13. It's a Myth That Capital Letters are Inherently Hard to Read

It's A Myth That Capitals Are Hard to Read

• It was once believed that we read by memorizing the shapes of the whole word, but that's a myth
• If we read by memorizing the shape of a word, then capital words all have the same shape and would be harder to read, but that's not how we read.
• When we read, our eyes are actually making quick, sharp jumps with short periods of stillness in between.
• This happens so quickly that we barely know it's happening. Mostly we're reading forward, but 10-15% of the time our eyes are jumping back and rereading what we missed during the periods of stillness.

Slide 2

• Lexi (Converted) (video/mp4)
• The jumps are called SACCADES, they see about 7 to 9 letters at a time
• The moments of stillness in between the saccades are called FIXATIONS, it last about 250 milliseconds and it's basically like blinking.
• Caption: This animation is a look at how we REALLY read