Font Frenzy

Overview

Objectives/Goals Font Frenzy My project was to determine if font styles affect a person's reading rate. I believe that the more ornate styles will slow a person's reading rate, while less complex styles will result with faster reading rates. Methods/Materials Four font styles were selected to use in this study: two ornate (Brush Script and Edwardian Script) and two less complex (Bradley Hand and Arial). Five 201 word paragraphs were typed from each of the four font styles. All 20 paragraphs were selected with similar word difficulty from the fourth grade reading leveled book Dolphin Song by Lauren St. John. For five consecutive days, a student with 4th grade reading abilities was timed when he read one paragraph from each of the four font styles. Each day the data was recorded. On the final day, all data was compared to evaluate which font styles had the fastest reading rate. Results Bradley Hand had the fastest average reading rate at 2:12 minutes, Arial was second at 2:27 minutes, third was Edwardian Script resulting with 2:43 minutes, and Brush Script at 3:08 minutes. The two less complex fonts had faster reading rates than the two more ornate or fancier fonts. Conclusions/Discussion My conclusion is that font style does in fact affect a person's reading rate. This research is very important because the written word (type - font use) is the major form of communication in technology, advertising, books, research, and internet websites.

Competition history

• CSEF 2010 Cognitive Science (Junior Division Only) · Entry J0627

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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