I was one of those kids who always had a book in his hand - read every free minute I had as a child and teen. My daughter was exactly the same - bought the last Harry Potter book on vacation - she read the entire book in the car on the 5 hour drive home. BTW - she got perfect reading/verbal scores on both the SAT and ACT. I still read like crazy - about 100 books a year. I think love of reading at this kind of level is something you are born with - you can’t make somebody into that kind of passionate reader.
That being said, reading is one of the best ways to improve your writing and reading ability. Try different types of books until you find what you like to read.
My older son got an 800 on the CR section of the SAT. When he was putting together a list of the books he’d read in the last year, he came up with over 100 easily. Many (honestly most) of these books were 400 page sci fi and fantasy novels, others were shorter things like computer theory books. Anyway if we were counting pages it would be at least 60 pages a day - perhaps twice that much. My younger son read a similar amount for just a slightly lower score. Both kids read fast, probably close to twice as fast as I do. I read books - 7 to 15 hours each week. Newspapers, magazine articles and CC add quite a few hours to that total.
Consider some recorded books for the car. (or bus, or while doing chores) Listening to correct grammar and sentence
structure does help. We listened to books as a family from an early age on car trips. You can sometimes get them from the library. You can also find some free ones online or pay for them on Audible.
OP- do not rely on anyone else’s reading list. Just go to the library and look for yourself. Once you find authors and subjects you like you can use your computer to put books on hold. Consider researching lists of books to be read (find online- Google is your friend) and read many of them.
My kids got perfect 800s in the SAT Reading section. The key is that they LOVE to read. If it’s something you enjoy, you will do it more often and get better at it. So I suggest that you start by reading books that you like. However, don’t just limit your reading to pop fiction (whatever is popular among today’s kids). Sure, read those books, but also try to find something you enjoy from classic literature. A lot of references in culture are made to characters and themes in classic literature (for instance, when something is described as Dickensian, kids who have read Charles Dickens would understand what that means). Also, read non-fiction, newspapers and magazines. The key is to enjoy it, not make it a chore.
It’s like piano lessons. If you are forced to take lessons growing up, but never developed a love for playing the piano, there’s a chance you will drop it as an adult. But if you learn to love it by trying to learn how to play your favorite top 40 song on the piano or the theme song of that blockbuster movie you just watched, then you will enjoy the piano and will likely continue to play for pleasure as an adult. Reading and music were things that my kids learned to enjoy, and so they didn’t have to be forced to read or practice.
I think you can learn to enjoy reading, too, if you start with books you find interesting. Then go on from there. What kind of things are you passionate about? There’s a book for practically every subject. For example, if you are fascinated by pirates/high adventure, there are many books, both fiction or non-fiction, on that. Space travel? American history? Etc.
LOL. He graduated a long time ago, I doubt he still has the list. I can throw out some names though:
Sci Fi: Asimov, Lois McMasters Bujold, David Drake, Doyle and MacDonald’s Mageworld books, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s Liaden books, Elizabeth Moon, Ursula LeGuin, John Scalzi (Red Shirts is great), David Weber, Haldeman’s The Forever War, Tanya Huff.
Fantasy: Tolkein, Naomi Novak’s Temeraire books, Patricia Wrede, Tamora Pierce, Diane Duane, Robert Jordan, Guy Gavrial Kay, Patrick Rothfuss, Brandon Sanderson, Frank Herbert’s Dune. (Some of the sci fi names also write fantasy.)
I think the original question conflates two issues, reading and performance on a test.
If you want to improve your test performance, as others have said, a tutor might be the way to go. Alternatively, you could work through a grammar text or online program (like Kahn Academy). If you want to improve your grammar work on your grammar.
If you want to read, pick up a book on something that really interests you. For my son, I’ve picked up books on Everest and K2 climbing accidents; for my daughter, I’ve provided a book on tidying. Reading can improve your grammar, but this is a by-product. The number of pages per day you should read is the amount you enjoy.
I’ve found reading to be enriching, as a way of living vicariously. I might not climb in the Andes, but I really enjoyed Touching the Void, by Joe Simpson.
by preference hours per day! TYpically with school, sports etc an hour or two is probably typical. New seasons on Netflix are always a wild card though
Two of my three kids are a lot like what comes up on here, read tremendously fast with exceptional recall and understanding, with the SAT/ACT scores to show for it. My oldest is a lot more like you.
He reads maybe 50 pages per hour, verbal SAT around 500 and ACT in the low 20s. He read probably zero books for pleasure during HS unless you count my old Far Side comics. Still, he has done very well in his college writing courses. We had him take a remedial writing course at the local community college before heading off to college. The remedial course got down to all the things that should have been taught in junior high and high school: grammar, sentence structure, word choices, paragraphs, outlining ideas. He was able to construct A level college work using the lessons of that class.
The rudiments of communicative English, speaking, reading comprehension and writing comprehensible papers, are not optional in college. A higher SAT score is and will do nothing for you. Look for a way to get feedback from someone with good English skills, especially someone who can explain them well.
My kids were not avid BOOK readers, beyond the required curriculum. But they were early readers.
My son could read well by age 3-4, and tested at 5th grade when he entered Kindergarten. What did he read most (beyond “children’s books”)? Everything about baseball and other sports as well as the daily newspaper. He was also very advanced with numbers and quantitative reasoning. He could read and absorb information quickly and had an almost photographic memory. This skill was reinforced when he joined the debate team in high school: debaters read a lot, on a great variety of subjects; and they learn to focus on key information and interpretations. This is a major payoff from debate as an EC in high school. He also was an editor of HS newspaper. Now – as an adult – he reads a lot and writes for a living.
My daughter spent a lot of her spare time drawing, but enjoyed reading as well. TBH I don’t know what she reads now that isn’t work-related. A lot of her interest focuses on issues of business and ecological design (she attended an art school for college, then earned an MBA). While not as math-oriented as her older brother, she performed very well on standardized tests b/c she could digest information quickly.
OP- please get over trying to correlate SAT scores with hours read. Top readers can spend less time reading ,more with greater comprehension. By now you should get the idea. Start reading- anything at any level. Use the time you spend online to pick up a book. Visit your public library weekly. You have your abilities and knowing what we have told you here you have plenty of easy instructions to follow. You start at your current level and improve it with an increased knowledge base and skills in using the language.