Statistics vary, but it still is astounding to consider that more than 20% of Americans are "functionally illiterate." This means that they cannot understand written language at a level that allows them to function easily in our print-rich society. Often, this is understood as "4th reading level", or the level of print complexity that a 4th grade child would easily manage.
In some groups, many more people struggle with print, whether because of lack of education, situations of poverty, English as a second language, or disability.
What if all printed material carrying pertinent public information was "universally accessible"?
Copy and paste samples of text into a handy calculator like this to see how readable your writing is:
http://www.readability-score.com/
The above blog posting is at the 12.5 level.... meaning it's completely inaccessible to many!
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