Monday, June 11, 2012

Interesting: Study finds Wider letter spacing helps dyslexics read

My mother sent me a link to Wider letter spacing helps dyslexics read which starts:


In a sample of dyslexic children age eight to 14, extra-wide letter spacing doubled accuracy and increased reading speed by more than 20 percent, according to the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


If you have a child struggling with reading you might try printing text in different fonts, larger fonts, and increasing the spacing between lines.

I recently found out I have a relative that can not read, in certain fonts.  He was fine for the first sixty years of his life, but something happened in the last couple years and he fonts with little curvy things have become impossible for him to read.

I wonder if at some point we'll be able to buy books in easy to read fonts?  I would think publishers would take note of studies like this and try to maximize their sales by using fonts which more people can read.


TEFL Ninja said...

I'm only mildly troubled by dyslexia, but In my entirely unscientific experience, this is true.

I have long reformatted text and webpages to widen the spacing and the space between lines so I can read it accurately and quickly.

Small type, tiny spacing, narrow line breaks = me struggling ten times more and never managing to keep my place let alone read effectively.

Henry Cate said...

Sarah - I'm also mildly dyslexic, but I hadn't picked up on this option for making it easier to read.

Kind of interesting.