Being a member of a school board or a school’s senior executive involves lots of reading. I recently heard of an educational board that had just over 3,000 pages of pre-reading for its monthly meeting.
An essential part of every board member’s Duty of Care is the legal obligation to be reasonably well informed and to participate in decision-making. These duties demand reading and understanding the meeting papers. Likewise, School Principals who make a point of signing every student’s term report will have many hundreds of pages to read and digest in that one task alone, even before they start reading their subordinates’ regular reports, letters from parents, proposed policies and procedures, formal complaints, daily e-mails and all the professional reading that Principals need to understand and manage the rapidly changing educational environment.
Inevitably, board members and school leaders find they benefit from techniques to help them cope with the huge volume of required reading they face. One common – and often sub-conscious – technique is F-shaped reading.
What is F-Shaped Reading?
Eye tracking research reveals that most people scan printed pages, web pages and computer screens in various patterns, the most common being in the shape of the letter ‘F’. This means that most people scan the words at the top of a page first, usually getting to end of a headline or sub-heading provided it is not too long. Having scanned the heading, readers commonly move down the left-hand side of a page before moving to the right again when they come to a sub-heading or a line that attracts their attention for some reason.
This pattern of reading forms an F-shape, or in languages that read from right-to-left, a mirrored F-shape.
Implications of F-shaped reading
F-shaped reading means that the first lines of text on any page tend to receive more attention than the subsequent lines of text. Furthermore, the first few words at the left-hand end of each line of text receive more attention than words at the other end of the line.
Perhaps that’s the approach you are taking when reading this page.
Other reading patterns
Although F-shaped reading is the most common pattern, no-one should assume that everyone follows this route. Among other recognised patterns are the following:
F-shaped reading helps readers and writers
Understanding the F-shaped reading pattern is useful for people who write reports. Knowing that the headline and early sub-headings are likely to receive the most attention, these should be expressed and set out in a way that retains the reader’s interest. Doing so raises the likelihood that the text away from the “F” will also be read rather than skimmed. Sub-consciously, busy readers will be trying to make up their minds whether it is worth the time and effort to read something in detail, and thus understanding the F-shaped reading pattern can help both writers and readers alike.
On the other hand, the danger of F-shaped reading is that large portions of potentially important content may be missed by a reader simply because of the way a page is set out. This is a particular danger when reading e-books or other text which has a flexible format on a tablet or mobile phone because the targets of “F-pattern” reading on such devices become unpredictable.
Overcoming the challenges of F-shaped reading
The Nielsen Norman Group in Delaware (USA) has undertaken quite extensive research on F-shaped reading and has developed a helpful set of antidotes to overcome the shortcomings:
1. Include the most important points in the first two paragraphs on the page.
2. Use headings and subheadings. Ensure they look more important, and are more visible, than normal text so users may distinguish them quickly.
3. Start headings and subheadings with the words carrying most information: if users see only the first 2 words, they should still get the gist of the following section.
4. Visually group small amounts of related content – for instance, by surrounding them with a border or using a different background.
5. Present important words and phrases in bold text.
6. Take advantage of the different formatting of links, and ensure that links include information-bearing words (instead of generic “go”, “click here” or “more”). This technique also improves accessibility for users who hear links read aloud instead of scanning the content visually.
7. Use bullets and numbers to call out items in a list or process.
Concluding thoughts
Humans are not machines, and their behaviour is not always predictable. The Harvard Rule of Animal Behaviour states “You can have the most beautifully designed experiment with the most carefully controlled variables, and the animal will do what it damn well pleases”. The same seems to apply to school board members when they are confronted with a massive bundle of papers to read. To quote the words of the New Zealand nuclear physicist Ernest Rutherford, “The only possible conclusion that the social sciences can draw is – some do, some don’t!”.
Therefore, we should never assume that every School Principal and Board Member will follow the F-shaped reading pattern when preparing for important meetings. Nonetheless, evidence suggests that a solid majority will follow an F-shaped reading pattern, depending upon individual factors such as motivation, time pressures, personal goals, layout of the formatting and text, and the content they are reading.
Knowing this, report writers can optimise the content and layout of their documents to help readers find and assimilate important content quickly.
- Dr Stephen Codrington
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