Best Fonts for Dyslexia: What the Research Says (2026)
OpenDyslexic, Lexend, Atkinson Hyperlegible or plain Arial? What studies show about dyslexia fonts, why spacing matters more, and how to test them.
If you have dyslexia, you have probably been told to “try a dyslexia font.” Some people swear by them. Researchers are more cautious. This guide covers what the studies actually found, which fonts are worth trying, and why the settings around a font often matter more than the font itself.
The short answer
- No font cures dyslexia, and no single font is best for everyone.
- Sans serif, upright (not italic) fonts tend to perform better than serif and italic ones.
- Spacing has the strongest evidence. Extra space between letters helped dyslexic children read faster and more accurately in a large study.
- Comfort counts. A font you enjoy reading keeps you reading for longer, even if it doesn’t change your speed in a lab.
What the research says
Sans serif beats serif and italics
In an eye-tracking study presented at the ASSETS 2013 accessibility conference, Luz Rello and Ricardo Baeza-Yates tested a range of fonts with readers who have dyslexia. Sans serif, monospaced and roman (upright) fonts significantly improved reading performance compared with serif, proportional and italic fonts. Italics were among the worst performers.
That matches the British Dyslexia Association style guide (2023), which recommends sans serif fonts such as Arial and Comic Sans, with Verdana, Tahoma, Century Gothic, Trebuchet, Calibri and Open Sans as alternatives, and advises against italics and underlining for emphasis.
OpenDyslexic: popular, but not proven
OpenDyslexic gives each letter a heavier bottom, which is meant to stop letters from appearing to flip or rotate. When Wery and Diliberto tested it with elementary school students who have dyslexia, they found no improvement in reading rate or accuracy compared with Arial and Times New Roman, and none of the students said they preferred it.
That doesn’t make it useless. Many adults report that OpenDyslexic feels calmer and more “anchored,” and a font you find comfortable is one you will keep using. It just means you shouldn’t expect a lab-measured speed boost.
Letter spacing has the strongest evidence
The most convincing result isn’t about typefaces at all. In a 2012 study of Italian and French children with dyslexia published in PNAS, Zorzi and colleagues showed that extra-large letter spacing improved reading speed and accuracy immediately, with no training. The likely reason is crowding: when letters sit close together, they interfere with each other, and many dyslexic readers are more sensitive to that interference.
That is why a good dyslexia setup is really three settings: a clear font, a comfortable size, and more space.
Fonts worth trying
| Font | Designed for | Why people like it |
|---|---|---|
| OpenDyslexic | Dyslexia | Heavy letter bottoms; very distinct shapes. Free in FontFlex. |
| Lexend | Reading fluency | Designed around wider letter spacing (lexend.com). |
| Atkinson Hyperlegible | Low vision | Letters like I, l and 1 are clearly different (Braille Institute). |
| Lexia Readable | Dyslexia | Friendly, rounded shapes in the spirit of Comic Sans. |
| Verdana / Arial | Screens | Widely available, wide letters, recommended by the BDA. |
| Comic Sans | Informal text | Irregular, distinct letters; named by the BDA. |
Lexend’s creators report reading-speed gains in their own testing. Independent, peer-reviewed evidence is still thin, so treat it like any other font: try it and see.
The settings that matter as much as the font
- Size. The BDA suggests 12 to 14 point for print, roughly 16 to 19 pixels on screen. On a phone, go bigger if you need to.
- Letter spacing. Add a little tracking, around 0.05 to 0.12 times the font size, so letters stop crowding.
- Line spacing. Aim for about 1.5 times the font size. It helps your eyes find the start of the next line.
- Background color. Many dyslexic readers find bright white harsh. The BDA recommends cream or soft pastel backgrounds.
- Line length. Shorter lines, about 60 to 70 characters, are easier to track than wide paragraphs.
Our guide to line and letter spacing explains each setting in more detail.
How to test fonts for yourself
Reading comfort is personal, so run a quick experiment:
- Pick a long article you haven’t read before.
- Read a few paragraphs in your usual font, then switch and read the next few in a new one.
- Notice which version made you lose your place less, and which one you’d happily keep reading.
- Repeat over a few days. First impressions of a new font can be misleading.
You can try this right now with the preview on our dyslexia page, which lets you swap fonts and spacing on sample text.
Using a dyslexia font on every website
Websites choose their own fonts, and Safari has no built-in way to override them on normal pages. Safari’s Reader view offers a handful of fonts, but only on pages that support Reader, and none of them is designed for dyslexia.
FontFlex is a Safari extension for iPhone, iPad and Mac that replaces the font on every website you visit. OpenDyslexic and text size are free. With Pro you can also use Lexend, Atkinson Hyperlegible and the rest of the Google Fonts library, and add letter spacing, line spacing and softer colors.
Sources
- Rello, L. and Baeza-Yates, R. (2013). Good fonts for dyslexia. ASSETS ’13.
- Wery, J. J. and Diliberto, J. A. (2017). The effect of a specialized dyslexia font, OpenDyslexic, on reading rate and accuracy. Annals of Dyslexia.
- Zorzi, M. et al. (2012). Extra-large letter spacing improves reading in dyslexia. PNAS.
- British Dyslexia Association. Dyslexia Style Guide 2023.
