Fonts and Screens

FONTS AND SCREENS: QUICK FIXES FOR STUDENTS WITH Specific Learning Disabilities?

For years, special educators and school psychologists have been identifying viable interventions for students with reading disabilities. Many of these interventions are expensive, time-consuming, or impractical, and some work only for children with very specific reading issues. One intervention that has recently been suggested is altering the font of the text the child is reading. These alterations of fonts come in various forms but can be broken down to include the size of the font, the spacing of the font, and the font type itself. If font proves to be a useful intervention, the use of tablets will make font modification easy. This paper summarizes research on font-based interventions and the use of tablets.

Font Size

The most common measurement units that are used for font size in typography are points and picas. One point is equivalent to 1/72nd of one inch and one pica is equal to slightly less than 1/6th of one inch, and contains twelve points. Picas and points influence the x-height of individual letters and words, which relates to the overall visual appearance of letters. Depending on the size of the x-height, a letter can look smaller or larger, regardless of whether or not the two fonts are the same point size (Pjipker, 2013). Wilkins, Cleave, Grayson, and Wilson (2009) reported that children preferred reading a passage in a larger font size as compared to a smaller font size. Additionally, they reported that children who read a passage in a larger font size committed fewer errors and performed with greater speed, as compared to a passage in a smaller font.

Tinker (1963) examined fifth and sixth-grade students and found that words in size 6- and 14-point font produced a slower reading speed compared to 10-point font. Tinker (1963) suggested that a six-point font is rather illegible which may permit less visual discrimination of letters, thus decreasing reading speed and accuracy. In contrast, the 14-point font is much larger than the typical font size that is used, which means that more area is needed to discriminate the characteristics of each individual letter and word, which may decrease reading speed and accuracy. Ultimately, he found no significant difference between the readability and speed of 8, 10, and 12-point font sizes, which may suggest an optimum font size.

Spacing

There are very few studies that have examined how spacing in a text affects the reader’s comprehension. Spacing between letters in a single word is called intraword spacing. Spacing between words is called interword spacing. The space between lines of text is called leading.

In a Spanish study, Perea, Panadero, Moret-Tatay, and Gomez (2012) examined the effects of intra-word spacing on word identification speed and speed of reading text. They asked second and fourth graders with and without dyslexia to read both word lists and words in context as quickly as they could. While the authors found no effect of spacing on the speed of reading text, they did find that both groups of children read words faster when the words in the list were more spaced out. Interestingly, for the children with dyslexia, the effect was much more pronounced.

Chung (2002) asked six adults to read short sentences in which the interword spacing was set to 1x, 1.4x, and 2x normal spacing, and found no differences between the participants in the number of mistakes committed.

Paterson and Tinker (1932) wanted to identify the ideal lead. Leading, by the way, refers to vertical distance and line height in written text. They exposed their participants to a number of printed text with various leads, ranging from zero-point leads to four-point leads. They found that participants made the fewest errors while reading from the two-point leads. Zero, one, and two-point leads did not differ from each other statistically. The authors also found that four-point leads actually increased the number of errors participants made, which indicates that there is a “sweet spot” for leading. Burt (1959) demonstrated that inadequate leading can increase the chances of “doubling,” or re-reading a line and skipping lines in children.

To summarize, the sparse literature on this topic makes it difficult to make strong inferences regarding the effect of spacing on the readability of text. It appears that increased intraword spacing allows students, especially those with dyslexia, to read lists of words faster, which may have implications for some of the assessments we use to identify those students with learning disabilities. It appears that interword spacing may not play much of a role in reading, although clearly setting interword spacing to zero would cause issues. It is possible that interword spacing is helpful only up to the standard spacing, and adding more does not increase readability. While both studies on leading are quite dated, it is likely that their finding of higher leads reducing legibility remains true.

Font Type 

The type of font that is used in printed text serves as a crucial component to the overall legibility of words on the page. Within the realm of publishing, each publishing company uses similar font types, without regard to empirical support. Each font type consists of numerous characteristics that differ from one another (Perea et al., 2012). A serif is a horizontal line at the bottom of each individual letter, which is seen in Times New Roman. A sans serif font possesses the absence of a horizontal line at the bottom of individual letters, which is seen in a font type such as Arial. Refer to Figure 1 for examples of serif and sans-serif fonts. The current literature is inconclusive at this point as to whether serif or sans-serif fonts bring greater readability (Pjipker, 2013). According to Perea et al. (2012), a possible explanation for both greater reading speed and accuracy while reading words in a serif font, could be the result of greater spacing between letters, which may influence the ability to recognize individual words. Inter-letter spacing influences something referred to as the crowding effect. Spineli, De Luca, Judica, and Zoccolotti (2002) found that in readers with dyslexia, increasing the inter-letter spacing greatly reduced the response time of word identification, as compared to a font that contained a typical amount of inter-letter spacing. 

Aa Bb Cc Dd (Serif Font) 

Aa Bb Cc Dd (Sans Serif Font) 

Figure 1. Examples of Serif and Sans Serif Fonts

Dyslexie

As a result of the critical influence that font type, size, and inter-letter spacing have on reading performance, Boer (2011) sought to create a font that addresses the reading difficulties that individuals with Dyslexia face. Dyslexie, a font that Christian Boer developed, consists of distinctive characteristics in each letter that are suggested to be more easily distinguishable from one another, such as a bolded bottom portion of each letter, additional inter-letter spacing, a greater x-height, and capitalized letters that are slightly italicized and bolded. As a product, Dyslexie has mixed empirical support of overall effectiveness. To address the inconclusive supporting evidence of Dyslexie, we created a brief reading task that consisted of word lists and reading passages in Times New Roman, Arial, and Dyslexie. No significant differences or effects were found between the different font types.

Tablets

Tablets have been found to be useful in developing communication skills and literacy skills in children with developmental delays and autism spectrum disorders (Stephenson & Limbrick, 2015). They have also been found to be helpful in assisting English language learners, particularly in allowing them to practice their new language skills. There is less information about their use with students diagnosed with specific learning disabilities. Here, the findings are weaker and often mixed. For example, research by Bryant et al. (2015) has shown that the use of tablets slightly increased engagement in students with reading disabilities, at least in the short term, but reading performance and comprehension were slightly poorer on tablets than on books.

Reading material presented on tablets increases engagement with the screen, compared to engagement with books: it does not necessarily increase engagement with the text if other activities are available on the screen, however. Animated illustrations, sounds, and music focus children’s attention on the content. Tablet presentations frequently have options that take students’ attention away from the text (e.g., hotspots, games). As compared to book presentations, children learn less in these cases from tablets due to task switching (Garon, Bryson, & Smith, 2008). Similar findings have been found in older students as well. For example, there was no difference in the quality of the summary when college students wrote a synthesis of research articles using either a screen or paper for both reading the articles and writing the synthesis; but if access to the internet was available during the task, the quality of the writing was dramatically lower.

Most readers skim when on tablets (Baron, 2015), and while skimming has its uses, it is sometimes necessary to slow down and read carefully. Those who read on both paper and screen or only on paper are better at choosing to skim or not than those who read primarily on screens. While the best learning takes place when there is an interaction between a child and an adult with a text, it has been found that many texts designed for tablets make it difficult for parents or teachers to interact with a child (Lauricella et al., 2014; Neumann, 2016). Materials that are designed to be used by children alone and are intended to engage the child for long periods of time often contain features like talking characters, internet connections, dictionaries, games, and connected reading material that do not have a role for a parent or teacher.

Such findings need to be viewed cautiously as research overwhelmingly finds that some students learn to read better on tablets, most learn more or less equally on tablets and through books, and some students learn to read better with traditional books (Lauricella, Barr, & Calvert, 2014). Although there is no evidence as of yet for this concern, many authors are concerned that tablet presentations may be so entertaining that children will find print-only presentations boring; however, print-only presentations (at this point) eventually become necessary in education. Likewise, some have expressed skepticism toward the non-educational alleged benefits of the “paperless classroom.” With rapid developments in technology, for example, today’s tablets will be obsolete in mere years, and unwanted electronic devices have their own negative environmental impact.

Clearly, there is more to be done for us to gain a greater understanding of the impact of technology on reading and learning in the classroom. It is important to note that the young learners we are working with today are true digital natives; will they ultimately respond differently than those who have grown up with perhaps less access to these tools during key developmental periods? As these tools evolve and learners change, we may see a different pattern of results in future studies. 

References

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