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Abstract – In language education for learners of Italian as an L2 it is important to use appropriate didactic strategies. Simplification, in teaching how to understand and produce a text, is very useful. The Italian legislation does not allow for special books for foreign students, therefore simplified materials facilitate the learning process. A literacy plan of appropriate lexis, based on basic vocabulary is the first step. It is necessary that teaching makes use of appropriate and understandable aids. Only by being understood can input become intake, that is taken in and reused later on. A written text can prove difficult for many reasons: because of the handwriting, of the type of words used, of the type of linking words, of the logical-conceptual organization. The indices of readability highlight the difficulty of reading a text that has many unusual, archaic or specialist words or long sentences. Simplification does not indicate a random clearing or reduction of a text. According to some researchers, the elimination of complex terms and structures can mean an impoverishment of the input, resulting in an unnatural model text. An alternative approach may be to elaborate a text thus solving the limitations of simplification. However, several studies have shown that, unlike other strategies, such as the modification of a text through elaboration, the production of a simple text, respecting the basic criteria that distinguish a text from a non-text (e.g. cohesion, coherence, appropriateness) can be a useful teaching tool in the approach to Italian as a L2, and also to other languages studied, as shown by various experiments in the Salento with some immigrant groups.