How the Right Font Can Improve Math Performance

Visual Influence

In a now famous study from the 1990s, researchers showed participants fake advertisements featuring Bugs Bunny at Disneyland. As a Warner Brothers character, Bugs Bunny would not be present at a Disney-owned resort! Nevertheless—and quite remarkably—several participants reported remembering seeing Bugs Bunny when they visited Disneyland as children! Overall, this study demonstrates how what we see can change what we know.

In our article about how we use visuals in our app to ****enhance math instruction, problem texts, and the overall user experience, we discuss core challenges between with seeing and learning— specifically exploring the relationship between reading comprehension and solving math problems.

An Undeniable Relationship

A mixed-methods study using quantitative data from PISA results and qualitative data collected through field observations of a group of middle school students found a significant correlation between reading comprehension and students' performance in math [1].

More broadly, a meta-analysis of 210 correlations between math and reading measures from 68 independent samples encompassing 58,923 participants showed that arithmetic and reading performance in school share an average 30.3% of variance [2].

In other words, there is an “undeniable relationship between reading comprehension and mathematics performance” [3].

Supporting Math Performance with Reading Supports

This relationship between reading comprehension and mathematics performance is both complex and extensive. Reading skills, phonological processing, and language proficiency all relate to students’ ability to understand and solve mathematical problems [3].

Because math performance is so significantly related to reading comprehension, one critical way we support reading comprehension in our app is through our font selection. Overall, our goal was to select the appropriate font for our reading scenarios [4].

Reading Scenarios

Students using our app will be engaged with content in a digital environment. Digital reading scenarios can impact children's reading comprehension and learning differently than paper reading. In digital reading scenarios, it is essential to minimize extraneous cognitive load, particularly for students who are still developing their reading and math skills. In this way, digital reading scenarios should select fonts that maintain children's attention and engagement without causing distraction [5].
Second, students using our app will be engaged with math content. Visual presentation of mathematical information, including font selection, influences students' mathematical performance [6]. More decorative fonts can detract from the content and hinder comprehension and learning [5]. More challenging fonts can increase extraneous cognitive load and reading time, thereby reducing the available cognitive resources for problem-solving [7].

Our Font Selection

Careful selection of font styles can make mathematical content more accessible to students [8], resulting in improved learning outcomes [9]. Leveraging the ability of fonts to support math performance, we utilize the Lexend Deca font as our go-to family of fonts throughout the app.
Originally designed to improve readability for readers with dyslexia and other struggling readers, Lexend Deca has been shown to improve reading proficiency of readers more generally [10].
Research on the impact of font selection on math performance shows that several key design features of the Lexend Deca family specifically support math learning.

Typeface

As a sans-serif font, Lexend Deca promotes readability with its clean lines and minimal ornamentation. Sans serifs fonts have been shown to positively influence students' ability to distinguish and understand text [11], increasing overall reading fluency [4].

Spacing

The wide inter-letter spacing of the font adds to Lexend Deca’s readability. Increased spacing between letters facilitates decoding and reduces confusion [4].

Weight and Size

Lexend Deca is a variable-weight font, which allows us to utilize its bolder and larger scale instances. Thicker fonts have been shown to increase readability [4], while larger font sizes have been shown to improve memory performance and judgment of learning [12] [13].

Designed for Learning

In our app, we have developed an integrated educational experience [1] aimed at improving math performance by enhancing reading skill [2] [3]. Our utilization of fonts that improve fluency and confidence, while reducing extraneous cognitive load and confusion, is just one more way our app increases students’ proficiency in understanding and solving mathematical problems.

References

[1] Akbasli, S., Sahin, M., & Yaykiran, Z. (2016). The effect of reading comprehension on the performance in science and mathematics. Journal of Education and Practice, 7(16), 108-121. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1108657

[2] Singer, V., & Strasser, K. (2017). The association between arithmetic and reading performance in school: A meta-analytic study. School Psychology Quarterly, 32(4), 435. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/spq0000197

[3] Gomez, A. L., Pecina, E. D., Villanueva, S. A., & Huber, T. (2020). The undeniable relationship between reading comprehension and mathematics performance. Issues in Educational Research, 30(4), 1329-1354.

[4] Beier, S., & Oderkerk, C. A. (2019). The effect of age and font on reading ability. Visible Language, 53(3). http://visiblelanguagejournal.com

[5] Furenes, M. I., Kucirkova, N., & Bus, A. G. (2021). A comparison of children’s reading on paper versus screen: A meta-analysis. Review of educational research, 91(4), 483-517.

[6] Chan, J. Y. C., Linnell, L. B. D., Trac, C., Drzewiecki, K. C., & Ottmar, E. (2023). Test of Times New Roman: effects of font type on mathematical performance. Educational Research for Policy and Practice, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10671-023-09333-8

[7] Thiessen, M., Beier, S., & Keage, H. (2020). A review of the cognitive effects of disfluent typography on functional reading. The Design Journal, 23(5), 797-815. https://www.doi.org/10.1080/14606925.2020.1810434

[8] Chu, Y. L. L., & Toh, T. L. (2020). A Framework for Designing Mathematics Instruction Using Comics at the Primary School Level. Journal of Research and Advances in Mathematics Education, 5(3), 218-230. https://doi.org/10.23917/jramathedu.v5i3.11373

[9] Price, J. (2015). Making mathematics more manageable: Eliminating math fears via font manipulations. https://louis.uah.edu/rceu-proposals/366

[10] Lexend — Change the way the world reads.

[11] Hojjati, N., & Muniandy, B. (2014). The effects of font type and spacing of text for online readability and performance. Contemporary Educational Technology, 5(2), 161-174. https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/cet/issue/25736/271507

[12] Halamish, V. (2018). Can very small font size enhance memory?. Memory & cognition, 46(6), 979-993. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-018-0816-6

[13] Halamish, V., Nachman, H., & Katzir, T. (2018). The effect of font size on children’s memory and metamemory. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1577. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01577