn’t just seeing words quickly. I was actually reading.

Use the tool at ireadfaster.com.

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