This week I have had the privilege,tinged with sadness of meeting many colleagues and friends of an extraordinary guy, David Morris, who was one of the people really got me going on the issue of reading and how it controlled so much what happens in so many peoples lives. Society in a typically biological way tries to bring everyone towards a 'norm'. If your capabilites away considered to be 'abnormal'then you have difficulties dealing with the barriers which society puts in front of you. Not barriers placed there on purpose but by default,unintentional. To point out that these barriers can be removed needs first for people with 'power' to first realise that they really are 'barriers' and not just the 'norm',,,'what is'.

The right to mobility, 'the right to ride'was fought for and achieved in the most part but it took concerted effort and a lot of time.
Recenty David and my life had crossed and he had seen that a great liberation in terms of access to text was not only possible but probable.
Dave had his computer screens adjusted to what allowed him to be an even better reader, I know he was surprised by just what it could do for him. He determined to try and help other people to get access to it. David, like me was excited by the adventure of finding out just what the outcomes would be if this particular barrier ,this text access limitation, was lowered or totally removed.. The technology nows exists to bring it to people no matter where they live or what they do.. The right to read.

Sportspeople

I watched Wayne Rooney the other night. Absolutely brilliant, he can read the football field so well, he can see/tell what others are doing, work out what they are likely to do so well. His brain must be amazing. He must be brilliant, superbly intelligent.
I watched David Beckham the other year. Absolutely brilliant, he can read the football field so well, he can see/tell what others are doing, work out what they are likely to do so well. His brain must be amazing. He must be brilliant, superbly intelligent.
I listened to Mohamed Ali the other night. Absolutely brilliant, he could read his opponent so well, , work out what they are likely to do so well. His brain must be amazing. He must be brilliant, superbly intelligent.
Hang on a minute, ok the last guy was one hell of a talker people accept that he must have been intelligent.
Being good at a sport means that you have to be dedicated, thoughtful, able to plan and see opportunities as well as having the ‘biology’ to deliver physically. But we are surprised when a good sportsperson is also brilliant academically, a brilliant reader..
But what if all sportspeople had to play their sport in size 8 shoes? Would the same people be at the top of their sport?

Using your finger!

I would like to say that if you need to use your finger to keep your place when reading a book it is unlikely that you will find reading on a computer screen very easy! Leaving the smears of a greasy finger, following the words on a screen is not a good idea. Mind you if the computer screen is adjusted so that you no longer need to use your finger, then that is a different story! It is harder to change the appearance of a printed page to suit your eyes.
So what is this finger stuff all about? People who read fluently aloud from print are looking at words’ well ahead of their mouth’ as they read. If you cover up the word they are about to say, they will not really bother. A non fluent reader will stop and make you take your finger away. They have not seen the word yet!
This is similar to the pianist who is sight reading music. As the page is turned, they continue playing, seamlessly. They are holding the notes in their head for several seconds before they play them.
A person with sight reading problems will see and play each note one by one. It will sound very mechanical. A bit like listening to someone who appears to have specific reading problems, reading aloud. The bigger their difficulty the more like a machine gun they will sound, lacking musicality, intonation or for the techies amongst you… prosody.
I would expect then people who are diagnosed as dyslexic who are also musicians to have difficulties with sight reading whereas if they are playing from memory or improvising it would sound perfectly fluent...musical.

I may be wrong. So this is a challenge to anyone dyslexic to let me know if they can sight read easily!
Reading poetry is similar. An extreme form of fluency is required to sight read poetry successfully.
Sibelius other than being a great composer is also the name of a brilliant computer programme which can be used on screen with any music. Several years ago they produced little application which allows the user to set the RGB (colour background) to whatever works for them.
Now how can sight reading music be a phonics problem? Just a thought that I must bury away back in my head.

Your own story

I have had many conversations about this blog. Mnay people would like to tell their own story. You are invired to do so .Please write yiouy stories as comments on this blog. We all look forward to reading about your experience in reading.

Why Finland has higher academic success..BBC World news

The story about Finnish educational outcomes should not be surprising. Finnish is probably the 'most transparent'language in existence.. What you see is what you say. There is very little ambiguity in meaning. Whereas English is one of the most opaque. Full of ambiguity which makes it difficult to use BUT capable of amazing subtlety and poetry.
There are problems of functionalliteracy in the UK and other english speaking and reading countries for the countries for the poorest 20% of the reading population. It is quite easy to compare educational performance in countries of similar economic performance and see the link with the language transparency. Within Finland though there are still many problems for people because they need to read off white backgrounds.But that is another story.
If there are lots of decsions to bemmade in the brain when analysing the words being photographed,then there will be less'computing power' for the brain to work out what the meaning of the sentences/paragraphs are. The 'visual photography needs to be made as easy, low demand, as possible. Now what was the reast of this blog about?

Discussion today with a guy who works as a greenkeeper.

Now you know what I do Chas!!!! It is really a similar thing to the way chlorophyll grabs the photons in photosynthesis... aka your turf!
There are three types of pigment cells in the retina when you read. The ratio of cells varies from person to person.
The amount of data sent per millisecond) from retina to the 'camera control system ( the muscles)' controls the amount of 'camera shake as they take the pictures and are coordinated together'
By getting the relative brightness of the screen pixels correct you can maximise this and the result is what you 'felt'/./.smoother cameras control!!
... See more
put another way; you would be really happy working in a dark green environment but with real problems of concentration in a 'redbrick...urban environment'!!

Ok back to your studying. We know that the reading speed of a personal most directly correlates with their 'academic performance', not their intelligence whatever that is.
But of course it is the reading speed on white! What you get.
It is as if we all had to run a race but everyone had to wear size 8 shoes.... OK if you have size 8 feet but otherwise you would be slower, not want to run too much or too often. As you go up the academic ladder, whatever your subject area the amount of pressure to read and write more increases. The ones at the top of the ladder, most of who read very quickly, do so on 'white'... Surprise surprise.
The great thing about ICT is that it is no longer the rule.. The rules have been changed. I have got to get people to realise this... use it and see what happens... If you have a go at TintMyScreen you can set your computer at your optimum... I do not know what the outcome will be for you, but my expectation is high.

That was fun writing that (on my magenta background! which you would hate!

Feeing sick or giddy when you read

The last blog I wrote said that I would write about this next. A lot of people get this feeling when they read. For many it only happens when they are reading in a ca, bus or train.
When you put an Eyetracker on someone who feels giddy after a while of normal reading you can see that, their heads are moving a lot as they read. Often these people tell me that they get a stiff or aching neck after they have been reading. Or they get aches in their back!
One exceptional case was a lady who was a senior manager with a major organisation in the UK. I was called in because her head movement had got really severe, giving rise to medical intervention and damage to her neck vertebrae! She was feeling really bad after working on her computer for only a short period it really affected her productivity.
Again using the eye tracker, confirmed what you could actually see as she read. Sh3e showed the characteristic eye movements of someone, who for some reason had become extremely light sensitive.

The first thing was to look at ambient light issues. It was amazing what a pair of wraparound dark goggles did for her. But it only partially solved the problem...
By the time we had got the screen to the right low level of brightness, and got the red: green balance right for her she was in ‘reading heaven’. The health and safety people reduced the brightness of her workstation area.
She was very quickly working at highest level again...

You can pin the giddiness down to the effect on your balance system of the head movements needed to read on white. It is A bit like sea sickness, or travel sickness. It is linked to a thing referred to as the ‘vestibular-ocular reflex.’ The mechanism which allows you to fix your eyes on something even when your body is bouncing up and down as you walk.
We did not evolve to read! Our ancestors did not do it! There is no reading gene!
So sitting still and concentrating on reading for hours is really quite unnatural...
Certainly staring at black lines on a white page is as natural as staring at the black lines on a zebra.
On a zebra it is intended to mess with the eyes and head of the predator. It is sometimes referred to as ‘pattern glare’...
It creates the illusion that the lines/words are moving.