Free levelled English reading practice. Read for meaning first, then use the full Speed Reading tool to time yourself and track your progress.
During the nineteenth century, several inventors experimented with sending speech electrically. Alexander Graham Bell received a famous US telephone patent in 1876 and soon demonstrated a device that could transmit understandable speech. Early telephones connected users through wires and human operators. Networks expanded rapidly, changing business and personal communication. Later came automatic exchanges, long-distance systems, mobile phones and smartphones. The modern phone does far more than carry voices, but its central achievement remains extraordinary: allowing people far apart to communicate almost instantly.
