Joy Sykes Leonard, a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, is currently doing research in the area of text design with students at Landmark College. She comes to Landmark with a background in communication planning and information design and has worked as part of various interdisciplinary teams doing such work as redesigning the Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) for the U.S. Postal Service, developing educational products for chronically ill children, and designing services to help teens learn about driving safety.
Leonard brings her expertise in design to the classroom as she explores the possibility of creating universally designed texts for all readers. Her primary audience is the dyslexic population, and in particular, students who have difficulty reading. It is her belief that, “designers could increase usability and accessibility for this audience.” By “observing how dyslexics read and comprehend text, then applying that knowledge to the design of information, designers [will] learn ways to improve text accessibility for both dyslexic and non-dyslexic readers.” Because the understanding of design directions will come from direct observation of dyslexic student reading and participatory design activities with these students, Leonard feels that Landmark College provides the greatest opportunity to immerse herself in this process.
Since last summer, Leonard has been working closely with faculty member Dotti Osterholt in selecting reading material and coordinating methods of presentation that may increase the comprehension levels for the students in Critical Perspectives courses. The readings they are working with contain a significant number of concepts that are the most difficult for dyslexics to understand. Mel Levine, a leading authority in the area of reading comprehension, refers to these concepts as abstract/verbal concepts and they require the reader to understand the ideas relying solely on words, without the benefit of being able to see, hear, taste, touch or smell. It is Leonard’s hope that by transforming concepts that are only expressed in words into meaningful visualizations, reading will become more accessible for all learners, especially those with dyslexia and other reading disorders. Not only are they working closely with students to understand how they read and interact with text, they are also experimenting with ways in which students apply the active reading processes emphasized in class. A lot of work has gone into the pre-reading process and the development of vocabulary understanding. So far, the early stages of the research reveal that the strategies that are being tried seem to be having positive effects on reading comprehension and written expression of the ideas, as shown by summary writing, culture journal assignments and exams.
Through the process of understanding the reading processes that dyslexic students use, and understanding how they interact with text, it is likely that new, more beneficial, text design can emerge. Not only will this new way of presenting text benefit the dyslexic population, but it is Leonard’s hope that the designs that emerge from this research will be universally appealing to all readers.
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