Does OpenDyslexic Improve Reading Speed?

I recently heard that OpenDyslexic improved reading speed for people with dyslexia and also improved reading speed for people who don’t suffer from that condition. I woke up pondering this and since I know that reading speed directly affects how effective my use of Sudowrite, ChatGPT, and Bing are; naturally, this means time for a side-quest to locate precious details. I have access to Bing Chat, which has internet access, and decided to let it help do the research. The results were not as satisfying as I hoped. Two of the research studies found OpenDyslexic font to not improve reading speed or comprehension. The other trials found it may have helped a little, but not significantly. In fact, some dyslexia organizations are concerned with the propagating misunderstanding of dyslexia that is being caused by these fonts.I’m disappointed with this result because I was really hoping they did improve reading speed and comprehension as I have a special needs nephew that lives with us and who could benefit from such a tool…Admittedly the studies were small, as such studies often are because of funding. But, they essentially concluded that sans-serif fonts work well and OpenDyslexic was the same or worse than other fonts designed to be easy to read with like Arial and Helvetica. However, there is no one size fits all solution and personal preferences will vary.Here are the research citations (which I checked myself to be sure Bing wasn’t making stuff up):

• Rello, Luz, and Ricardo Baeza-Yates. “Good Fonts for Dyslexia.” In Proceedings of ASSETS 2013: The 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility. Bellevue, WA: ACM Press, 2013. https://dyslexiahelp.umich.edu/sites/default/files/good_fonts_for_dyslexia_study.pdf
• Kuster, S. M., van Weerdenburg, M., Gompel, M., & Bosman, A. M. T. “The effect of a specialized dyslexia font, OpenDyslexic, on reading rate and accuracy.” Annals of Dyslexia 67 (2017): 114–127. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11881-016-0127-1
• Wery J.J., & Diliberto J.A… “The effect of a specialized dyslexia font, OpenDyslexic,on reading rate and accuracy.” Annals of Dyslexia 66 (2016): 114–127. https://docslib.org/doc/5757713/the-effect-of-a-specialized-dyslexia-font-opendyslexic-on-reading-rate-and-accuracy
• Marinus E., Mostard M., Segers E., Schubert T.M., Madelaine A., & Wheldall K… “The impact of a specialized font on reading performance of children with dyslexia: A longitudinal study.” Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties 24 (2019): 101–120. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s40688-019-00225-4.pdf

Pushing this a little further, I found this online clinical test from one study on reading speed of the general population, which discovered that personal preference does not mean “best reading font” for individuals. With many of the participants not knowing or using the best font for themselves… Try it for yourself at https://readabilitylab.xyz/

Turns out I read significantly faster with EB Garamond, which is closest to Merriweather overall. I’m switching fonts in Sudowrite to Merriweather to see if this “feels true” for me.

BTW, I love using Sudowrite. It has reignighted by writing process. And I’ve been doing a lot of AI research.

Sudowrite is an AI creative writing tool that uses a large language model called GPT-3 to generate text based on your input. It can help you overcome writer’s block, brainstorm ideas, expand your draft, and improve your writing style1. It has various features such as rewrite, brainstorm, continue, twist, and more! Check it out at https://www.sudowrite.com/?via=lartra