Readable English

Readable English is an accessible format designed to address the challenges of learning to read English by making words phonetic without changing the spelling. A pronunciation guide is embedded into each word using glyphs (visual cues), graying out silent letters, and breaking words into syllables.

The complex spelling of English makes it a difficult language to learn to read. Words are not pronounced the way they are spelled and there are very few clear and consistent rules. Seymour, Aro and Erskine (2003) conducted a large-scale cross-national study of reading ability of children from 14 different language backgrounds. They concluded that “the acquisition of elementary word recognition and decoding occurs more slowly in some languages than others, but the delay is greatly exaggerated in English” (p. 165).

Each Readable English book includes a Glyph Guide where readers can learn the glyphs and their sound. An entire learning platform has been developed around Readable English, including a website, apps, print materials as well as an eReader and conversion tool which enable any text to be converted into the Readable English font.

You can order Readable English Books directly from this website. For more information about the Readable English reading program please visit www.readablenglish.com.