Schulte Table
Twenty-five numbers, scattered. Find them in order, 1 to 25, and keep your eyes on the centre.
Try not to move your eyes around. Fix them on the centre square and let your side vision do the searching.
How to use a Schulte table
A Schulte table is a 5×5 grid holding the numbers 1 to 25 in random order. The task is simple: find and tap every number in order, from 1 up to 25, as quickly as you can. The timer starts the moment the table appears and stops when you tap 25. A wrong tap is counted but doesn't stop the clock.
The real exercise is how you look. Fix your gaze on the centre of the table and try to spot each number with your peripheral vision, without darting your eyes from square to square. Found numbers are not crossed out, just as on the original printed tables, so every search starts fresh.
What it trains
- Visual search. Scanning a crowded field for one target is a basic skill you use for reading, driving and finding things on a busy screen.
- Peripheral vision. Keeping your eyes still and taking in the whole grid widens the area you can read at a glance. That is why the tables are a staple of speed-reading courses.
- Sustained attention. Twenty-five searches in a row, with no let-up, is a short but honest test of how steadily you can concentrate.
What's a good time?
Times vary a lot between people and improve quickly with practice, so treat this as a rough guide for a 5×5 table rather than a test score.
| Time | Roughly means |
|---|---|
| Over 40 s | A first go, or a tired day |
| 30–40 s | Typical for a first few attempts |
| 20–30 s | Steady, practised searching |
| Under 20 s | Excellent focus and a wide field of view |
Short daily sessions work best: three or four tables, a few times a week. Your best time is saved on your device so you can watch it come down.
Where the Schulte table comes from
The tables are named after Walter Schulte, a German psychiatrist and psychotherapist of the twentieth century, who used grids of scattered numbers to measure how quickly and steadily a person can shift their attention. They became a standard tool in psychology, especially in Eastern Europe, for assessing attention and the speed of mental work.
Teachers of speed reading later adopted the same grids to train readers to take in more of a line at once, and a red-and-black version, where you alternate between two sequences, was developed to exercise switching attention. The plain 5×5 table you see here is the classic form.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Schulte table?
It is a grid of randomly placed numbers, usually 1 to 25 on a 5×5 board, that you find in order as fast as possible. It is used to train and measure attention, visual search and peripheral vision.
Should I move my eyes or keep them still?
Try to keep them still on the centre square. The exercise is most useful when you let peripheral vision do the searching instead of scanning square by square.
Do wrong taps add time?
No. Wrong taps are counted and shown at the end, but the clock simply keeps running until you tap 25.
How often should I practise?
A few tables a day, several days a week, is plenty. Most people see their times drop noticeably within the first couple of weeks.
Is it free?
Yes, completely free with no sign-up. Your best time is stored in your browser, on your own device.