Professional trainers and presenters know that they must design handouts effectively to enhance learning. After all, a handout is not a learning aid if your participants do not understand its content.
The readability of the information you provide in handouts is important to the success of your training. Since the 1930s, national literacy studies have found that the average high school graduate reads at about an 8th grade level while college graduates read at around the 10th grade level. This is why you should write content based on the level of your audience. For example, are you training high school students, educators, front-line employees, or executives? Depending on the education and ability level of your learners, you may have to change your word selection and design format. Another point to remember about the importance of handouts is that some research indicates that approximately 40-65 percent of learners are visually dominant (visual learners). This group most effectively processes and learns information through visual input.
You have multiple goals when creating handouts. These include:
- Aiding comprehension.
- Making reading easy.
- Holding the interest of your participants, regardless of their primary learning style or modality.
To achieve these goals when writing, keep your average sentence length to between 15-20 words. Anything above those numbers might be a candidate for rewriting. You can add variety by alternating sentence length. Making sentences too complex limits their effectiveness and can confuse readers. Additionally, pay attention to the length and complexity of paragraphs. Remember that paragraphs contain one key idea or focus. You can reduce paragraph length by limiting the number of key points or subordinate clauses that you separate by commas. As an example of readability, the tip that you are currently reading is at a grade level of 10.6.
If you are using Microsoft Word® 2010 version or higher, you can determine the education level and readability of your text by following these steps:
On the Tools menu.
Click Options.
Look under Proofing for the Spelling & Grammar category
Make sure that Show Readability Statistics is checked.
Then, when you click the ABC (Spellcheck) icon on the toolbar to check spelling in your document, the readability statistics will show after the spelling check.
Get additional ideas on how to design handouts effectively to enhance learning and increase the overall value of visual learning aids in your classroom in Energize Your Training: Creative Techniques to Engage Learners, Training Workshop Essentials: Designing, Developing and Delivering Learning Events That Get Results and The Big Book of Flip Charts: A Comprehensive Guide for Presenters, Trainers and Team Facilitators.
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