Making teaching materials accessible – top 10 tips to help dyslexic learners

  1. Use a sans serif font, such as Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, Tahoma or Trebuchet, at a minimum size of 12 points.
  2. Make your materials available beforehand on Moodle so that students can prepare in advance.
  3. Use different ways of presenting information – videos, charts, discussions, lectures, seminars, online activities.
  4. Provide guidance (such as prioritisation) to reading lists so that the amount of reading they are required to do is reduced and/or can be more focussed.
  5. For handouts – use matt paper in a neutral or pastel colours; avoid glossy, shiny or laminated paper.
  6. Minimise the contrast between the print and background. Black print on a white background is particularly difficult to read because it has the highest contrast. A much better combination is dark blue print on a cream background.
  7. Expand abbreviations and explain jargon and abstract language.
  8. Don’t ask students to read out in class unless they have been given a thorough opportunity to prepare and are comfortable with this task.
  9. Justify the left hand margin only. Justifying both margins creates unequal gaps between words, making text more difficult to scan and therefore to read.
  10. Leave slides up long enough to allow all learners to process/read/finish writing their notes.

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