The Effect of Font Size on Reading Comprehension on Second and Fifth Grade Children: Bigger Is Not Always Better

Tami Katzir,Vered Halamish,Shirley Hershko,Luis M Martinez

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0074061

Abstract

Research on reading development has focused on the linguistic, cognitive, and recently, metacognitive skills children must master in order to learn to read. Less focus has been devoted to how the text itself, namely the perceptual features of the words, affects children’s learning and comprehension. In this study, we manipulated perceptual properties of text by presenting reading passages in different font sizes, line lengths, and line spacing to 100 children in the second and fifth grades. For second graders (Experiment 1), decreasing font size, as well as increasing line length, yielded significantly lower comprehension scores. Line spacing had no effect on performance. For fifth graders (Experiment 2), decreasing font size yielded higher comprehension scores, yet there were no effects for line length and line spacing. Results are discussed within a "desirable difficulty" approach to reading development.

Highlights

Consider the subjective experience of a second grader reading a text, poorly photocopied and written in a small font
We focus on an understudied question which is, can a mere manipulation of perceptual features of text enhance reading comprehension among second and fifth grade children
For the other three texts, we manipulated presentation by decreasing font size in one text by 20%; increasing line length in another text by 20%; and decreasing line spacing by 20% in the final text

Summary

Introduction

Consider the subjective experience of a second grader reading a text, poorly photocopied and written in a small font. Imagine her reading large print, centered on the page, and subjectively easy to read. Due to scarce research, all that can be concluded is that the effects of altering text presentation may differ by the specific manipulation and by population. It may affect different aspects of reading: rate, accuracy and comprehension. We focus on an understudied question which is, can a mere manipulation of perceptual features of text enhance reading comprehension among second and fifth grade children

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion