“Conference on Easy-to-read” (18th and 19th of May, 2018, Valencia, Spain)

The elaboration and edition of Easy-to-read materials as well as the increasing number of Easy-to-read associations are born to help a sector of population whose reading competences - within diversity - are not equal to the standard level of academic, school, administrative, informative or even educational texts.  It is the case of people (children and adults) with intellectual disability or immigrant people learning a second-language or people with a low level of alphabetisation.

The access to information is recognised by the United Nations in the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities (Art. 9). The aim is to promote the individual training of the reading competence and to adapt textual contents to the levels of the users according to their acquisition of autonomy, which has been labelled as “easy-to-read.”

Under these premises, the “Conference on Easy-to-read” is framed into priority lines of work in the Valencian Plan for Promoting Reading and Books (PPLL) of the Regional Valencian Ministry for Education, Research, Culture and Sport of the Valencian Government in February 2017. 

This conference aims to gather representatives of relevant entities in several national and international easy-to-read related fields: associations of persons with disabilities, libraries, educational institutions, research centres, innovation and technological development, publishers or media. The objective is to identify needs, describe experiences, provide standards, formation and to design new challenges in this area.

ERI Lectura of the Universitat de València (https://www.uv.es/lectura/) as a baseline research centre in the area of reading competence in the Valencian Community. They have accepted the challenge of designing the content programme of this conference, proposed by the Subdirectorate General for Books, Documents and Libraries of the Valencian Community. Centres of training, innovation and educational resources (CEFIRES) for inclusive education and multilingualism collaborate in the organization and attendance management of this conference.

This two-day conference is addressed to professionals of the educational and social services fields, librarians and associations interested in learning more about the present and future of Easy-to-read; to know its standards and regulations and to initiate a training process for acquiring basic competences and contribute with new ideas and challenges to the praxis and research in this field.