It’s All About the Reader

It is time to think about reading differently…  Research shows that small changes to text format can have an immediate impact on reading performance (speed and accuracy) and experience. Each individual has their own best reading format. More than 70% of readers benefit from these changes.

Reading should not be approached as a one-size-fits-all activity. In paper books, it makes sense to print in a single publisher-selected format. With increased access to electronic reading, it is now possible to let individuals define the best format for themselves. For many readers, making these additional readability changes can increase their speed of accurate reading by 20% or more. For children, the improvement might be 50% or more. An increase is possible for most readers.

Today, some reading apps offer limited control of text format (font, text size, background color, etc.)  Introducing additional readability features (including character spacing, character expansion, and line spacing) makes individual performance increase possible.

Enabling these changes can increase interest and willingness to engage in reading, which has far-reaching consequences for children and adults alike. Making it easier for children to acquire reading skill puts them on the path of life-long learning. Increasing reading performance in adults produces more life and career opportunities. Elevating reading performance is a worthy goal for all of us.

Think about it. Why not?

Readability Matters
Tune Your Text

TUNE YOUR TEXT: make text format changes to increase readability

Technology today can support maximizing the potential of the reader to comprehend quickly and more accurately. Digital content and additional readability features can be used to tune text for the individual, remarkably impacting outcomes. Readers need control of font, character shape, and size, character width, character and line spacing.

ReadabilityMatters.org

Readability Matters imagines a world where everyone has easy access to reading material personalized to make them the best reader they can be.

New infrastructure is necessary to support scalability of individual reading formats. Working on the tech side of reading, our purpose is to convene key technology partners to expand the availability of readability features in their products and on their platforms. This infrastructure is the necessary first step to allow scalability for implementation in education and beyond.

Strategy 1
BUILD A
MOVEMENT

Form partnerships to bring optimized reading formats to the mainstream. Policies, systems, and thinking must all change to realize the gains of elevated reading performance.

Strategy 2
EXPAND
AVAILABILITY

Accelerate usage through technology and media companies adding readability features to their platforms.

Strategy 3
IGNITE RESEARCH
AND DEVELOPMENT

Engage researchers to move from short-term measured results and anecdotal evidence to documented longitudinal impact. Sponsor supporting tool development.

Interested in working with Readability Matters?

LET’S TALK