As part of our commitment to increasing people with a learning disability’s access to high quality accessible information, Learning Disability Wales is making our dictionary of easy read definitions free to everyone that produces easy read information.
Our dictionary of easy read definitions is a crucial resource that our Easy Read Wales team have built up over the 17 years that Learning Disability Wales has been producing accessible information.
Right to information you can understand
People should not be excluded from making independent and informed decisions about their life because certain subjects and terms are difficult to understand. And everyone has a right to information they can understand to enable them to speak up for the things they are passionate about, take part in society, and be valued members of their community.
But it can be a challenge to explain difficult topics and words. Our Easy Read Wales team find the dictionary an essential part of their work, and it ensures that the easy read work we produce for our clients – such as Welsh Government, local authorities, other disabled people’s organisations and the private sector – is consistent with each other.
The dictionary is an A-Z list of all of the definitions we have used over the years to explain difficult words and terms that are important to know and cannot be avoided. We hope you find this new resource useful and we would love to hear any additions or suggestions you have to improve it.
The dictionary is constantly evolving, as new words and phrases are added, and previous definitions are improved. This is our latest version, and we will be updating the free dictionary every year.
The dictionary is currently only available in English. We plan to make our Welsh easy read dictionary available as soon as soon as possible.
Download our Easy Read Definitions Dictionary here.
If you would like to find out more about how we can support you to make your information more accessible, whether through training, through our easy read service or with advice please get in touch with us: phone us on 029 20 68 1160, or email Easyread@ldw.org.uk. You can also follow us on Twitter at @EasyReadWales.
Other easy read resources and training available from Learning Disability Wales
Easy Read Wales is our accessible information service, and provides easy read information, training, advice and consultancy to help organisations make their information more accessible.
As well as our new dictionary of easy read definitions, we have several other free resources to help you produce high quality accessible information for people with a learning disability.
Our easy read training
We offer two levels of easy read training:
- Making information easy to read and understand Level 1 – for beginners who are new to producing easy read. This will help you to writes and design written information that needs to be clearly understood, especially by people with a learning disability.
- Making information easy to read and understand Level 2 – for people who have experience producing easy read and want to advance their skills, including how to translate long and complex documents.
Clear and Easy handbook
Clear and Easy is a free bilingual handbook for anyone who is, or should be, producing accessible information for people with a learning disability. It supports different sized organisations in their understanding of accessible information, why it is important for people with a learning disability to have access to information they can understand, and how to produce Easy Read materials.
Clear and Easy will benefit you if you are from a local People First group, a large disabled people’s organisation, a social services department, a public sector organisation, or a private service provider, such as a bank.
Download your free copy of Clear and Easy.
Check it! – a toolkit for checking easy read information
Check It! Is an easy read toolkit that makes it possible for people with a learning disability to check the quality of the accessible information they produce and receive – and to suggest improvements to the people that produced the information.
Download your free copy of Check It!
Guidelines for making Welsh easy to read and understand
Learning Disability Wales and Mencap Cymru have produced guidelines for making information easy to read and understand for people with a learning disability who speak Welsh.
The guidelines, produced in 2012, are intended for writers and translators of Easy Read materials in Welsh, and anyone who is commissioning Easy Read work.
Often Easy Read English does not easily translate into Easy Read Welsh. These guidelines will assist in ensuring that Easy Read documents in Welsh are of a higher standard.
Download your free copy of making Welsh easy to read and understand
Accessible information films
We have also made two short films about why accessible information is important, featuring a group of people with a learning disability explaining some of the difficulties they have with information that is too hard to understand.
You can watch the films below.
Why is accessible information important?
The basics of easy read
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