Title: A survey about legible Arabic fonts for young readers

Authors: Anoual El Kah; Abdelhak Lakhouaja

Addresses: Computer Science Laboratory, Faculty of Sciences, Mohammed First University, Oujda, Morocco ' Computer Science Laboratory, Faculty of Sciences, Mohammed First University, Oujda, Morocco

Abstract: Reading is an interconnected cognitive process including recognition and comprehension. The objective of the reading act could not be achieved unless the text is legible enough to interpret. For that reason, legibility is crucial for the reading mechanism, it will affect reading speed and the recognition of the graphs in the right way. Based on the fact that fonts and the way the text is presented influence children's reading performance and fluency, the current paper investigates different Arabic fonts in order to determine the optimal font for a fluent reading for children with a low rate of errors in both printed and on-screen texts. This study recruits 33 primary Moroccan school students of third grade and investigates the reading fluency and error rates for five Arabic font types. This paper recommends, as a result, the use of Simplified Arabic font for reducing reading errors due to graphs presentation for either printed or on-screen texts.

Keywords: reading; legibility; Arabic language; fonts; primary schools; Simplified Arabic.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBDI.2020.109660

International Journal of Big Data Intelligence, 2020 Vol.7 No.3, pp.169 - 175

Received: 07 Nov 2018
Accepted: 10 Oct 2019
Published online: 18 Sep 2020 *

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