Dyslexia-Friendly Books: What to Look For
By Yechiel Kuperman, marine biologist · 49 years keeping fish
Quick answer
Hold the book open at arm's length and look at the gaps: the spaces between words should look clearly wider than the spaces between letters.
Then check the page a chapter starts on — decorative artwork wrapped around the text competes with it, and that is the opposite of the usual advice.
Cream paper and short chapters are comfort and motivation rather than proven reading gains, so treat them as nice, not necessary.
The numbers
| What to check | What the research shows | How strong the evidence is |
|---|---|---|
| Word gaps wider than letter gaps | Roughly half as many reading errors | Strong. Zorzi 2012, 74 dyslexic children aged 8–14, no training needed. |
| Extra letter spacing on its own | Reading speed gets worse, not better | Strong. Galliussi 2020 — the ratio matters, not the amount. |
| Plain page where the text sits | Comprehension 79.7% vs 46.8% | Strong, but measured on typical readers aged 7, not dyslexic ones. |
| Fewer words per line | Helped some children markedly, others not at all | Moderate. Schneps 2013 found no overall effect, only subgroup gains. |
| Cream, matte, non-see-through paper | No measured reading gain on paper | Weak. Universal guidance, but no controlled trial on printed colour. |
| Short chapters | Motivation, not decoding | Weak as a reading claim. Publishers say it; no trial supports it. |
Do this — step by step
- Open the book near the middle, where the real reading happens, not at the illustrated first page.Publishers put their best layout at the front. Judge the book on a page your child will meet on day three.
- Hold it at arm's length and let your eyes go soft. The word gaps should read as clearly bigger than the letter gaps.If the letters look airy but the words run together, the book has done the half of the job that does not help.
- Count the words on three or four full lines. Somewhere near eight to twelve is comfortable for a child still working at decoding.This one helps some children a great deal and others not at all, so let your child's reaction settle it.
- Look at what surrounds the text where a chapter opens. Artwork in the margins or behind the words is the thing to avoid.A full-page picture facing a clean page of text is fine. It is decoration mixed into the text block that costs comprehension.
- Tilt the page towards a window and then under a lamp. You are looking for print showing through from the other side, and for glare.Thin glossy paper does both. This is a genuine comfort difference even though the reading evidence is thin.
- Check the text is left-aligned, with a ragged right edge rather than a straight one.Justified text opens uneven rivers of white space down the page. The guidance is solid; the measured effect is not well established.
- Read one page aloud yourself and notice where you run out of breath. Sentences beyond about twenty-five words are hard work.You are testing the sentence, not your child. If it taxes a fluent adult reader, it will tax them more.
- Hand it to your child and watch the first minute. Whatever they reach for again is the book that was right.Every check above is a way of narrowing the shelf. None of them outrank the child actually wanting to turn the page.
Why the gaps matter more than the letters
Reading is not one skill. Part of it is recognising a word, and part is keeping your place well enough to arrive at the next one. For many children who find reading hard, it is the second part that leaks.
Crowding is the reason. A letter is harder to identify when other letters sit close beside it, and the effect is stronger for readers who are already working at the edge of their capacity. Give the letters room and each one becomes easier to resolve.
But a word is also an object. If you space the letters out and leave the words where they were, you have made every word wider without making the boundaries between words any clearer — so the eye has to work harder to see where one word ends.
That is why the ratio is the thing to check rather than the spacing. A page that gets both right lets a child find the next word without hunting for it, and hunting is what tires them out.
The illustration finding works the same way. Attention that leaves the text has to come back, and every return trip costs something. Artwork on a facing page does not pull the eye mid-sentence. Artwork woven through the text block does.
Sir Bubbleton’s Logbook Card
Reads slowly, on purpose, and is not embarrassed about it
Sir Bubbleton has opinions about pages. He does not like a crowded one. He says a page should have room in it, the way a tank should have room in it, and that a fish crammed against glass and a word crammed against another word are the same problem wearing different hats.
He also refuses to be hurried. He will read a line twice if the line deserves it. Nobody has ever persuaded him that finishing first is the point of a book, and he would like that written down.
What goes wrong when parents shop for these books
Buying on the label rather than the page
"Dyslexia-friendly" is not a regulated term. Any publisher may print it, and some booklists apply it to titles whose interiors have had nothing done to them at all.
The checks on this page take under a minute and tell you more than the label does. Do them with the book open.
Treating a special typeface as the fix
When a dyslexia typeface was tested against ordinary Arial with the spacing matched, the advantage disappeared. The spacing those fonts ship with was doing the work.
This matters because a font is easy to buy and easy to believe in. Check the gaps instead.
Choosing the book with the most pictures
It is the most common recommendation and the one the evidence is least kind to. Children reading pages with decorative artwork around the text understood markedly less of what they read.
The caution worth stating: that study was run with typical readers around age seven, not children with a dyslexia diagnosis. Treat it as a strong signal rather than a settled fact.
Expecting coloured paper or overlays to do something they cannot
Two systematic reviews published in the same year reached opposite conclusions, and the strongest single trial found no benefit on reading rate at all.
A cream page is cheap and may be more comfortable, so buy it if your child prefers it. Just do not let it stand in for teaching, and be wary of anything sold as a treatment.
Matching the book to the age on the cover
A book pitched at a child's age but beyond their current reading is a book that gets abandoned, and abandonment is the thing that does lasting damage to a reader's sense of themselves.
Books written with a lower reading age and an age-appropriate story exist precisely for this. A finished book is worth more than an impressive one.
Questions we get asked
What makes a book dyslexia-friendly?
In order of how well it is evidenced: word gaps clearly wider than letter gaps, a plain page where the text sits, shorter lines, and left-aligned text.
Cream matte paper and short chapters are worth having for comfort and motivation, but they are not what the reading research supports.
Is a dyslexia font worth paying extra for?
On the evidence, no. Tested against ordinary Arial with letter and word spacing matched, the special typeface's advantage did not survive.
What those fonts genuinely give you is generous default spacing — which you can also get from an ordinary typeface set well.
Does cream or tinted paper actually help?
There is no controlled trial on printed paper colour that we could find. The nearest evidence is on screens, where warmer backgrounds did outperform cooler ones.
So: reasonable, widely recommended, and probably more comfortable. Not a treatment, and not a reason to reject an otherwise well-set book.
My child's school suggested coloured overlays. Should we?
The evidence is genuinely contested. One 2016 systematic review concluded the benefits are likely placebo or practice effects; another the same year concluded filters can help some readers.
The strongest single randomised trial found no benefit to reading rate. If you try them, treat them as a comfort preference and keep the structured reading teaching going regardless.
How many words per line should I look for?
Roughly eight to twelve is a comfortable band for a child still decoding, and typographers put general readability at about sixty-six characters a line.
Be aware the research here is uneven — short lines helped some children considerably and did nothing for others, so your child's own reaction is the better guide.
Are illustrated books bad for struggling readers?
No — illustrations on their own page are fine, and often the reason a child picks the book up. The problem is decorative artwork mixed into the text block.
The distinction is where the picture sits, not whether there is one. Facing page good; wrapped around the words less so.
Should I buy books labelled decodable?
They have a place early on, but reviews of the research are cautious: studies comparing high and low decodability have often found equal outcomes by year's end.
The strongest result came from mixing decodable and ordinary text rather than using either alone. Do not pay a premium for the word on the cover.
What if my child rejects the book anyway?
Then it was the wrong book, and that is useful information rather than a setback. Let them choose the next one and keep the checks for narrowing the shelf.
A child who finishes an easy book they picked is further ahead than a child halfway through a worthy one they did not.
Sources
- zorzi2012Zorzi M. et al. (2012). Extra-large letter spacing improves reading in dyslexia. PNAS 109(28):11455–9. View sourceNote: Letter spacing was increased WITH proportional word and line spacing.
- galliussi2020Galliussi J. et al. (2020). Inter-letter spacing, inter-word spacing and font with dyslexia. Annals of Dyslexia 70(1):141–152. View sourceNote: Found letter spacing impairs speed unless word spacing rises with it.
- eng2020Eng C.M., Godwin K.E., Fisher A.V. (2020). Keep it simple: streamlining book illustrations improves attention and comprehension. npj Science of Learning 5:14. View sourceNote: Participants were typical readers around age 7, not diagnosed dyslexic.
- schneps2013Schneps M.H. et al. (2013). E-readers are more effective than paper for some with dyslexia. PLoS ONE 8(9):e75634. View sourceNote: No overall effect; benefits confined to identifiable subgroups.
- marinus2016Marinus E. et al. (2016). A special font for people with dyslexia: does it work? Dyslexia 22(3):233–244. View source
- griffiths2016Griffiths P.G. et al. (2016). The effect of coloured overlays and lenses on reading: a systematic review. Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics 36(5):519–44. View source
- ritchie2011Ritchie S.J., Della Sala S., McIntosh R.D. (2011). Irlen colored overlays do not alleviate reading difficulties. Pediatrics 128(4):e932. View source
- dyslexiascotlandDyslexia Scotland. Dyslexia-friendly typed formats. View sourceNote: Source of the word-spacing-at-least-3x-letter-spacing guidance.
About the author
Yechiel Kuperman
Marine Biologist
Marine biologist. Forty-nine years in fishery and aquarium work.
Chief Scientist of the Israeli Ornamental Aquarium Society for fifteen years, and the developer of specialist fish strains supplied to European importers.
He writes the Yechiel's Fishery Farm books, in which the biology is real and the fish have opinions.
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