Dyslexia is poorly understood. The current theories hold that there is a difference in the development of the cerebellum of dyslexics compared to the general population. (The cerebellum is the part of the brain behind the brainstem, underneath the brain’s hemispheres). It is important in regulating balance and coordination which are now thought to play a much bigger role in overall brain function than previously thought. This has led to specific physical exercises that help develop these skills. The DORE system is probably the most developed and researched of these. The results have been very encouraging.
ReadPal does not affect a person’s underlying dyslexia. Instead, it simply presents the text in a way that many dyslexics find is much easier to read. There are several reasons why dyslexics may find it easier to read. Firstly, it reduces visual stress. Too much clutter and colours seems to distract the reader from what he is reading. This is a particularly big problem on many flashy websites. The full screen mode of ReadPal just eliminates everthing but the word or sentence you are reading. No visual distractions.

ReadPal also presents the text in very large clear fonts. As reading is partly a visual and coordination exercise this makes it easier. Most interestingly though the Banner Mode of reading presents just one word at a time to the reader, (at his or her reading pace). This has two advantages. The eyes do not have to find the next word and then refocus - the text is brought to the eyes. And the words are always in the correct order. There is a theory that many dyslexics find arranging the words in the correct order a challenge. Camera studies support this showing eyes darting forward and back rather than moving systematically along a line. This feature could be why so many dyslexics find it useful.

Please email me with comments how you find ReadPal affects your reading and suggestions for further improvement.

Go to readpal for all things reading….

Those of you using ReadPal will already be reading on-screen a lot faster than you used to.

To help people train in speed reading we wrote a book on it.

Continuing our series on the deficiencies in English … our eyes … the windows to our souls … surely deserve a synonym. Even better, lots of words describing different eyes. I’d suggest zules brilliant blue eyes. Zules is a mash-up of azure and the phonetic of eyes in Irish, sule. Now you can gaze into her zules. At the other extreme the black-within-black eyes of some Africans deserves a word - they are so distinctive and so easy to get lost in.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Language and reading lovers visit ReadPal for more.

Apparently English has ~250,000 words. But only one word for eyes. This is a travesty. English is lacking key words … e.g. there is no word or even short hand for the early morning – as in the early morning when you’ve been out clubbing the night before as opposed to getting up early for work. You arrive home at say 3-5am, there is no easy way to describe this time period. People from Northern Ireland call them the “wee hours” but this is not specific enough and it is two words as opposed to “afternoon”.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Language and reading lovers visit ReadPal for more.

ReadPal uses a number of tricks in order to optimise the reading experience for the user. For instance, headings are displayed for a longer period of time and are followed by a pause. There is a pause after a sentence and a longer one after a paragraph. This greatly helps you to absorb the words at a higher speed. However, as one document is very different to the next the user would need to wildly adjust the ‘actual’ words per minute in order to read at his or her maximum speed. To save the user this trouble they just set a speed that is optimal for them on any given document. ReadPal then allows these variations in the documents to passively adjust the actual words per minute for a good reading experience.

There are about a dozen factors that influence the actual words per minute, these differ from the Sentence to the Banner modes. E.g. in the Sentence mode short sentences are displayed for a disproportionately long period because there is some ‘dead time’ while the eye adjusts to the new sentence and this is (obviously) proportionately greater for short sentences.

Also note that the words per screen is an ‘intelligent’ average that makes reading easier by not treating all words as equal. “The cat sat…” is easier to read than “…institutionalized autocratic tendencies…” so they are treated differently, even though both are three words long.

ReadPal for the best reading experience.

Until now we haven’t really promoted this advantage of ReadPal. You won’t need to wear glasses anymore for most of your computer reading, (unless it is that sexy pair you never want to take off anyway). You can read your emails, webpages, text and Word files easily with any size font you like. So you could be reading this at font size 48!

In addition, with the Banner Mode of reading your eyes do not have to move and refocus repeatedly. The text comes to your eyes. (This also makes it useful to the rest of us if our eyes are sluggish - e.g. when you are hung-over or if you have MS.) You’ll also read, on average, 42% faster.

Check ReadPal out here.

The late, great Conan Doyle was born on this day in 1859. The Godfather of murder mystery is best remembered for his Sherlock Holmes series. You can download The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes for free at ReadPal. I particularly like this first story A Scandal in Bohemia.
(Many thanks again to Project Gutenberg - that wonderful resource of free texts).

As with any long text the only way you’ll read it on-screen is with ReadPal.� Download it here.

tags: book, ebook, Sherlock Holmes, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, birthday,

We’ve got a lot of feedback that people would like to be able to read PDFs with ReadPal. It seems that a lot of you particularly hate scrolling up and down columns within the one PDF page. Our dear academic brethren seem specially afflicted with this scourge.

The pre-launch versions of ReadPal read PDFs but we decided to remove the ReadPal button as the reading experience wasn’t consistently good enough. You see PDFs are saved almost like an image with very little ‘intelligence’. This makes it difficult to extract out the words in the correct order. If the PDF was created using Adobe and properly tagged for accessibility, etc., then ReadPal could read it fine and give you an enhanced experience. The problem is there are so many free PDF creators out there that each does things in a different way making ReadPal’s job more difficult.

What we can say is that we hope to revisit the issue in two months and keep you posted.

If you downloaded version of the ReadPal early last week the file that remembers your favourite setting may not be functioning. This simply means that each time you restart your computer it ReadPal returns to the default font, size and colors. Not bad… but can be annoying for some. This problem has been corrected and you can simply download the new version if you like.
bugs, free, software, download

I note that grey’s anatomy is suddenly very popular in the blog searches. I am guessing this is yet another phenomenon due to the Da Vinci Code. The anatomical drawings / dead body mimicking them come from Leonardo Da Vinci’s notebooks. (These are available in text form, sorry only text, via ReadPal).
In relation to Grey’s Anatomy. I studied it in med college a long while ago and found that despite its great name it wasn’t very good for studying. It was trading on its heritage as the first great tome of anatomy.

If you are looking for free anatomy books you’ll find some at Project Gutenberg. They’ll be a bit old and verbose but you can’t complain when it’s free. Also anatomy is the ‘perfect science’ - i.e. the body hasn’t changed and there is little gross anatomy that can be left to discover. We are not going to discover a second nose!

Happy reading, as ever,

L.

People rave about ReadPal. They love it; they tell us so. They say how they get through reading quicker and with less hassle. Some are then disappointed they can’t use it for ever, for free.

As a general rule ReadPal is free for up to two weeks. It costs $39 to use beyond this time. (We need to make a living out of this.) We have given out some free licenses in the past to people who give us feedback. We are particularly interested in the usage patterns of dyslexia or if you have useful suggestions then you can use the coupon LOUIS100 to get it free, forever. As long as this coupon is not being abused then we’ll leave it active.

There are other groups that we would like to give the product to for free. If you work for a registered charity you can also use this coupon for your work computer. (Tell everyone in your charity that it is totally free for them - another bonus for your good works!). Lastly, if you are too poor to afford ReadPal we’d prefer that you benefited from our technology than not use it at all.

I hope that makes things a little clearer!

Louis

ReadPal helps us all read faster on-screen with less hassle and visual stress. Try it for 2 weeks and see how it makes your life a little easier.

www.readpal.com

In honour of the Karl Rove’s indictment (?anticipated indictment) I’ve pasted up the Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevski. There’s a moral lesson in it for us all. How our actions continue to haunt us - even if we don’t get caught. (Many thanks again to Project Gutenberg - that wonderful resource of free texts).

As with any long text the only way you’ll read it on-screen is with ReadPal.

Download trial copy here to read Crime and punishment and lots more free ebooks.

Hi, to get more feedback we’re extending the free testing period for dyslexics for another couple of days. Say yourselvs $40 and download it now to start reading faster and more easily.

ReadPal was started by a dyslexic and a reading fanatic. Each of us needed to make reading on a computer screen more easily.

We came up with ReadPal which helps you read all your emails, Word files, text files and Web Pages more easily – and a lot faster. A number of dyslexics have tested the program and it seems to help speed up reading, but importantly it takes a lot of the stress out of it.

We would like to get more feedback on its benefits for dyslexics.

Visit to read about it and download it.

www.readpal.com

Please leave feedback – after testing it for a while here:

feedback form

If you like the program pretend you are going to purchase it and paste the coupon LOUIS100 into the coupon box in the top right of the purchase page and you will get it for free. (This coupon will only work for a short time).

The more feedback we get the better so please tell your friends.

Thanks and happy reading,

Louis

(Dr Louis Crowe)

In honour of the Da Vinci Code’s release I’ve pasted up the notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci – so you can do some background research. (Many thanks again to Project Gutenberg - that wonderful resource of free texts).

As with any long text the only way you’ll read it on-screen is with ReadPal.

Download trial copy here and lots more free ebooks.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s notebooks

Hi,

Just alerting you that we have posted up a number of classic ebooks up on a hidden page in ReadPal. For those lovers of saucy literature we’ve included Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte.
Jane Eyre and other books
Jane Eyre was published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. It met with general acclaim until it became known that a woman had written it. It was not thought that a woman could write such a passionate novel and seem so knowing sexually. There was concern for her moral welfare as some of the book dealt with the “grosser and more animal portion of our nature”.

Happy reading,

L.

Hi, we have an amazing new reading product that lets you read faster, and much more comfortably on-screen. It works with email, web pages, text and Word files.

We want to start a testamonial section to our site. So if you like to try out our product please do so. And if you like it then you can give us a testamonial. The product normally costs $40 but if you paste in
LOUIS100

into the coupon box you will get it for free. (This is in the top right corner of the purchase page).

purchase page/

You can read about readpal at www.readpal.com

please give feedback on:

feedback form

Thanks, fast and happy reading,

Louis

PS These coupons will only be active for a short while so tell your friends today!

ReadPal was started by a dyslexic and a reading fanatic. Each of us needed to make reading on a computer screen more easily.

We came up with ReadPal which helps you read all your emails, Word files, text files and Web Pages more easily – and a lot faster. A number of dyslexics have tested the program and it seems to help speed up reading, but importantly it takes a lot of the stress out of it.

We would like to get more feedback on its benefits for dyslexics.

Visit to read about it and download it.

http://www.readpal.com/one/dyslexia.htm

Please leave feedback – after testing it for a while here:

http://www.jotform.com/form/61282913152

If you like the program pretend you are going to purchase it and paste the coupon LOUIS100 into the coupon box in the top right of the purchase page and you will get it for free. (This coupon will only work for a short time).

The more feedback we get the better so please tell your friends.

Thanks and happy reading,

Louis

(Dr Louis Crowe)