Does the Schulte Table Work? What the Evidence Says

By Reset Science Team · Updated October 16, 2026 · 5 min read

A 5 by 5 Schulte table with 1, 2 and 3 found in blue

Quick answer

The Schulte table reliably improves with practice: your times drop as you get better at visual search and staying focused under a clock. There is little good evidence that it widens your vision or doubles reading speed. Treat it as a quick, measurable attention exercise, not a reading hack.

Does the Schulte table really work?

It depends on what you expect. Practice reliably makes you faster at the table itself, because you get better at visual search and at holding focus while the clock runs. That makes it a good short attention exercise with a clear score.

Bigger claims are a different story. Training studies in general find that gains carry over mostly to similar tasks, not to broad abilities (Melby-Lervåg and Hulme, 2013).

Does the Schulte table improve reading speed?

There is little good evidence for it. Reading speed is mostly limited by how fast you understand language, not by how much your eyes can see at once. A major review found that speed reading techniques that push you to read much faster usually reduce understanding (Rayner and colleagues, 2016).

What is a good Schulte table time?

Times vary a lot between people, so use these as rough guides and focus on beating your own best:

4×4 grid (1 to 16): about 15 to 25 seconds when you start, under 12 seconds with practice.
5×5 grid (1 to 25): about 30 to 45 seconds when you start, under 20 seconds with practice.

How to get the most from it

Do a few rounds as a warm-up before study or work, shuffle the grid every time, and track your best time over weeks. Measure your own speed with our free 4×4 Schulte table.

Key takeaways

Practice reliably makes your Schulte times faster.
Gains are clearest on the task itself and similar visual search tasks.
Claims of much wider vision or doubled reading speed are not well supported.
Average 4×4 times are roughly 15 to 25 seconds for beginners.

Sources

Rayner, K. et al. (2016). So much to read, so little time: How do we read, and can speed reading help? Psychological Science in the Public Interest.
Melby-Lervåg, M. & Hulme, C. (2013). Is working memory training effective? A meta-analytic review. Developmental Psychology.

This article is for general information and is not medical advice.