New Print Formats for People with Reading Difficulties

Introduction

ReadHowYouWant.com was created after the sister of one of the company’s founders developed difficulty in reading due to Multiple Sclerosis. She became increasingly unable to track her eyes along a line of words – her eyes would jump to other lines and she would lose her place. This made her reading slow and frustrating. After experimenting with some alternative formats with shorter lines and increased line spacing, it was discovered that there was a significant improvement in her reading capability.

Having seen the benefits of this approach in an isolated case, a research program was initiated to see how changing the format of books could help other people with reading disabilities. It rapidly became clear that the issue of reading disabilities was potentially complex and could involve a number of different factors.

Physical Issues

• Focus issues
  • Larger type
  • Different fonts that better suit the reader’s ability to focus
• Eye tracking
  • Can’t follow a line – shorter lines – lines further spaced
  • Binocular vision – eyes don’t point to the same place – change the format to limit visual distraction
  • Can’t remember right and left – readers may forget the direction they are following – add additional markers to the text to remind them of the direction they need to read
• Retinal problems
  • Loss of central vision so they can’t find the beginning and end of words and the next word as this uses the central vision – provide navigation tools in the peripheral vision
  • Loss of contrast – provide high contrast text
• Holding books and turning pages due to lack of strength or paralysis
  • Electronic versions of books that do not require page-turning
• Character discrimination issues – e.g. inability to discriminate “c” and “e” may be a vision related problem that might be helped by changing the font or making the characters look different.

Reading Difficulties such as Dyslexia, Auditory & Visual Processing Disorders

• Discrimination of characters – some readers may have difficulty discriminating different characters (e.g. mirror-image characters like lower case “b” and “d”) because of a visual processing problem (not simply because they cannot see the characters).
  • Make these characters so different that the reader can discriminate them easily
• Phonemic awareness issues (“Perceiving” the sounds and syllables in words)
  • Difficulty breaking a word into syllables – show the syllables in the printed word
• Visual processing issues. There are 2 issues here:
  • Difficulty recognizing “sight words” (non-phonetic words)
    • Adding simplified phonetics in print – readers can quickly start associating the non-phonetic English word and the sound of the word. They are more likely to practice and develop their memory. They do not have to look up a dictionary. (This is slow and possibly frustrating, and many people cannot understand the phonetics written in dictionaries)
    • Having dual media – print and sound
  • Difficulty breaking a line of words into meaningful phrases
    • Break up the sentences into meaningful phrases in the printed edition

Speed, Effort and Stress Issues

• Short term memory has a very short half life. If you read too slowly, you can forget the beginning of the word or the beginning of the sentence you are reading. If by changing the format you can speed up the reading, the reader’s comprehension could significantly be enhanced.
• With some vision impairment, readers may require all their materials formatted in a particular manner if their reading enjoyment is to be optimized.
• Some reading problems may be caused by lack of development of some neural pathways. Research suggests that at least some of these neural pathways may be learned, but it appears that learning generally requires practicing. Perhaps providing differently formatted materials may assist this learning. Perhaps a course for such readers can be developed using specifically formatted materials in conjunction with remedial learning or other treatments that will eventually allow the readers to read standard texts.
• If reading is difficult and unpleasant, reader is likely to try to avoid reading, which may affect the reading practice they need to develop their reading skills. If specially formatted materials can be provided to that reader to make reading more enjoyable and effortless, then the necessary reading practice may start to happen.

Psychological Issues

• For instance, a belief held by a person that there is something wrong with them and that they will never read can stop a reader even from wanting to read. If reading materials can be given to them that they can read, they may want to read and start practicing.