A while ago, I had read somewhere that people read text typed in ALL CAPS at some rate slower than ordinary text. I have forgotten that figure since, and can't find the source again. Can anyone please help?

harish_256

After searching a bit more, I got figures ranging from 10% to 25% slower. Can anyone come up with a reliable source? (I want to highlight the basic fact that typing in all caps makes people read slower, so I might just say "upto 25%" to make it sound convincing! ;-) ) Nov 16 03, 5:15 AM

McGruff

I haven't found the rate difference, but I did find a possible reason why writing in all caps can slow a reader down. "He also suggests teaching kids to read with all capital letters, because words written in capitals all have the same shape, while words written in lower case have unique shapes to them. He says that if a word is written in all capitals, that forces the kid to sound out the word, while if the word is in lower case, the kid may recognize the word by its outline, without sounding it all out." http://www.valeriemates.com/writings/early_reading.html Nov 17 03, 2:10 AM