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

PLoS ONE

Volumn 8, Issue 9, 2013, Pages

  Katzir, Tami ^a   Hershko, Shirley ^a   Halamish, Vered ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA   (Israel)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AGE; ARTICLE; CHILD; CHILD BEHAVIOR; COMPREHENSION; CONTROLLED STUDY; FEMALE; FONT SIZE; HUMAN; HUMAN EXPERIMENT; LINE LENGTH; LINE SPACING; MALE; MENTAL DEVELOPMENT; MENTAL PERFORMANCE; PERCEPTION; READING; SCHOOL CHILD; TASK PERFORMANCE; WORD RECOGNITION; WRITTEN LANGUAGE;

CHILD; COMPREHENSION; FEMALE; HUMANS; MALE; PHOTIC STIMULATION; READING; TASK PERFORMANCE AND ANALYSIS; VISUAL PERCEPTION;

EID: 84884385537     PISSN: None     EISSN: 19326203     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0074061     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. Diemand-Yauman C, Oppenheimer DM, Vaughan EB, (2011) Fortune favors the bold (and the italicized): Effects of disfluency on educational outcomes. Cognition 118: 114-118. PubMed: 21040910.
2. Kelley CM, Rhodes MG, (2002) Making sense and nonsense of experience: Attributions in memory and judgment. In: Ross B, eds. Psychol Learn Motiv. New York: Academic Press. pp. pp. 293-320.
3. Zorzi M, Barbiero C, Facoetti A, Lonciari I, Carrozzi M, et al. (2012) Extra-large letter spacing improves reading in dyslexia. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 10928:: 11455-11459. doi:10.1073/pnas.1205566109. PubMed: 22665803.
4. Chall JS, (1991) Stages of reading development. New York: McGraw-Hill.
5. La Berge D, Samuels J, (1974) Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading. Cogn Psychol 62:: 293-323. doi:10.1016/0010-0285(74)90015-2.
6. Perfetti CA, (1995) Cognitive research can inform reading education. J Read Res 18: 106-115. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9817.1995.tb00076.x.
7. Katzir T, Wolf M, O'Brien B, Kennedy B, Lovett M, et al. (2006) Reading fluency: The whole is more than the parts. Ann Dyslexia 561:: 51-82. doi:10.1007/s11881-006-0003-5. PubMed: 17849208.
8. Katzir T, Lesaux NK, Kim YS, (2009) The role of reading self-concept and home literacy practices in fourth grade reading comprehension. Read Writ 223:: 261-276. doi:10.1007/s11145-007-9112-8.
9. Sweet AP, Snow CE, (2002) Reconceptualizing reading comprehension. In: Block CC, Gambrell LB, Pressley M, eds. Improving reading comprehension instruction: Rethinking research, theory and classroom practice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. pp. pp. 17-53.
10. Joshi RM, Williams KA, Wood JR, (1998) Predicting reading comprehension from listening comprehension: Is this the answer to the IQ debate? In: Hulme C, Joshi RM, eds. Reading and spelling: Development and disorders. Mahwah NJ, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. pp. pp. 319-327.
11. Perfetti CA, Landi N, Oakhill JV, (2005) The acquisition of reading comprehension skill. In: Snowling MJ, Hulme C, eds. The science of reading: A handbook. Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishing House. pp. pp. 227-247.
12. Cain K, Oakhill J, Bryant P, (2004) Children's reading comprehension ability: Concurrent prediction by working memory, verbal ability, and component skills. J Educ Psychol 961:: 31-42. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.96.1.31.
13. Conlon EG, Zimmer-Gembeck MJ, Creed PA, Tucker M, (2006) Family history, self-perceptions, attitudes and cognitive abilities are associated with early adolescent reading skills. J Read Res 291:: 11-32. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9817.2006.00290.x.
14. Reading: RAND Reading Study Group for understanding: Toward an R&D program in reading comprehension.Washington, DC: RAND Education.
15. Guthrie JT, Wigfield A, (1999) How motivation fits into a science of reading. Sci Stud Reading 3: 199-205. doi:10.1207/s1532799xssr0303_1.
16. Sweller J, Chandler P, (1994) Why some material is difficult to learn. Cogn Instruct 123:: 185-233. doi:10.1207/s1532690xci1203_1.
17. Bjork RA, (1994) Memory and metamemory considerations in the training of human beings. In: Metcalfe J, Shimamura A, eds. Metacognition: Knowing about knowing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. pp. 185-205.
18. Craik F, Tulving E, (1975) Depth of processing and the retention of words in episodic memory. J Exp Psychol Hum Learn 1043:: 268-294.
19. Bjork EL, Bjork RA, (2011) Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating desirable difficulties to enhance learning. In: Gernsbacher MA, Pew RW, Hough LM, Pomerantz JR, eds. Psychology and the real world: Essays illustrating fundamental contributions to society. New York: Worth Publishers. pp. pp. 56-64.
20. Shea JB, Morgan RL, (1979) Contextual interference effects on the acquisition, retention, and transfer of a motor skill. J Exp Psychol Learn 52:: 179. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.5.2.179.
21. Castel AD, McCabe DP, Roediger HL III, (2007) Illusions of competence and overestimation of associative memory for identical items: Evidence from judgments of learning. Psychon Bull Rev 14: 107-111. doi:10.3758/BF03194036. PubMed: 17546739.
22. Alter AL, Oppenheimer DM, Epley N, Eyre RN, (2007) Overcoming intuition: Metacognitive difficulty activates analytic reasoning. J Exp Psychol Hum Learn 1364:: 569-576. PubMed: 17999571.
23. Oppenheimer DM, (2008) The secret life of fluency. Trends Cogn Sci 126:: 237-241. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2008.02.014. PubMed: 18468944.
24. Sungkhasettee VW, Friedman MC, Castel AD, (2011) Memory and metamemory for inverted words: Illusions of competency and desirable difficulties. Psychon Bull Rev 18: 973-978. doi:10.3758/s13423-011-0114-9. PubMed: 21626231.
25. Song H, Schwarz N, (2008) Fluency and the detection of misleading questions: Low processing fluency attenuates the Moses illusion. Soc Cogn 266:: 791-799. doi:10.1521/soco.2008.26.6.791.
26. Corley M, MacGregor LJ, Donaldson DI, (2007) It's the way that you, er, say it: Hesitations in speech effect language comprehension. Cognition 105: 658-668. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2006.10.010. PubMed: 17173887.
27. Rhodes MG, Castel AD, (2009) Metacognitive illusions for auditory information: Effects on monitoring and control. Psychon Bull Rev 16: 550-554. doi:10.3758/PBR.16.3.550. PubMed: 19451383.
28. Alter AL, Oppenheimer DM, (2009) Suppressing Secrecy Through Metacognitive Ease Cognitive Fluency Encourages Self-Disclosure. Psychol Sci 2011:: 1414-1420. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02461.x. PubMed: 19845889.
29. Lonsdale MD, Dyson MC, Reynolds L, (2006) Reading in examination type situation- the effects of text layout on performance. J Read Res 294:: 433-453. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9817.2006.00317.x.
30. Reber R, Schwarz N, (1999) Effects of perceptual fluency on judgments of truth. Conscious Cogn 8: 338-342. doi:10.1006/ccog.1999.0386. PubMed: 10487787.
31. Werth L, Strack F, (2003) An inferential approach to the knew-it-all-along phenomenon. Memory 11: 411-419. doi:10.1080/09658210244000586. PubMed: 14562871.
32. Rhodes MG, Castel AD, (2008) Memory predictions are influenced by perceptual information: Evidence for metacognitive illusions. J Exp Psychol Gen 137: 615-625. doi:10.1037/a0013684. PubMed: 18999356.
33. McDaniel MA, Hines RJ, Guynn MJ, (2002) When text difficulty benefits less-skilled readers. J Mem Lang 463:: 544-561. doi:10.1006/jmla.2001.2819.
34. Hughes LR, Wilkins AJ, (2000) Typography in children's reading schemes may be suboptimal - Evidence from measures of reading rate. J Read Res 233:: 314-324. doi:10.1111/1467-9817.00126.
35. Obrien B, Mansfiled JS, Legge G, (2005) The effect of print size on reading speed in dyslexia. J Read Res 283:: 332-349. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9817.2005.00273.x.
36. Hughes LE, Wilkins AJ, (2002) Reading at a distance: Implications for the design of text in children's big books. Br J Educ Psychol 72: 213-226. doi:10.1348/000709902158856. PubMed: 12028609.
37. Primor L, Pierce M, Katzir T, (2011) Predicting reading comprehension of narrative and expository texts among Hebrew-speaking readers with and without a reading disability. Ann Dyslexia 612:: 242-268. doi:10.1007/s11881-011-0059-8. PubMed: 21993604.
38. Shany M, Lahman D, Shalem T, Bahat A, Zayger T, (2006) Alef ad taf- A system for diagnosing disabilities in the processes of reading and writing according to national norms. Holon, Israel: Yesod Publishing.
39. Dunn LM, (1997) Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Minnesota, American Guidance Service.
40. Wolf M, Katzir-Cohen T, (2001) Reading fluency and its intervention. Sci Stud Reading 53:: 211-239. doi:10.1207/S1532799XSSR0503_2.
41. Stecker SK, Roser NL, Martinez MG, (1998) Understanding of oral reading fluency. In: Shanahan T, Rodriguez-Brown FV, eds. 47th yearbook of the National Reading Conference. Chicago: National Reading Conference. pp. pp. 295-310.
42. Pikulski JJ, Chard DJ, (2005) Fluency: Bridge between decoding and comprehension. Reading Teach 586:: 510-519. doi:10.1598/RT.58.6.2.
43. Snellings P, van der Leij A, de Jong PF, Blok H, (2009) Enhancing the reading fluency and comprehension of children with reading disabilities in an orthographically transparent language. J Learn Disabil 42: 291-305. doi:10.1177/0022219408331038. PubMed: 19223667.
44. Jenkins R, Fuchs L, van den Broek P, Espin C, Deno SL, (2003) Sources of individual differences in reading comprehension and reading fluency. J Educ Psychol, 95(4):: 719-729. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.95.4.719.
45. Katzir T, Morris R, Lovett M, Wolf M, (2008) Multiple pathways to dysfluent reading in subtypes of dyslexia. J Learn Disabil 411:: 47-66. doi:10.1177/0022219407311325. PubMed: 18274503.
46. Breznitz Z, (2006) Fluency in reading: Synchronization of processes. Mahwah, NJ, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
47. Wolf M, Miller L, Donnelly K, (2000) The Retrieval, Automaticity, Vocabulary Elaboration, Orthography (RAVE-O): A comprehensive fluency-based reading intervention program. J Learn Disabil 33: 375-386. doi:10.1177/002221940003300408. PubMed: 15493098.
48. Yue CL, Castel AD, Bjork RA, (2013) When disfluency is- and is not-a desirable difficulty: The influence of typeface clarity on metacognitive judgments and memory. Mem Cogn 41: 229-241. doi:10.3758/s13421-012-0255-8.
49. French MMJ, Blood A, Bright ND, Futak D, Grohmann MJ, et al. (2013) Changing Fonts in Education: How the Benefits Vary with Ability and Dyslexia. J Educ Res In press.
50. Nelson TO, Narens L, (1990) Metamemory: A theoretical framework and new findings. In: Bower G, eds. The psychology of learning and motivation: Advances in research and theory. New York: Academic Press. pp. pp. 125-173.