What is ReadSnap?

ReadSnap groups English text into meaningful phrases, or “thought units,” with one goal: helping you read much faster while maintaining—or improving—comprehension. It can prepare entire books for phrase reading in milliseconds. War and Peace in one second on a consumer laptop.

Why read in phrases?

As children, we move from sounding out letters to recognizing whole words. Phrase reading applies that same idea to groups of words. ReadSnap makes those groups visible, so you can follow the thought as you move through a sentence. The aim is to spend less effort assembling the words and more attention understanding—and remembering—what they mean.

From ancient manuscripts to modern reading apps

Before the printing press

Long before screens, scribes arranged prose per cola et commata: clauses and smaller units of sense, with new units beginning on new lines. Around 562, Cassiodorus recommended this arrangement to make reading easier. The Ceolfrith Bible, copied around 690–716, preserves the practice in two columns of sense-divided text. Making the structure of a thought visible has a long history.

The speed-reading wave

In 2014, Spritz launched with a Samsung integration announcement and a striking demonstration: individual words streaming through a fixed point, with a highlighted recognition letter. Amazon introduced Word Runner in 2015, also presenting one word at a time. Other readers let users flash a fixed number of words together.

The challenge is to carry understanding along as the pace increases. Reading research highlights the limits of speed alone and the value of being able to look back. ReadSnap makes the choice of phrases central to the experience, while keeping pause and review within reach.

The difference is in the phrase breaks

A useful phrase carries enough meaning to follow at a glance, so a faster pace can still feel clear and manageable. David Butler spent over 20 years refining ReadSpeeder around that balance of speed and understanding. ReadSnap brings that same care to books and articles in the apps people already use.

Six reading modes let you find a presentation that feels natural. Keep the surrounding paragraph visible, or let each phrase take center stage. Try a familiar passage and gradually increase the pace, checking that you’re still following and retaining the ideas. Pause and revisit a phrase whenever you need to.

For ebook and read-later apps

Help your readers make time for the books and articles they care about. ReadSnap adds a reading mode built for greater speed and clearer understanding to the content you already deliver. The opportunity is to help people finish more of what they save and get more from what they read. This preview is for evaluating ReadSnap for licensing in your app.

ReadSnap is being developed by David’s son, Austin Butler, founder of Reading.com, Typing.com, and Teaching.com.

David also explains his approach in Speed Reading with the Right Brain: Learn to Read Ideas Instead of Just Words, which has over 1,000 ratings on Amazon.