You may know that Large Print is beneficial for readers with visual impairments. Research has proven that Large Print is also a highly effective tool, much more so than regular print, in helping struggling readers build skills that enable them to:

• Recognize words accurately
• Comprehend what they are reading
• Read fluently
  

Teachers who use large print as a key component in various time-honored reading programs for struggling readers report that students show significant improvement in word recognition/ accuracy, comprehension and fluency skills. But how does Large Print help readers improve these skills?

Word Recognition/Accuracy

Learning to accurately identify letters and words is a fundamental building block on the road to becoming a proficient reader. Studies by both medical and educational researchers on normally sighted persons show that large print (16-point and larger) significantly decreases letter confusion, in some cases by almost half. For struggling readers with 20/20 vision, letter confusion can hinder the reader, causing:

• Letter reversals and/or rotations
  
• Letter confusion (is it a "b", "d", or a "p"?)
  
• Difficulties in left-to-right progression and visual memory

Correct letter recognition enables students to gain confidence in reading and focus on what they are reading, i.e. comprehension.

Comprehension

Word comprehension is the next building block on the road to independent reading.

Large Print has been shown to help readers appreciably reduce the reading errors that lead to lower reading scores: misreading words, skipping words, ignoring punctuation, skipping lines and ignoring punctuation cues.

Fluency

A reader who achieves comprehension becomes a fluent reader; they read with ease. Once they are fluent readers at their reading, they are more likely to read more challenging books. Analysis indicates that when students use large print reading materials, their increased rate of reading, as measured by number of words per minute, shows dramatic improvement.

Find out what teachers, librarians and authors have to say about Large Print. Read their testimonials.