If you have students that struggle with reading text due to Dyslexia, adding Dyslexic-friendly fonts to your classroom materials will help a great deal. In our training sessions on this topic, we stress that students, parents, and teachers need to remember that Dyslexia does not affect intelligence. Instead, it involves difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters, and other visual information wherein letters get flipped, twisted, changed, or regrouped. With the help of installed fonts on documents and fonts implemented on webpages, students can see things more clearly, speed up the reading process, and improve comprehension. Let’s take a look at some options.

Downloading text fonts in Microsoft Word

1. Go to http://dafont.com and search for the Open Dyslexic font.

2. Download and open the zip folder.

3. Click on open_dyslexic, then OpenDyslexic – Regular.

When you check your font list in a Word document, Open Dyslexic will appear. Now you can choose this dyslexic-friendly font as you type.

Example:

The quick brown fox →

Notice that the letters become more asymmetrical and are less likely to be twisted or rotated in the Dyslexic brain’s interpretation making them easier to read and easier to understand.

Downloading the Dyslexic Font Google Chrome extension

1. Open Dyslexic Font for Chrome at https://opendyslexic.org/, and enable the extension.

2. Flip the switch to turn it on.

3. Select Open Dyslexic (regular) and save.

4. Go to a website with text samples, stories, articles, etc.

5. Tap on the extension in your Chrome extensions bar in the upper right of the page.

6. Wait to let the webpage refresh and display in the OpenDyslexic font 

Downloading the HelperBird Google Chrome extension

1. Install HelperBird and enable the Chrome extension. You’ll see the icon in the upper right, turned off for now.

2. Tap on the extension to turn on the font features. Choose OpenDyslexic as your viewing font.

There are tons of features here to help the Dyslexic reader. In this free version, not only can you convert the webpage font to Open Dyslexic, but you can change the paragraph size and the word spacing. You can also remove ads and other distractions on the page (Reader Mode). By upgrading to the PRO version, users can also add color filters, highlighters, text-to-speech and speech-to-text tools.

For more tips, tricks, and tools for teaching in and out of the classroom, check out more articles on the Teq Talk blog.

We also offer virtual professional development, training, and remote learning support for educators with OTIS for educators. Explore the technology, tools, and strategies that can spark student success — no matter where teaching or learning are happening.