The findings are clear. Researchers report:

• the students improved between 41% and 70% on their SRA Reading scores after one year of large print remediation, gains that continued during summer breaks, unlike the typical loss from regular print books

• because there are fewer words and those words are easier to decode, struggling readers make substantial progress with comprehension, tracking, and fluency, all while making fewer decoding mistakes. Additionally, research shows that fewer words on the page lower anxiety levels in struggling readers

• at least one aspect of format — font size or style — was an important factor for 70% of the children when making book selections. Statements by the children regarding font revealed that they based their book selections on the legibility of the text

• students were able to read books on a higher reading level when the books were Large Print, as opposed to only being able to read on- or below-grade level books in regular print.

These are pretty compelling findings, especially given that original research was undertaken to specifically test the value of large print books for comprehension, fluency, and vocab development. The paper offers considerable ammunition for schools seeking grants to offer larger fonts to students in all phases of their academic and pleasure reading.

Should I get a bunch of Kindles for my school? It’s a question the answer to which is up in the air. A bunch of iPads? Still in doubt. Here’s the real question: should I be taking advantage of the properties of digital text in my teaching? The answer to that one is unequivocal, and the answer is yes.

OK, you say, digital text has been around for a long time. What’s the big deal right now? The answer to that one is easy, too: the emergence of dedicated mobile reading platforms, like the Kindle and the iPad (and the iPhone, and the Sony Reader, and the Nook). Digital text has been available for a long time in one form, primarily, and that is formatted as HTML and viewed on a computer monitor. (In fact, it is indicative of this history that 50% of ebooks today are read on a computer, even with the proliferation of choices in mobile readers.)

So what’s different now? For the first time we have devices and software that are dedicated to taking advantage of the virtues of digital text. My quick list of those virtues includes:

• variable text size
• variable type face
• distribution of text electronically
• availability of free text
• storage requirements for digital text
• amount of the world’s knowledge already captured in digital text
• user control of digital text
• the sustainability of digital text
• fresh formats for prose enabled by digital text

In this and the next few posts, I am going to discuss  these virtues and link them to what we know about how students learn. First up, variable text size.

Digital Text: The Advantage of Variable Font Size for Reading

Something that has been widely reported is the pleasure that a lot of people take in reading text on the Kindle at a larger font size than is typical for them. That is certainly true for me; I am a declared lover of Kindle Font Size #4 which, as it turns out, is roughly equivalent to a 14 point font. In an unscientific survey I conducted on this blog a while back, 70% of the participants indicated a preference for Kindle Font Size #3 or higher. While this was a very small sample, the preference for larger font sizes was clear.

In the meantime, students have put their thoughts on the record about font size, and bigger is certainly preferred by the middle school students polled by Kathy Parker at Seneca (IL) Middle School, where Kathy has run a Kindle pilot program this past school year. They like the largest font size, period. They say it helps them read better.

Recently, a blogger in the UK noted that reading text on his iPhone was easier than in books or other settings. Why? A bit of investigation told him that larger fonts reduce the amount of print on the page; words are less jammed together. The blogger, it turns out, is dyslexic, and receives this diagnosis of the situation validated by a prominent neuroscientist, who comments that “Many dyslexics have problems with ‘crowding’, where they’re distracted by the words surrounding the word they’re trying to read.”

I did a little research myself on the “crowding” phenomenon, which has been carefully studied by researchers here and abroad, especially as it affects the reading rate of “normal” and “dyslexic” readers. The findings across many studies are clear:

• all readers benefit from increasing text size up to a maximum, after which increased reading rate associated with the larger text flattens out
• the optimal font size for “normal” readers is larger than average, but not as large as it is for dyslexic readers
• much of the reading rate difference between normal and dyslexic readers can be mitigated through increased font size

In a Research Brief I wrote recently on the subject, I provide an overview of “crowding”: “In the research, crowding specifically refers to “the difficulty in identifying a letter embedded in other letters” (Chung, 2007). Studies have shown that the crowding effect impacts reading rates in both the horizontal and vertical proximity of text, so that larger font size creates more space between adjacent letters in the text, and may increase line spacing as well, reducing crowding.”

I have also summarized the findings of a number of studies. For example, a 2009 study conducted at the University of Rome, Italy, tells us that for both the control and experimental groups, “…the reading rate increased with print size up to a maximum. In dyslexics, the fastest rate was obtained at a significantly larger character size than in controls” (Martelli, DiFilippo, Spinelli, and Zoccolotti, 2009).

You can read or download a copy of the study in PDF format right here.

And if the research doesn’t persuade you, maybe the words of the middle schoolers who have reported on their Kindle-enabled reading will:  “The font that everyone prefers to use with the Kindle 2 is the largest font size.”

Kindlepedia has been a remarkable success since we launched it at the beginning of June.  Since then, hundreds of readers have requested articles in pristine Mobipocket format, perfect for reading on the Kindle, and, by the beginning of August, we topped 1,000 articles served. The list of created articles reads like a roadmap of the human mind–just see the Wordle I made from the topics folks selected above, courtesy of www.wordle.net.

This forum is built on the popular “Ning” software that many educators are already using. A great example of what a Ning can become is Jim Burke’s English Companion Ning for ELA teachers. Jim has attracted over 5,000 members in just a few months, demonstrating how effective this kind of professional community building can be for folks trying to improve their teaching and their kids’ learning.

You can post to your own blog at the site, start a discussion, add an event, comment on colleagues’ posts, and much more. I just started a discussion on what people think about the potential of the Kindle to improve struggling students’ reading skills.

This historical character, played by Joss Stone on Showtime’s The Tudors, is one of the most enigmatic of Henry’s wives. She acts as a kind of historical pivot on which Protestantism, international politics, the changing character of Henry VIII, and the ineffabilities of male-female attraction swivel on the television show and in the history books.

Despite a brief appearance, Tudors creator Michael Hirst gives her a couple of classic lines. One captures the dilemma faced by every girl who came Henry’s way: “If I fail to please the King, will he kill me?” And then, with regards to the marital bed, she cites Henry’s relentlessly unhealing leg wound as a bit of a downer in the foreplay department: “It stinks, no?” ‘Nuff said.

So, if you are interested in this woman who went from the King’s wife to the “King’s beloved Sister,” and would like to read about her on your Kindle, head on over to the Tudors download page and drag the article to the documents folder on your Kindle.

And that’s it for another season of the Tudors. Given the speed with which they dispatched Cromwell last night, it looks like one more season will do it!

What stands out in thinking about Kindles as educational devices has to do with the way in which the Kindle stimulates people young and old to read more.  The most respected educational researchers tell us that more reading is the key to improved reading skills.  One nationally recognized educator and high school English teacher pointed out to this writer that “the world is a tough place if you can’t read.”

So, if the Kindle means more reading, then the Kindle means better reading.  Do you agree?

However, as Lee Ann points out in her comment to a post on this site:

Stephen Krashen (The Power of Reading) has said that access to books is the variable that most impacts students’ reading time, so I would imagine that have an entire library on a Kindle would certainly increase how much students read. Books at their fingertips is always my goal for students and Kindles would accomplish that and much more than what I can supply per table top in the classroom.

If we look at access to books as the key, research clearly states the more the better:

In examining the average 2005 math scores of 12th graders who lived in homes with fewer than 10 books, an analysis of federal Education Department statistics found that those students scored much lower than those who lived in homes with more than 100 books. Although some of those results could be attributed to income gaps, Mr. Iyengar noted that students who lived in homes with more than 100 books but whose parents only completed high school scored higher on math tests than those students whose parents held college degrees (and were therefore likely to earn higher incomes) but who lived in homes with fewer than 10 books.

Of course, this research addresses a number of factors through this single metric: homes in which books are valued usually contain more books.  But the practical outcome of this factor is that kids in homes which value books are exposed to more books, and hence have more opportunity to read.

So, if we sent kids home everyday with a Kindle loaded with 100 books (or more, since the Kindle has capacity for more), would we start to chip away at the impact of homes having too few books for kids to become better readers?

Not an idle question, especially if one of those books were Stephanie Meyers’ wildly popular Twilight.  It’s on my Kindle (and it cost me $6.03)…