Easy Read and Makaton

Learn about about formats for people with learning disabilities

Easy Read can be used by people with learning disabilities. Makaton can be useful for people with profound learning disabilities.Easy access can be a useful format for people who have had strokes.

Easy Read

The Easy Read format was created to help people with learning disabilities understand information easily. People with learning disabilities need access all information, not just disability-specific information but also about their health, voting, work and gaining skills.

Easy Read uses pictures to support the meaning of text. It can be used by a carer to talk through a communication with someone with learning difficulties so that they can understand it, for example a letter from the council about council tax charges.

Easy Read is often also preferred by readers without learning disabilities, as it gives the essential information on a topic without a lot of background information. It can be especially helpful for people who are not fluent in English.

Easy Read:

has different variations across government according to departmental style preferences
should be developed in consultation with your audience
can be time-consuming to produce
can be helpful for other audiences, for example people who are not fluent in English

Easy Read compared to Clear English

All authors of government materials should write in Clear English and should understand the principles of Easy Read. Easy Read is different from Clear English or Plain English:

Clear English	Thank you for your letter asking for permission to put up posters in the library. Before we can give you an answer we will need to see a copy of the posters to make sure they won't offend anyone.”
Easy Read	Thank you for your letter about your poster. We need to see the poster before we put it up. This is because it must not offend anyone. Offend means upset people.”

How to produce Easy Read materials

Keep the number of pages to 24 or less. If there are more, break the text up into more than one publication.
Keep sentences short. They should be no more than ten to 15 words.
Each sentence should have just one idea and one verb.
Use 14 point font size.
Make sentences active not passive: “we are following up your complaint” (active tense) not “your complaint is being followed up” (passive tense).
Take out words that are not needed. For example, say ’for 14 days’ not ‘for a period of 14 days’.
Include a glossary explaining abbreviations and jargon, and an index, at the end of the document.
Use full words not acronyms.
If you need to use difficult words or ideas, say what they mean - do this in the next sentence, not as part of the same sentence.
Use a different colour or bold type but keep a good contrast with the paper.
Use pictures to support the meaning of your text.

The Office for Disability Issues, in association with the Department of Health, has produced new guidance to improve the standard of information for people with learning disabilities across government. Download it from the ‘Resources’ section below.

Easy Read pictures

Some government departments use image banks of line drawing pictures showing common words. Photographs are another option. Choose which to use according to the Easy Read style preferences of your department. ODI recommends sourcing bespoke images per communications product.

Guidelines for using images:

It is important to choose pictures carefully to support the text.
The image can go above or below the words.
The photographs or pictures need to be easy to understand.
The images should each show one idea.
Jokes and humour can be good.

Tapes and CD-ROMs

An accompanying tape or CD-ROM can make written information more accessible for people with learning difficulties. It should:

speak the words of the publication slowly
say when you need to turn the page so people can follow with the text.

Consider including music to give time to turn pages.

Makaton

Makaton symbols support the written word, in the same way that sign language supports speech.

Makaton publications use symbols representing gestures from British Sign Language, words and pictures to communicate meaning. It is an internationally recognised communication programme, used in more than 40 countries worldwide.

Your Makaton audience

Makaton was developed for those who struggle to understand the spoken word, such as people with profound learning disabilities. Most Makaton users use it as their main means of communication.

Other users include families, carers, friends and professionals, like teachers and social workers, who communicate with people with profound learning disabilities.

Producing Makaton materials

You can find out more about producing Makaton from The Makaton Charity. Their site includes free resources, such as a signs wordlist and a symbols wordlist.

Resources

Easy Read guidance: making written information easier to understand for people with learning disabilities (PDF, 40 pages, 626 KB)

Explore

Beyond the Office for Disability Issues

The Makaton Charity

Page last reviewed: 06 December 2010