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Language Skills Psychology and Neuroscience

Effectiveness of Bionic Reading: Seductive Hype or

Realistic Hope? 5 key questions Answered

Reading

Chin Yew KIEU Published: 27/03/2023 Updated: 18/04/2024

This article discusses the effectiveness of Bionic Reading through the exploration of 5 key questions
that language educators should take note before adopting the method. Read on to find out more.
 Table of Contents

In the age of information overload, the idea of being able to read in a focused mode at higher speeds
without sacrificing understanding has undeniable appeal. One method that has generated buzz and
became viral in 2022 was “BIONIC READING”. Nearing a year ahead, there are still proponents of this
method posting about the impressive outcomes they seem to have obtained through using the app
on social media.

But does BIONIC READING actually work, or is it just another gimmick? That’s the million-dollar
question that we are still grappling with. On the one hand, the prospect of being able to read at
lightning speed without sacrificing comprehension is undoubtably attractive. On the other hand,
there are some sceptics who worry that BIONIC READING may be little more than a gimmick, with
little real-world value.

In this article, I will try to answer this question. Though, as a spoiler alert, I do not have a definite
answer. However, an analysis of the evidence and arguments currently available will be undertaken
using 5 key questions, and this process can be revisited if more information becomes available.
Additionally, this structure can be used to evaluate any purported revolutionary techniques that are
exciting and promising on one hand, but seem too good to be true on the other.

What is BIONIC READING? How does it boost reading comprehension?

Image generated by ArtSmart / Bionic Reading can expedite reading without compromising
comprehension?

Let’s start by defining “BIONIC READING” exactly is. As clarified on the official website, it is a
technique by which the typography of a text is modified to guide the eyes through the text “with
artificial fixation points”. The assumption behind the method is also articulated: “We humans store
learned words and so just a few letters are enough to recognise whole words”.

Example of Bionic Reading from the official website

Based on this assumption, the technique modifies the typeface of the initial letters of a word that
can apparently send signals to the brain to fill in the whole word (e.g. from Bionic Reading to Bionic
Reading). In other words, what is been suggested is that the brain becomes more efficient in word
processing because we need not complete the identification of every letter in the word before
registering it as part of encoding.

BIONIC READING is designed to be flexible. There are different degrees of “fixation”, “saccade” and
“opacity” which a reader can toggle to find the optimal combination for more efficient reading
comprehension.

Despite the modification to make one read faster presumably with stronger focus, BIONIC READING
has been declared to be aimed at promoting “a more in-depth reading and understanding of written
content” in the context of “a digital world dominated by shallow forms of reading”. It is not clear
what such “shallow forms of reading” refer to, though my baseless interpretation is that they refer to
other speed reading methods.

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Question 1: Where is the rigourous empirical evidence for such an

astounding claim?
 Photo from Envato Elements / Where is the rigourous evidence?

So, how does the creator of the BIONIC READING method, Renato Casutt, come to create this
method and where is the evidence to claim its effectiveness?

According to two articles I found – one published on The Conversation and another published on
Quartz, the official website of BIONIC READING did publish the claim by Renato Casutt that the
method was independently tested on 12 participants. A positive effect was found, though not
described, for most participants. The Conversation wrote that they did reach out to the company for
clarification on the methodology of the study – an attempt that was futile as there was no reply.

Today, I cannot locate any remnant of this study on the website. What remains though, are the many
individual testimonials on the website. They have also invited individual users to continue coming
forward with their personal experiences in using the product, though I doubt they will publish the
negative reviews.

BIONIC READING has also considerable support and a large number of positive reviews on social
media. Personally, I also came to know of this “method” after encountering a shared post by one of
the language educators in a LinkedIN group. Many users open to the method claim to be having
Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and dyslexia. At face value, we can assume that the
method could have worked for some though these claims are unverifiable since they are not properly
documented or understood.

Nevertheless, similar to Dr Trakhman (the professor who wrote the piece on The Conversation), I
share the concern on the validity of these claims. I will not discredit the potential that it might have
in living up to its claim – just that there is no rigorous evidence suggesting that.

This is reminiscent of another claim of a ground-breaking typeface design that can help dyslexics
read – the Dyslexic Font or OpenDyslexic. This font was designed as a graduate project by the
creator, Christian Boer, who has dyslexia himself. The project was claimed to have “find a solution to
improve the readability for people with dyslexia”. This was further covered in articles later, such as
the BBC-published article “The typeface that helps dyslexics read”.

However, this claim has been contested later on by a number of studies. There is little support from
research published in peer-reviewed journals that “these special fonts help kids or adults with
dyslexia to read faster or make fewer mistakes”. It is still early and we should either proceed with an
attached agenda of a rigorous action research to examine its effects or wait for further findings
before adopting it on a larger scale.

Question 2: What are the alternative claims and what are their
evidence?

Photo from Envato Elements / Colleagues discussing the various evidence found

Notwithstanding such, has there been rigorous research conducted by others who claimed the
method as ineffective, or at least not as effective as claimed? To be fair, the sceptics of the BIONIC
READING method are also in large numbers. When it received an outpour of support on social
media, it was also balanced with many others who have either dismissed the positive effects of the
method, or claimed that the method is counter-productive (e.g. slows down reading speed). That
was how it went viral.

The main advantage, however, in the opposing camp is that there is at least one rigorous study that
as conducted. Readwise.io conducted this study which went out to test the effectiveness of BIONIC
READING. The findings of this study, including the methodology, are published for all to review and
see. The raw data of the study has also been made publicly accessible for analysts who wish to run
the data analysis by constructing your own statistical models.

In a nutshell, no evidence was found that BIONIC READING has any positive effect on reading speed
– no significant impact that it affects reading speed (at least it does not slow down reading as some
critics claim too). In fact, to be extremely precise, “participants read 2.6 words per minute slower on
average with BIONIC READING than without” though the effect size is so small that this can be
considered negligible.

Till date, I have not yet found any other academic empirical study which make a thorough
assessment of the method – or at least something similar to this study on Readwise.io. While we
can fairly question Readwise’s motivations in conducting the study and publishing it after the
findings invalidated the method, it is at least presented in an open and articulate manner – critics
can come and examine the study and data otherwise. As such, the strength of evidence is currently
in favour of opponents to the method hitherto.

Question 3: How do the proponents respond to opposing claims?

Photo from Envato Elements / Debating over the findings thus far

In the same article published on Quartz, Renato Casutt did respond to the study conducted by
Readwise.io. He remained unfazed by those who doubt him, for he believes that recognition on
social media is enough. In his own words as cited: “I don’t think BIONIC READING would have gone
viral if it didn’t make a positive impact for readers. Millions of people, including me, think BIONIC
READING works.” Note that the notion of “millions of people” came in the context of “over 7 million
views on TikTok [on] just one post” and “liked and shared millions of times on Twitter”.

Is Renato Casutt planning for a study at his end to validate the claims on social media? Apparently,
he did, according to the Quartz article, though we have yet to find any published findings or that
whether the study was really implemented. Renato Casutt did mention the existence of a large
number of studies on the Science of Reading which seems to suggest that the evidence for this
approach can be found there.

Before we move on to the discussion on theoretical grounds, I confess that I found this response
unsatisfying though I can understand Renato Casutt’s motivation. BIONIC READING is already in the
market, and seems to have garnered enough attention and affirmation. For a business, that is
sufficient as long as the market continues to demand the product/service and is willing to pay for it.

On a side note, I just want to highlight the notion of “confirmation bias”, which is the tendency for
people to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information that confirms one’s pre-existing beliefs or
hypotheses. Confirmation bias can impair our ability to think critically and objectively, especially in
updating our beliefs based on new evidence since we tend to disregard those that invalidate our
current ones. The challenging part about confirmation bias is that it can exist in the implicit realm,
such that we are not aware of it in activity.

Whether or not we are an open-minded innovator or a critical consumer, we do need to be mindful of

the ways confirmation bias may catch up with us – especially in the face of innovations that gain
viral attention. With BIONIC READING, noting that rigorous empirical evidence is not in its favour, we
should still remain cognisant of the other positive reviews it received and not discount it completely
yet. Let’s bring it to an assessment with other findings from the Science of Reading.

Question 4: How is this in line or at misalignment with previous

research findings in the Science of Reading?

Photo from Envato Elements / Thinking deep about the alignment with the Science of Reading

Dr Trakhman has explicated much of this in her article on the Conversation. The main proposition
put forward by the BIONIC READING method is that the modification of the typeface of initial letters
of a word (by bolding given the examples) has the effect of expediting word recognition. The
difficulties though, are the constraints of this method.

Must the reader already be a skilled language user before this method can be used, since the reader
must already have the “stored words”? Can this be used on early readers who are still developing
their reading expertise? To further extend, can this be used on developing early readers who have
been found to have ADHD or dyslexia? What are the long-term effects of using this method on
reading in general? Will reading of general text be made more difficult since the method cannot be
applied on existing prints?

Frankly, I do not have comprehensive answers to all these questions, though I can attempt to
address some related concerns. First and foremost, typeface modification is not a method unique to
BIONIC READING. I have earlier shared on the well-intended innovation of the dyslexic font which
turned out to be ineffective. In an alternative world, typeface modification has also been a highly
adopted and researched method in input enhancement, particularly known as textual enhancement
or perceptual enhancement.

Specifically, perceptual enhancement makes use of phonological and typographical cues in attempt
to shift attention to the targeted forms. Manipulation examples include bolding, using italics,
underlining, highlighting, changing the font size or style, or any combination of these for written
texts; or varying intonation, stress and loudness for speech/utterances. It is hoped that the
enhanced perceptual cues can draw learners’ attention to the linguistic forms underpinning the
manipulated words (or strings of words) by increasing their salience.
Based on this understanding, typeface modification can theoretically be used to bring salience to
selected sentences/phrases/words thus improving the chance of “Noticing” – an important pre-
requisite for language acquisition according to research. Note that this is not a fool proof technique
as research on such techniques have found effects to be mixed. However, typeface modification for
every word in the case of BIONIC READING will thus diminish the effect of perceptual enhancement
typically used to help language acquisition. Fundamentally this also means that perceptual
enhancement as a technique will not be possible when the BIONIC READING method is engaged.

Assuming that typeface modification is not applied systematically for input enhancement, can
typeface modification of initial letters in BIONIC READING then allow one to process the word
faster? This needs a revisitation of the processes involved in reading. There is no doubt that reading
is primarily an activity that relates to vision. The words need to be seen and captured by the eyes
before any reading can start.

The intervention implemented in BIONIC READING is targeted at the manipulation of vision. The
“artificial fixation points” force one to start the processing of words there. Note that this
manipulation does not delete the subsequent letters completely – Bionic Reading to Bionic Reading,
and not Bionic Reading to Bio Read. This implies that BIONIC READING is not trying to suggest
that we only process the initial letters to know the words – it does not make sense since other
permutations can exist (e.g. Biological Readers, Biochemical Readiness).

What does this suggest? Within BIONIC READING, the reader is still processing the whole word. This
is not too different from other methods, albeit not proposed as reading enhancement techniques,
that have tried to demonstrate a prime feature of reading (specifically word recognition) – visual
invariance (Dehaene, 2009).

One particular hallmark of development in reading expertise is the ability to mainfest invariance in
word recognition when the character shapes are changed (font type, font case, font weight). We cAn
amazIngLY pRoCeSs WoRdS in a sentence despite a chaotic combination oF tHESE VARIANTS.
Handwritten manuscripts can lead to additional levels of variability and uncertainty, but skilled
readers can deal with them nonetheless. Reading scientists basically find that “our letter
normalisation processes are so efficient that they easily resist such transformation”. As such, it is
really interestingly unknown why BIONIC READING can work in expediting reading speed, since it will
probably get “normalised” over time.

In addition, the claim that “just a few letters are enough to recognise whole words” is also baffling. I
have demonstrated earlier that we cannot omit the letters of a word after the initial letters (e.g.
Biological Readers, Biochemical Readiness), so it is mysterious how this claim can be
substantiated. On the contrary, reading scientists have found that our visual system processes all
letters of a word at the same time, rather than sequentially, on the condition that we have become
proficient readers. For developing readers (e.g. children), they still take time to process the individual
letters.

In other words, skilled adult readers do not “fill in the whole word” after seeing the initial letters –
they are just simply efficient in processing all the letters of a word or even words simultaneously. If
we are already familiar with the 2 pathways to reading comprehension – the phonologically
mediated pathway and the direct semantic pathway, the skilled adult reader utilises more of the
direct semantic pathway after many years of using more of the phonologically mediated pathway.
As for the developing readers, they still need to use the phonologically mediated pathway, and will
need to process every letter nevertheless.

Perhaps one of the most bewildering claims is the proposition that Bionic Reading is aimed at
promoting “a more in-depth reading and understanding of written content” since it is also marketed
to speed up reading. Reading scientists generally converge on the understanding that “speed” and
“comprehension” do not go hand in hand in reading. In fact, to promote deeper engagement of
details, some experts advocate “slow reading”.

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Question 5: Can we implement Bionic Reading in our language

classrooms?
 Photo from Envato Elements / Can we implement Bionic Reading in our classrooms?

Reviewing the whole article hitherto, you might be wondering that the answer is a definite “no”. At
least for now, with the lack of further evidence, we may want to be a bit more mindful if we do want
to try it out.

For developing readers, especially for younger learners, I will be more inclined to say “no”. Given the
space, if the readers can do it, they should develop all the necessary expertise required in reading
(e.g. encoding capabilities and language comprehension skills). Furthermore, authentic texts out
there may not necessarily be presented in such forms and the readers will still need to be
accustomed to those forms.

For skilled and expert readers, if you are keen in experimenting different ways of presentation, you
can still consider how to factor in BIONIC READING as one of the many approaches to test out the
different effects based on different means of input enhancement. Notwithstanding such, you may
want to keep good documentation or incorporate it as part an action research project. At a skilled
level, the key goal in reading instruction will probably be geared towards increasing their willingness
in cultivating a habit of personal voluntary reading. If BIONIC READING can potentially reap some
effects in that area, it is worth a try (though we need to be cautious that it may just be a novelty
effect).

For ADHD and dyslexic readers, we may want to heed Dr Trakhman’s advice: “To help struggling
readers, especially those with dyslexia and ADHD, research suggests that one of the most helpful
tools can be to simply encourage reading more slowly.” Slow reading has decades of research
supporting it and is more assuring than the unverified BIONIC READING. Other easy actions, such
as following along with your finger or computer mouse, might even be more beneficial.

Notwithstanding such, if you do want to offer an alternative for adults, you can still introduce it to
them to try out as part of their personal voluntary reading. Again, it may reap benefits in unknown
ways – and you can sure be an innovator researching that.

Is Bionic Reading effective as claimed? What can we learn from this?

For now, the verdict is not in the favour of BIONIC READING if we are talking about science-based
evidence. Potentially, as an approach to perceptual modification, it can be studied alongside all
other variations to assess their impact on reading for language acquisition. In reading as an
expertise, the prime feature of visual invariance suggests that we may be looking for a treasure
which is not there.

The overwhelming eagerness in the adoption of BIONIC READING and any other speed-reading
techniques is a testament of our performance anxiety in wanting to acquire more information in
shorter periods of time. That is definitely a win for reading as a pursuit, but not necessarily useful for
in-depth understanding. However, in adopting any new methods, we should always be mindful of the
questions asked in this article to examine the new method(s) while calibrating the degree of our
adoption.

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