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