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Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts

dyslexicfonts.com

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Re: Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts

#41

Post by drseide »

I think there is no single font that will help "dyslexics" because many students in our practice have told us different preferences in the font sizes, shapes / serifs, colors, and character spacing re: readability.

As a group, there are some scientific studies which show the need for larger font and increased character spacing, among other issues. The option to customize will help some people though.

In our dyslexia practice, many kids tell us that they prefer Comic Sans with a larger font...the extra shaping of letters helps distinguish mirror letters like b and d.

Re: Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts

#42

Post by jdietrich »

white_bread wrote: post #38
jdietrich wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be blunt about this - the term dyslexia exists to absolve incompetent teachers and schools of responsibility. All the available evidence points to the fact that dyslexics have simply been incompetently taught and never gained a coherent sense of how language works. By labelling the student as dyslexic we perpetuate the lie that the reading difficulty has come from within the individual, rather than from the fail…

I get the point you're making but reading this is bumming me out. Dyslexia is by far the most common learning disability. It's estimated that 5 to 10 percent of people are affected. By saying that the teachers are incompetent is dismissive but ultimately minimizes the struggles of the people who have to figure out how to deal with this very real learning difference.

But there isn't any evidence that there's anything fundamentally different about dyslexic students. We have no proof whatsoever that they enter school any different to their non-dyslexic peers, but we do know that they leave school with poorer reading skills. To say that these students are dyslexic, rather than saying that we have failed to teach them to read, is a political rather than scientific decision. We are arbitrarily labelling those most poorly-served by school as learning disabled, for no rational reason other than to absolve the system of blame.

Re: Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts

#43

Post by evincarofautumn »

jdietrich wrote: post #42
white_bread wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the point you're making but reading this is bumming me out. Dyslexia is by far the most common learning disability. It's estimated that 5 to 10 percent of people are affected. By saying that the teachers are incompetent is dismissive but ultimately minimizes the struggles of the people who have to figure out how to deal with this very real learning difference.

But there isn't any evidence that there's anything fundamentally different about dyslexic students. We have no proof whatsoever that they enter school any different to their non-dyslexic peers, but we do know that they leave school with poorer reading skills. To say that these students are dyslexic, rather than saying that we have failed to teach them to read, is a political rather than scientific decision. We are ar…

There may indeed be no evidence that these students enter school any different from their peers. However, in the absence of evidence, you cannot make any conclusions at all. It does not necessarily follow that the school is at fault, nor does it follow that there is some sort of conspiracy at work. All we can do here is give our opinions.

If a person has a low aptitude for something, then they themselves will naturally tend away from it, and toward things at which they feel they can succeed. I liked programming initially because it fit with how I thought and what I liked to do, so I practiced it and became better. I don’t care that much about cars, so I don’t know a lot about them—just enough to do basic repairs once in a while. So it could very well be that the child has no learning disability and the educator is not at fault. We cannot know without hard data.

Re: Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts

#44

Post by white_bread »

jdietrich wrote: post #42
white_bread wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the point you're making but reading this is bumming me out. Dyslexia is by far the most common learning disability. It's estimated that 5 to 10 percent of people are affected. By saying that the teachers are incompetent is dismissive but ultimately minimizes the struggles of the people who have to figure out how to deal with this very real learning difference.

But there isn't any evidence that there's anything fundamentally different about dyslexic students. We have no proof whatsoever that they enter school any different to their non-dyslexic peers, but we do know that they leave school with poorer reading skills. To say that these students are dyslexic, rather than saying that we have failed to teach them to read, is a political rather than scientific decision. We are ar…

I'm not big on throwing this out there but I've struggled with dyslexia. As an example I wasn't able to read until I was in 5th grade. I can get lost in my own neighborhood. I have trouble learning something without physically writing it down or actually doing the activity. I'm 44 now and I wouldn't say that was a lack of skill from my teachers. When I grew up in the 70's and early 80s there was very little awareness about what to do with kids with dyslexia but it seems like your point is that if these kids just were taught properly then we wouldn't see this symptoms. From my own personal experience I can tell you that's not true at all. I also have a friend who's so dyslexic that he can't drive. He's so crippled by it that he can't even type in his own pin number. If he needs money from the bank I'll drive him and get the cash out of the ATM for him. I'm sure I could teach him how to type in 4 numbers but that's clearly not going to help. This is just a personal story with a sample size of two. I get that. With that said, maybe will shed some light on something that's affected me in a very profound way. best.

Re: Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts

#45

Post by antijingoist »

drseide wrote: post #40

I think there is no single font that will help "dyslexics" because many students in our practice have told us different preferences in the font sizes, shapes / serifs, colors, and character spacing re: readability. As a group, there are some scientific studies which show the need for larger font and increased character spacing, among other issues. The option to customize will help some people though. In our dyslexia…

FWIW, I think your thoughts are more of a reality than just your opinion. Thanks for saying it better than I can. Even in these comments, there are people that love it, and people that can't use it.

There are also many forms of dyslexia. Some are related to letter shapes. Some involve glare, etc. etc. etc. No one solution will help everyone. That is why there are color filters, lenses, rainbow'd lines of text, fonts like these, etc.

In the emails I've gotten the past few days, and since I've started this project, there are people who insist their life has changed, people who just like reading with it, and people who are bothered by it. It's just the nature of things.

edit: spellings and such.

Re: Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts

#46

Post by damiro »

I have tried reading this font, and had a lot of trouble although not dyslexic. What I gather from your posts is that greatest importance is having a font with letters highly distinguishable from one another (so they don't become misinterpreted). As an idea, a set of random dots can be added around each letter. As the person encounters the same letters while reading, they would encounter the same set of random dots for those letters. I am not sure if this would work, but it can be done and tested.

Re: Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts

#47

Post by antijingoist »

damiro wrote: post #46

I have tried reading this font, and had a lot of trouble although not dyslexic. What I gather from your posts is that greatest importance is having a font with letters highly distinguishable from one another (so they don't become misinterpreted). As an idea, a set of random dots can be added around each letter. As the person encounters the same letters while reading, they would encounter the same set of random dots f…

Thats the theory behind "Dyslexic Notation." You can try it if you'd like: https://github.com/antijingoist/AlphaSymbolic
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