dyslexia – Education & Teacher Conferences

Don’t Hate on Comic Sans; It Helps Dyslexic Readers (Asterisk)

Andrew Watson

April 16, 2022

Don’t Hate on Comic Sans; It Helps Dyslexic Readers (Asterisk)

People have surprising passions.

Some friends regularly announce that the Oxford comma is a hill they’re ready to die on. (I’m an English teacher, and yet I wonder: you’re willing to die over a punctuation mark?)

With equal energy and frequency, Twitter and Facebook resonate with mockery of the typeface Comic Sans. (Again, it’s a typeface. Why all the pique?)

Comic-sans mockery, however, often earns this earnest rebuttal:

“Comic sans helps dyslexic readers, who struggle with other fonts. Comic sans isn’t dreadful; it’s essential!”

I’ve read this statement so often that I simply assumed it’s true. Would Twitter lie?

Just Checking…

I have, in fact, seen the claim that “comic sans benefits dyslexic readers” twice this week.

However, I’ve started to notice a curious silence: no one cites specific research to back up that claim.

So, I thought I’d find it for myself.

Long-time readers know my routine. I surfed over to Google Scholar, and searched the terms “dyslexia” and “font.” And, to be on the safe side, I also searched “dyslexia” and “comic sans.”

From there, I used Scite.ai and Connectedpapers.com to follow up on my findings.

The results surprised me, so I thought I’d pass them along.

Does Comic Sans Benefit Dyslexic Readers?

I don’t know.

More precisely, I can’t find research that explores that question directly.

When I did the searches described above, I found several studies that seemed promising. And yet, when I looked at the specifics, I found that the researchers hadn’t explored exactly this question.

For instance:

Several studies cite the British Dyslexia Association style guide as their source for this recommendation.

That guide does recommend Comic Sans (and other sans serif fonts, including Arial). However, it doesn’t cite any research to support that claim.

Hmmmm.

This study, helpfully called “Good Fonts for Dyslexia,” does indeed ask 48 dyslexic readers to study passages in different fonts. It asks exactly the question we’re trying to answer.

However, this research team didn’t include Comic Sans among the fonts they studied.

They do recommend Helvetica, Courier, Arial, Verdana and CMU for dyslexic readers. But they have no recommendation one way or the other about Comic Sans.

Double hmmmmm.

Most of the studies I found focus less on font and more on web design. (And, the most common font-related conclusion I found is: fonts designed to benefit dyslexic readers don’t.)

At this point, I simply don’t have a research-based answer to this question.

To Be Clear…

This search genuinely surprised me. Given the frequency of the claim — just google it! — I assumed I’d find a robust research pool.

But, no.

Given the potential for controversy here, I want to answer some likely questions:

“Are you saying Comic Sans DOESN’T help dyslexic readers?”

No. I’m saying I can’t find a research-based answer either way.

“If you’re not an expert in dyslexia, how can you be so sure?”

Honestly, I’m not sure. I’m usually fairly skilled at finding the research basis behind educational claims. (Heck, I wrote a book about doing so.) But in this case, I simply couldn’t discover a convincing answer to the question.

“Look, this research right here shows that Comic Sans does help!”

AWESOME! Please share it with me so I can write a follow-up post.

“My student/child/colleague tells me that Comic Sans helps a lot.”

That kind of individual experience is useful and important. I hope that researchers explore this question, so we can know with greater confidence whether or not it helps most dyslexic readers.

“How long did you look?”

Maybe an hour, spread out over two days. I certainly could have missed something. I hope you’ll let me know if you’ve got a study that looks at this possibility.

TL;DR

You might have heard that Comic Sans helps dyslexic readers; you might have heard that “research says so.”

Those claims might be true, but I haven’t (yet) found research supporting them. If you know of that research, please send it my way!

Brain Words: How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching by J. Richard Gentry and Gene P. Oullette

Rebecca Gotlieb

September 16, 2019

Brain Words: How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching by J. Richard Gentry and Gene P. Oullette

Far too many children are not learning to read well. New research about reading has not sufficiently informed teaching practices. In Brain Words: How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching, J. Richard Gentry and Gene P. Ouellette, expert reading researchers and education consultants, use the new science of reading to suggest ways to support students in becoming strong readers. They explain recent brain- and behavior-based findings about how kids learn to read.

Brain words, as used by the authors, are words for which students know the pronunciation, meaning, and spelling, such that they can read, write, and use the word correctly and comfortably. This book seeks to help instructors guide students in building brain words by offering ways to assess reading abilities as well as scientifically-backed practices for teaching reading. They emphasize especially the overlooked importance of teaching spelling. The authors offer specific, practical tips for teaching reading in kindergarten through sixth grade. They conclude with advice for schools and parents about how to support students with dyslexia.

Learning to read does not happen automatically. In fact, reading is effortful and as others, such as Maryanne Wolf, have explained, the brain’s distributed reading circuitry is not present at birth but rather develops with exposure to and instruction in reading.
Gentry and Ouellette state that most teachers are not trained in effective literacy instruction practices, and many do not have access to science-based teaching resources. As such, the authors review best practices for teaching reading in light of current research.

As Daniel Willingham and other reading experts have argued also, Gentry and Ouellette state that using both phonics and whole-word approaches to teaching reading is more effective than relying on only one of these strategies. Phonics is necessary for building reading skills, while whole-word reading provides motivation for engaging in active reading. Spelling is a critical step on the road to reading with comprehension, and yet accountability assessments do not measure spelling competence. As a result, many schools do not have spelling curricula. The authors call for a spell-to-read approach to reading instruction. They offer reflective questions that teachers can consider to improve their reading instruction.

Gentry and Ouellette detail a quick and effective way to determine students’ developmental reading phase based on a carefully designed spelling test. Students’ performance on this test can be parsed into phases. The non-alphabetical phase involves children using shapes that might resemble letters but not writing in any recognizable form. The pre-alphabetical phase involves using letters but the letters the child writes do not systematically correspond to sounds. The partial alphabetical phase involves some matching between letters and spoken language. In the full alphabetical phase children spell with one letter to represent each sound. When children can spell nearly or completely correctly, they can begin to read independently. With an understanding of students’ reading and spelling abilities it is possible to optimally facilitate reading instruction.

The authors suggest a “listen first” approach to learning spelling and reading in which students first hear a word, then say the word, write the word, read it, and use it. In older grades a spelling pretest, which students correct themselves while reflecting about the reasons for their mistakes, is an effective teaching tool. The most important measure for improving students’ vocabulary and reading abilities is to support the students in reading more.

Between five and twenty percent of the population is affected by dyslexia. This reading disorder has a neurobiological and a genetic basis. People with dyslexia are not less intelligent nor are they less hard working. The authors explain common signs of dyslexia at different ages (e.g., abnormal spelling, trouble articulating words, or trouble with arbitrary sequences). Early identification of dyslexia is very important for helping these students learn to read and achieve academically. Gentry and Ouellette conclude with suggestions for how parents and schools can support students with dyslexia.

Brain Words will inform educators about recent advances in the science of learning while also offering practical and effective techniques for improving reading instruction. This book can help educators help more students learn to read well.