Why must 1, l and I look different in type for children?

1. Many faces drawn for adults give I and l the same plain stroke, and the 1 only a small flag.

   Becauseadults read whole words, and the word decides which stroke is which. Alone, the strokes are a guess. In 1979 the General Conference on Weights and Measures allowed a capital L for the liter, to avoid confusing the letter l with the number 1.

2. A child needs the difference in the shape itself.

   BecauseEleanor Gibson and Anne Pick found that children learn letters by discovering the features that tell one from another. Two shapes that share every feature leave nothing to discover.

3. Give I, l and 1 each a mark in a different place. The l gets a tail, the 1 a flag and a foot, and the I serifs.

   Becauseno two then share an outline. In one test of road-sign type in poor visibility, adults often confused 1, I, l, i, j and f. The testers advised a tail on the l and a clear flag on the 1. Andika, a face made for beginning readers, keeps all three apart.

4. Draw the zero narrower than the O.

   Becausewidth then tells them apart. Where it cannot, type designers add a dot or a slash to the zero and leave the letter alone.

5. Leave the top of the 4 open.

   Becausehandwriting programs such as Learning Without Tears teach it that way, in two strokes. The page should match the hand. The same reasoning gives children’s books their single-story a and g.

Another way

Use ordinary type and let teaching do the rest.

Becausein tests with beginning readers, special forms such as the single-story a made no measurable difference. Words carry context, but a lone 1 in a sum carries none. That is where distinct forms earn their keep.

Check

Set I l 1 O 0 in a row, step back across the room, and name each one. If any two could trade places unnoticed, the face needs another mark.

KeepGive every character a mark no other has.