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How the iPhone Is Helping Dyslexic Readers

Writing in the Guardian, Howard Hill gives one powerful testimonial in support of the iPhone – sharing how much easier the phone has made reading books for him, as someone with dyslexia. Where text once appeared in a jumbled disarray, and books presented a monumental struggle – with Hill often losing his place or quitting out of fear – something about reading on the iPhone made it easier, both for him and many others, he notes.

The first title I selected was The Count of Monte Cristo. I raced through this on my iPhone in just over a week, my wife asking why I was continually playing with my iPhone. When I’d finished I enjoyed the story so much that I went to buy a copy for a friend. In the bookshop I was amazed. It was more than 1,000 pages! Had I been presented with the book in this form I would never have read it. It would have been too much like climbing a mountain.

So why I had found it easier to read from my iPhone? First, an ordinary page of text is split into about four pages. The spacing seems generous and because of this I don’t get lost on the page. Second, the handset’s brightness makes it easier to take in words. “Many dyslexics have problems with ‘crowding’, where they’re distracted by the words surrounding the word they’re trying to read,” says John Stein, Professor of Neuroscience at Oxford University and chair of the Dyslexia Research Trust. “When reading text on a small phone, you’re reducing the crowding effect.”

Indeed, it makes quite a bit of sense: having an extra degree of control over presentation – which ebooks and readers like the iPad and iPhone can provide – can make all the difference to those with reading difficulties, allowing them to separate the text from the (often dauntingly difficult) page layout and control how they take in what they’re reading. I wouldn’t be surprised to see future research studies confirm these anecdotal stories soon.