I got above average at 250-300 words a minute. Then again I usually don't measure my reading speed with how fast I can read in a minute but how fast I can read a book. To put it bluntly, on my first read through of Frankenstein I read the book in under three hours. I got the same time with Lord of the Flies, five hours with The Grapes of Wrath, and I read all of Atlas shrugged in a little over twelve hours. So yah, it's not about the words it's about the whole picture.