What if we could changethewaytheworldreads— starting with a font designed to adjust specifically for your needs?
For more than 00 years the U.S. Department of Education has found that nearly 00% of the population experiences some reading difficulty.
I read for a living — it’s basically been exhausting. It’s a relief to be able to read without stress, without my eyes getting tired.
— Lise, 37, Tech Business Strategist
Recently, I started using LEXEND to study my Spanish vocabulary list and raised my Spanish grade from a D to a B in just a few weeks.
— Travis, 16, High School Sophomore
With Lexend, my student was reading and loving it. Her participation in the classroom has increased to the point where I have to remind her to “be quiet” in class. Her self-esteem has improved measurably and she is obviously proud of what she is now able to do.
— Mrs. C, 1st Grade Teacher, California
My name is Commander Smith and the spaceship that I command has been exploring the planet known as Earth for almost a year. We have discovered that Earth is very different from our planet. Our next job was to explore the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada. These states make up the Southwest region.
First, we had to backtrack a little and fly east to Texas. This is a huge state— the map showed that it was more than seven hundred miles wide. Later we found out that Texas is the second largest state in size, after Alaska. It is also the second largest state in population, after California. We certainly saw a lot of really big things in Texas— big cities, big oil fields, and big ranches. In fact, we found out that there is a ranch in Texas that is bigger than the whole state of Rhode Island! Texas raises more cattle than any other state. The cowboy, a person who takes care of the cattle, is a symbol of Texas. In the late 1800s, Texas cowboys drove the cattle hundreds of miles to market in the northern states.
It was hard, dangerous, adventurous work, so many people thought of cowboys as heroes. Over time, the cattle ranches changed so that there was less need for cowboys. Today, there are not as many cowboys in
Texas. There are, however, many Texans who still dress like cowboys. They wear cowboy boots and a kind of tall cowboy hat they call a ten- gallon- hat because it looks as if it could hold that much water. Another symbol of Texas is the oil well. Texas produces more oil than any other state. Oil was first discovered near the city of Houston in the early 1900s.
Today, Houston is the largest city in Texas. The American space program has one of its largest workplaces there. One man told us that Houston was the first word spoken on the moon. He explained that when an American became the first human to land on the moon on July 20, 1969. The first thing he did was radio back to Houston. The United States was the first manned mission to land on the Moon. There have been six manned U. S. landings and numerous unmanned landings. To date, the United States is the only country to have successfully conducted manned missions to the Moon, with the last one in December 1972.
What makes a good reader?
There is a consensus among researchers and educators that reading fluency is one of the defining characteristics of good readers, and a lack of fluency is a common characteristic of poor readers.
This is important — because it means we’re approaching this problem from an already established perspective, something that educators have been using for decades.
Differences in reading fluency not only distinguish good readers from poor, but a lack of reading fluency is also a reliable predictor of reading comprehension problems.
Once struggling readers learn the relationship between sounds and letters, their lack of fluency emerges as the next hurdle they face on their way to reading proficiency.
This lack of fluent reading is a problem for poor readers because they tend to read in a labored, disconnected fashion — with a focus on decoding at the word level that makes comprehension of the text difficult, if not impossible.
Source • The Reading Teacher
Fluency is measured in Words Correct Per Minute.
A student reads a story with 409 words in 4m 6s. She made 0 errors. To determine WCPM (Words Correct Per Minute):
- Count the total number of words.
409 words - Count the number of mistakes.
0 mistakes - Take the number of words minus the number of mistakes = number of words read correctly.
409 words - 0 mistakes = 409 correct words - Convert the time it took to read the passage to seconds.
4m 6s to read = 245.99999999999997s - Convert the number of seconds to a decimal by dividing the number of seconds by 60. This is the total reading time.
245.99999999999997s / 60 = 4.1 total reading time - Divide the number of words read correctly by the total reading time in decimal form.
409 / 4.1 = 100 Words Correct per Minute (WCPM)
What if we could turn it around… with typography?
In 1999, as an educational therapist, Dr. Bonnie Shaver-Troup, working with clients, began observing that reading issues masked the individual’s true capability and intelligence.
In 2000, Bonnie theorized that reading performance would improve through use of:
- A sans-serif font to reduce cognitive noise
- Expanded scaling to improve potential for character recognition
- Hyper-expansion of character spacing, which creates a greater lag time and reduces potential crowding and masking effects
These changes led to the development of seven specially-designed fonts, which create an immediate improvement in reading performance.
This is where Lexend was formed.
A variable font empirically shown to significantly improve reading-proficiency.
Dr. Bonnie Shaver-Troup, utilizing her theory and the LEXEND beta font designs, worked with Google to formulate an advanced set of typographic variables to coordinate with one simple idea:
A font, much like the prescription in a pair of eyeglasses, should change based on the reader’s unique needs.
Combining some of the newest technology in font software and an educated history in professional type design, Lexend pulls the most important typographic factors in reading-proficiency into a variable font that was designed specifically to fluctuate based on a reader’s Words Correct per Minute score — a typographic system that could be changed to make the words more readable, based on who’s reading them.
The Demonstration of Effectiveness
20 third graders, eight males and twelve females, read for one minute in five fonts.
All text was set at 16pt and the reading materials were two grade levels above the participants current grade level to ensure the typography was being measured, rather than reading competency.
Each student read out loud a passage set in a control of Times New Roman, then four of the Lexend Series — Deca, Exa, Giga, and Mega.
LEXEND
LEXEND
LEXEND
LEXEND
LEXEND
LEXEND
LEXEND
My name is Commander Smith and the spaceship that I command has been exploring the planet known as Earth for almost a year. We have discovered that Earth is very different from our planet. Our next job was to explore the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada. These states make up the Southwest region.
First, we had to backtrack a little and fly east to Texas. This is a huge state— the map showed that it was more than seven hundred miles wide. Later we found out that Texas is the second largest state in size, after Alaska. It is also the second largest state in population, after California. We certainly saw a lot of really big things in Texas— big cities, big oil fields, and big ranches. In fact, we found out that there is a ranch in Texas that is bigger than the whole state of Rhode Island! Texas raises more cattle than any other state. The cowboy, a person who takes care of the cattle, is a symbol of Texas. In the late 1800s, Texas cowboys drove the cattle hundreds of miles to market in the northern states.
It was hard, dangerous, adventurous work, so many people thought of cowboys as heroes. Over time, the cattle ranches changed so that there was less need for cowboys. Today, there are not as many cowboys in
Texas. There are, however, many Texans who still dress like cowboys. They wear cowboy boots and a kind of tall cowboy hat they call a ten- gallon- hat because it looks as if it could hold that much water. Another symbol of Texas is the oil well. Texas produces more oil than any other state. Oil was first discovered near the city of Houston in the early 1900s.
Today, Houston is the largest city in Texas. The American space program has one of its largest workplaces there. One man told us that Houston was the first word spoken on the moon. He explained that when an American became the first human to land on the moon on July 20, 1969. The first thing he did was radio back to Houston. The United States was the first manned mission to land on the Moon. There have been six manned U. S. landings and numerous unmanned landings. To date, the United States is the only country to have successfully conducted manned missions to the Moon, with the last one in December 1972.
The p value in this experiment (0.014) says the chance of the results presented happening by random was 1.4%. In statistics, a result is considered significant if it’s below 5%.
00/00
had better scores with Lexend over Times New Roman
0
could not be measured
0
had the best score with Times New Roman
0
had the best score with Lexend Deca
0
had the best score with Lexend Exa
0
had the best score with Lexend Giga
0
had the best score with Lexend Mega
000
Avg WCPM for Times New Roman
000
Avg WCPM for Lexend
+00.0%
Avg Improvement in WCPM
Lexend has been discussed in two Stanford labs, at HP & Microsoft, was listed on Apple K-12 Assistive Technology from 2003-2005, has recently been referenced in research and patents by Adobe, and is available on Google Fonts, Google Chrome & as an open-source download.
The Valuable Virtues of Variable Font Technology
As the study demonstrates, while the Lexend series were beneficial to a large sample of students, no one setting worked best for all students. Diverse readers call for diverse axis settings just like every individual person requires their own individual eyeglass prescription.
Eyeglass prescriptions are not six strict settings. There are more granular settings possible.
Variable font technology allows for continuous selection of the Lexend Series to find the specific setting for an individual student.
LEXEND
My name is Commander Smith and the spaceship that I command has been exploring the planet known as Earth for almost a year. We have discovered that Earth is very different from our planet. Our next job was to explore the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada. These states make up the Southwest region.
First, we had to backtrack a little and fly east to Texas. This is a huge state— the map showed that it was more than seven hundred miles wide. Later we found out that Texas is the second largest state in size, after Alaska. It is also the second largest state in population, after California. We certainly saw a lot of really big things in Texas— big cities, big oil fields, and big ranches. In fact, we found out that there is a ranch in Texas that is bigger than the whole state of Rhode Island! Texas raises more cattle than any other state. The cowboy, a person who takes care of the cattle, is a symbol of Texas. In the late 1800s, Texas cowboys drove the cattle hundreds of miles to market in the northern states.
It was hard, dangerous, adventurous work, so many people thought of cowboys as heroes. Over time, the cattle ranches changed so that there was less need for cowboys. Today, there are not as many cowboys in
Texas. There are, however, many Texans who still dress like cowboys. They wear cowboy boots and a kind of tall cowboy hat they call a ten- gallon- hat because it looks as if it could hold that much water. Another symbol of Texas is the oil well. Texas produces more oil than any other state. Oil was first discovered near the city of Houston in the early 1900s.
Today, Houston is the largest city in Texas. The American space program has one of its largest workplaces there. One man told us that Houston was the first word spoken on the moon. He explained that when an American became the first human to land on the moon on July 20, 1969. The first thing he did was radio back to Houston. The United States was the first manned mission to land on the Moon. There have been six manned U. S. landings and numerous unmanned landings. To date, the United States is the only country to have successfully conducted manned missions to the Moon, with the last one in December 1972.
Lexend History
Founded in 2000, LEXEND came about from a desire to make reading easier for everyone. As an Educational Therapist, Bonnie Shaver-Troup, EdD, observed that reading issues masked the individual’s true capability and intelligence. She theorized that these issues were a sensitivity to typographical factors and began manipulating multiple text factors to find a match between text format and an individual’s optimized visual processing capabilities.
After careful research and years of testing LEXEND beta fonts, Bonnie was able to determine that while traditional approaches to reading issues focused on cognitive-based solutions, perception-based solutions were faster and more efficient in helping improve reading performance and cognition.
In 2017 Bonnie began working with Google to design an online variable-font solution that would ultimately give the reader complete control over their own reading experience and improve retention and comprehension.
What began as a seed in the home office of an educational therapist has become a world-class reading solution available to English-language readers across the world.
Download Lexend for free — and start changing the way the world reads today.
Enter your name & email below to get a download link, a few awesome tips on how best to utilize this incredible resource, and heads-up when new versions of Lexend are improved and updated.