Reading Span: Memory
Judge sense, recall last words
About this trainer
Reading Span shows you a short sentence to read (and often to judge as making sense or not), then a single word to hold onto. After a run of two, three or more sentences you have to recall those words in the order they appeared. The trick is doing both at once: process each sentence while the earlier words sit in memory, and the set size keeps growing.
What it develops
It loads working memory, specifically your ability to hold information while doing something else with your attention at the same time. That dual demand of storage plus processing is what separates it from a plain word list and is closely tied to verbal comprehension.
History
It began as a laboratory measure of working memory, not a game. After Daneman and Carpenter introduced it in 1980, the idea spread fast: Turner and Engle showed in 1989 that the sentence-reading part could be swapped for arithmetic (the operation span), and a whole family of computer-based complex span tasks followed, becoming standard tools in cognitive psychology.
Who created it — and when
Created by Meredyth Daneman and Patricia A. Carpenter in 1980, in their paper in the Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior. It is widely credited as the first complex span task, alongside their listening span version.
How to train
Read or judge each sentence at a normal, honest pace instead of rushing the processing part to protect the words, since the difficulty lives in doing both together. Don't just chant the words on a loop; tie each one to its sentence or build a quick mental image or story linking them. Push the set size up only once you are reliable at the current length.
How long to practise
Short focused blocks work best: around 10 to 15 minutes, a few times a week. Fatigue hits this task quickly, so stop when your accuracy starts sliding rather than grinding through tired.
Evidence base
Evidence is strongest for exactly what you would expect: reading span is a solid, well-validated measure of working memory capacity, and scores correlate with reading comprehension. What it does not reliably do is make you broadly smarter. Large meta-analyses and controlled studies of working memory training (Melby-Lervåg and colleagues, Redick and colleagues) found that gains stay close to the trained task and do not transfer to fluid intelligence or everyday cognition, so treat any plus-IQ promise with caution.
Recommendations
Use it to sharpen and gauge your working memory honestly, not as a shortcut to a higher IQ, and keep the sentence-reading part genuine rather than skimming it.
FAQ
Is this the same as just memorising a list of words?
No. A plain list only tests storage; Reading Span forces you to process each sentence at the same time as holding the words, which is what makes it a measure of working memory rather than simple short-term memory.
Will training this raise my IQ or make me smarter overall?
Honestly, probably not. You will get better at the task and at similar span tasks, but the best controlled research shows little to no transfer to general intelligence or unrelated everyday skills.
Should I read fast to make it easier?
Rushing usually backfires. The challenge is the combination of reading and remembering, so read at a real pace and spend your effort linking each word to its sentence instead of racing through.
Variants
Close relatives swap the processing task: operation span pairs words with math problems, symmetry span uses visual judgments, and listening span has you hear sentences instead of reading them. Versions also differ in whether you recall words in order, whether sentences must be judged true or false, and how the set sizes are arranged.