PROJECT TOMORROW STUDY

If students don’t feel comfortable or have difficulty reading in elementary and middle school, they’ll be less likely to develop lifelong reading habits and skills that prepare them for high school level work or the intensive academic and workplace reading that comes in adulthood.¹

Large print and extra space between letters have proven to help readers track (move from word to word) more easily, because the extra spacing and larger letters allow eye movement to slow down during reading.² This improves fluency by helping readers string words together. It also increases their reading ability, accuracy, and speed for better comprehension. 

Thorndike Press titles have many key characteristics unique to large print format, including larger font size than standard edition books; enhanced spacing between letters, words, and sentences; clearer contrast between text and the background color of the page; and fewer words and lines per page.

Thorndike Press partnered with Project Tomorrow^® to design and implement a nationwide study to explore the impact that reading large print-formatted books has on student reading engagement, comprehension, and achievement levels. Read the executive summary or key findings infographic to learn more about these findings. Here’s a glimpse of what teachers and students had to say about how reading skills changed and reading comprehension improved:

“My students stayed more on task with their reading because they were more engaged when reading the large print. The greatest benefit to reading instruction was that we were able to get more actual reading accomplished in our time frame. This is 100% credited to the use of the large print books.”
–4th and 5th grade teacher, R.J. Wilson Elementary School (TX)

“I want other teachers to know that giving students choices of books is a great strategy, especially when the book looks like any other book, but is larger print! Now, I will always use these types of books in my classroom because I found them extremely successful at engaging my reluctant readers.”
–English teacher, Marco Forster Middle School (CA)

“I liked how the letters and words are bigger and you don't skip through the words now because there aren't that many words on the page. Also, you feel more accomplished when you flip a page.”
–7^th grade student, O’Neill Middle School (IL)

“I think that the best thing about reading books with large text is that it makes it easier to focus and not lose your spot. Losing spots when reading can make it not fun for the reader, or even difficult.”
–10^th grade student, O’Fallon Township High School (IL)

“I liked how when I read that I felt that I as a good reader because the font was so big that I could recognize the words as soon as I flipped the page.”
–7^th grade student, Southern Columbia Middle School (PA)

“It was much, much, MUCH easier to read with the bigger font.”
–6^th grade student, John C. Lukancic Middle School (IL)

Even though large print has been around for decades, there hasn’t been much research on the benefits of large print for young and struggling readers, until now. Many public and school libraries have middle grade and young adult large print titles available to check out, while others may need you to share your knowledge about the benefits of large print on student reading skills and ask them to purchase titles.

Thorndike Press carefully curates a collection of fiction and nonfiction high interest books for students in grades 3–12. Purchase our large print titles on our Amazon Web Store.

Librarians, reading specialists, and educators have other options to purchase direct or through their preferred vendor.