Can a Font Eradicate Illiteracy
[Music]
[Applause]
imagine
it’s 10 30 a.m and you’re sitting in
your third grade class
ready to take the big test on great
american inventors
there you sit as your teacher places a
sheet of paper in front of you
now the page is full of words that have
to be decoded
in order for you to prove that you’ve
mastered the text being given to you
but try as you may to decipher the words
on the page
for the most part the text is just
incomprehensible
and at that moment you resign to the
fact
that you have just failed another test
but you can’t figure out why it is you
can’t read
now to most of us this is a foreign
experience
however to caleb it was a way of life
just a little bit of background on me
before i go too much further
i’m an associate professor of design and
a design researcher
i’m also a product of public schools
i’m the daughter of a reading teacher my
mom
and a product inventor my dad and when
you put them together
you get me someone who develops reading
technologies
because she wanted to help people like
caleb
twelve years ago caleb the dyslexic son
of one of my dearest friends made a
profound statement
that sent me on an amazing journey of
developing reading tools
he said i think i keep failing these
tests because of the way the page is
laid out
while i don’t suffer with dyslexia early
on
as i was learning to read and write it
was difficult
so as i stood there and looked at his
frustrated face
i thought to myself if i could use my
skills as a graphic designer
to help change his experience in school
i’m all in but before i could begin
there were a few things that i needed to
understand like
how you teach somebody to read what role
does your learning style play in your
ability to read
what are the issues surrounding reading
with dyslexia
well in my research i discovered
something while it wasn’t the page
layout
there are strategies that we use as
graphic designers
that could possibly be employed to teach
early reading skills
but my research didn’t stop there i
spent time
observing the school that specialized in
teaching adhd
and dyslexic learners i cold called
specialists who are studying how the
technologies of the time
would impact education and my team and i
began making things and bringing it to
individuals like that for feedback
now there were a lot of things that did
not work along the way
one of our early prototypes when we put
it in front of kids they looked at it
and said
what but we kept with the positive
attitude
and what resulted were two fonts c type
and squishy squashy c type cues you to
hearing
the sound associated with the letter
form for example
if you were reading on screen and you
couldn’t remember what sound the letter
p
makes simply roll over the letter and
watch it
morph into different images saying the
images aloud
chews you to hearing the sounds
associated
with the letter peach
penguin pig
squishy squashy visualizes the rules to
the english language
also known as orthographic patterns so
if you were reading on screen
and there was a long a sound in the word
the letter
would stretch long versus a short a
sound would stay static and if there was
a letter
in a word that was silent it would goes
back to almost nothing
because it’s something that isn’t spoken
but we didn’t stop it just making the
fonts we embedded them
inside of a web browser extension to
support anyone who’s struggling to read
whether you’re a struggling reader in a
third grade inner city class
or an immigrant who’s new to our country
or are part of the large population
of men and women in prison who just
never quite learned to read
with the web browser extension you can
read any digital content you love
and be supported you see when you
struggle to read
you kind of don’t want to read because
it points out your weakness
but you will read when it’s something
that you love
if you want to read cnn or espn
or time for kids simply go to the
website that’s of interest to you
and find an article then click our web
browser extension
which will re-render the text on the
screen in one of our fonts
like ctype here’s how it works
anytime you’re struggling to decode a
word
simply roll over the letter or letters
and receive a visual
and auditory cue while in the context of
reading
if you don’t need the help don’t roll
over it they’re like hidden drawers
they’re to support you when and if you
need it now we just recently
released this product on our website for
free
in beta form comments have been
favorable
several experienced typeface designers
have praised it for its novel use of
variable font technology
teachers are excited to use it in their
classrooms
and educational researchers are eager to
test its effects
me i just want to get it into the hands
of the people who
need it the most now i’m often asked
where is caleb today you might be
familiar with this story
there’s caleb the one in color you see
with the help of his mom
who was a teacher he overcame and last
spring
he graduated from morehouse
while caleb was my inspiration this tool
is broader than any one person
or any particular reading issue you see
i believe this is about accessibility
for
anyone struggling to read my name
is renee sieward and i’m on a mission
i’m on a mission to eradicate a literacy
one person at a time through the power
of a font and that’s my idea worth
sharing
who wants to help me
you