Our company is grateful for the many, varied, and candid comments that SlashDot readers have posted on this article.
LIVE INK -- AN OPTIONAL TOOL FOR READING ONLINE TEXT. We have developed this technology as a tool, to assist readers of online text -- only if and when they feel they need it. We believe the online medium that is used for text distribution and display can be optimized for the human perception and comprehension of the subject matter represented by the text. Our technology exploits two main attributes of digital text: (i) machine-readability (which allows computer algorithms to analyze the text); (ii) the ability to use more space (and colors) at a relatively low additional cost (compared to paper).
VISUAL-SYNTACTIC FORMATTING. The process, and the cognitive science basis, is as much syntactic as it is visual. Mere typographical adjustments do not extract or display syntactic attributes; indeed, the fact that text is linguistically "inert" is exploited by all typographical conventions and software, which all use mechanical/geometric word-wrap processes to "pour" text into available space as if it were liquid. For our processes, the segmentation and indentation information is driven primarily by syntactic (i.e., grammatical) information extracted from the text itself. However, the ultimate positions of words, phrases and clauses, relative to one another, in the Live Ink format, also involve special computer-generated calculations that aim to construct -- within the small "circle" of visual perception that occurs at each fixation -- spatial cues conveying these syntactic relationships.
This is a software-based tool, and the free trial software is being made available to show that computer-based syntactic algorithms, which are fairly complex, are performing several million computations to analyze and reformat each sentence in real-time. As a tool, it is meant to assist readers if and when they need it: dyslexics might use it for basic information, highly-proficient attorneys might use it only for reading the Federal Register.
ABOUT THE US DEPT OF EDUCATION-FUNDED RESEARCH. The US Department of Education research we conducted involved yearlong, classroom-based, randomized controlled trials, and spanned grades 6-11. Students read e-textbooks that were either in block text or visual-syntactic format (VSF). The passages read were the assigned readings for students' Social Sciences classes. Reading sessions lasted for 25 minutes each, every other school day, and were followed by a short quiz. Testing included nationally standardized reading proficiency tests (in block format) at both the beginning and at the end of the year. During the year, in addition to quizzes, we analyzed students' scores on unit exams (given every 3 weeks) and semester final exams.
STRENGHTHENING STUDENTS' READING POWER, EVEN WHEN GOING BACK TO BLOCK TEXT. The VSF groups not only had better academic scores (reflecting better understanding and retention of the course material), but they also scored better on block-formatted reading proficiency tests: they had become stronger (not weaker) readers across all types of formatting. The size of these gains was equivalent to having 2 to 3 years' worth of growth of reading proficiency in the span of just one academic year. For example, 7th graders had their reading proficiency, on average, rise to the level of 10th graders, (by national averages), whereas the control group only made its expected one-year's worth of reading growth.
These gains are also quantifiable as adding 10 to 15 national percentile ranking points to the test, or more than a full-standard deviation. Interestingly, high-school juniors who were mainstream (and were not taking AP courses, such as the college bound students who were studied separately) added, on average, over 10 percentile points to their college admissions ACT tests, compared to control groups. ESOL students also showed very strong gains, but the impact was not confined to these groups. AP students also h
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Our company is grateful for the many, varied, and candid comments that SlashDot readers have posted on this article.
LIVE INK -- AN OPTIONAL TOOL FOR READING ONLINE TEXT. We have developed this technology as a tool, to assist readers of online text -- only if and when they feel they need it. We believe the online medium that is used for text distribution and display can be optimized for the human perception and comprehension of the subject matter represented by the text. Our technology exploits two main attributes of digital text: (i) machine-readability (which allows computer algorithms to analyze the text); (ii) the ability to use more space (and colors) at a relatively low additional cost (compared to paper).
VISUAL-SYNTACTIC FORMATTING. The process, and the cognitive science basis, is as much syntactic as it is visual. Mere typographical adjustments do not extract or display syntactic attributes; indeed, the fact that text is linguistically "inert" is exploited by all typographical conventions and software, which all use mechanical/geometric word-wrap processes to "pour" text into available space as if it were liquid. For our processes, the segmentation and indentation information is driven primarily by syntactic (i.e., grammatical) information extracted from the text itself. However, the ultimate positions of words, phrases and clauses, relative to one another, in the Live Ink format, also involve special computer-generated calculations that aim to construct -- within the small "circle" of visual perception that occurs at each fixation -- spatial cues conveying these syntactic relationships.
This is a software-based tool, and the free trial software is being made available to show that computer-based syntactic algorithms, which are fairly complex, are performing several million computations to analyze and reformat each sentence in real-time. As a tool, it is meant to assist readers if and when they need it: dyslexics might use it for basic information, highly-proficient attorneys might use it only for reading the Federal Register.
ABOUT THE US DEPT OF EDUCATION-FUNDED RESEARCH. The US Department of Education research we conducted involved yearlong, classroom-based, randomized controlled trials, and spanned grades 6-11. Students read e-textbooks that were either in block text or visual-syntactic format (VSF). The passages read were the assigned readings for students' Social Sciences classes. Reading sessions lasted for 25 minutes each, every other school day, and were followed by a short quiz. Testing included nationally standardized reading proficiency tests (in block format) at both the beginning and at the end of the year. During the year, in addition to quizzes, we analyzed students' scores on unit exams (given every 3 weeks) and semester final exams.
STRENGHTHENING STUDENTS' READING POWER, EVEN WHEN GOING BACK TO BLOCK TEXT. The VSF groups not only had better academic scores (reflecting better understanding and retention of the course material), but they also scored better on block-formatted reading proficiency tests: they had become stronger (not weaker) readers across all types of formatting. The size of these gains was equivalent to having 2 to 3 years' worth of growth of reading proficiency in the span of just one academic year. For example, 7th graders had their reading proficiency, on average, rise to the level of 10th graders, (by national averages), whereas the control group only made its expected one-year's worth of reading growth.
These gains are also quantifiable as adding 10 to 15 national percentile ranking points to the test, or more than a full-standard deviation. Interestingly, high-school juniors who were mainstream (and were not taking AP courses, such as the college bound students who were studied separately) added, on average, over 10 percentile points to their college admissions ACT tests, compared to control groups. ESOL students also showed very strong gains, but the impact was not confined to these groups. AP students also h