Reading Trainer

Name: Reading Trainer
Item: Reading Trainer
Rating: 4
Author: Educational App Store

By Spencer Riley | Updated on April 21, 2020

iPad
Paid
age 7+

About Reading Trainer

There are many situations where we need to absorb information quickly. Picking out important points of detail, absorbing the gist of a piece of text and finding keywords are all tasks that could be done at the leisurely pace at which we read our favourite books but are ideally done with more efficiency. Reading Trainer offers a little and often approach to developing a faster and more efficient reading ability. Ideal for students to improve revision skills, develop better research methods and become a more independent learner.

Reading Trainer Review

Reading Trainer is one of the most popular reading apps for Android devices. With a sleek interface the app starts by quickly creating you a profile. One of the great features included is that you can add multiple profiles so more persons can use the app.

The app first starts by testing your current reading speed and checking how many words per minute (WpM) you can process. You will have to read a text and then answer a short multiple question quiz to see how much information you correctly retained. Once the app determined your current reading speed it will follow with other fun exercises aimed at improving your reading abilities.

Reading Trainer app contains 12 different units: WpM – Test, Word Pairs, Numbers, Text Search, Letter Jumble, Word Search, Number Search, Even Numbers, Words, Letter Mixup, Sentences and Comprehension. Each of them trains the brain to read faster and focus just on important information. Some of them ask for an immediate action (typing numbers or words that appear on the screen) or require to concentrate on the screen (following a moving circle and reading words on the way, looking at flashing numbers, watching a word being repeated and highlighted for a couple of seconds).

Our favourite one was the ‘Letter jumble’ where you have to identify target letters as quickly as possible. The exercise trains the ability to focus and retain more information with a specific region of your retina. The app is very good at explaining what each test aims to improve but all of them help your memory and concentration by building neural circuits between your eyes and brain.

By advancing in the curriculum you are unlocking new exercises. The app guides you through the exercises and generates statistics after each test. It is recommendable to complete one unit a day in order for your brain to process the new information (a session will last about 10 minutes). We had to test the app over the course of a week to see how we improve and we were surprised to see results so quickly. Re-taking the exercises is a good method to test yourself and see how you progressed.

Reading Trainer also features a set of tests – Power Reader- where the reading speed is set to a slightly higher level. You can set your preferred display mode (number of words, fixation per row, highlighted lines, centred words), the topic of the text and the numbers of WpM you want to manage to read.

The app features content in 6 other languages: German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Russian. The app unnecessarily adds next to your profile a flag depending on what language you are choosing – English users will end up with the American flag next to their profile. We suggest that the app should offer in the future the possibility for users of choosing their country flag.

We recommend the app for high-school and college students but without a doubt Reading Trainer can be useful for most of us. The app is priced at £2.99 and for those who see reading as a big part of their daily activity the app will surely bring you some benefits. The app receives 4 stars EAS Certification.