As with attention, most search results here are aimed at children and at teaching reading. This page is for adults who already read and want the process to cost less.
The same caveat applies: an app is a tool, not a treatment, and nothing here diagnoses anything.
Fonts: what we ship and what we will not claim
Two typefaces are commonly offered for dyslexia — OpenDyslexic, with weighted bottoms intended to reduce letter rotation, and Atkinson Hyperlegible, designed for low vision with letterforms that are hard to confuse. We ship both.
What we are not going to tell you is that either is proven to make you read better. The research on dyslexia-specific typefaces is contested; several studies find no reliable advantage over a good standard font, and preference varies a lot between readers. Offering the option is reasonable. Claiming it is a fix is not.
Spacing has a better case than typeface
Letter and line spacing is a more mundane setting and generally a more useful one. It is also the setting most apps bury. If you try one thing, increase letter spacing before you change the typeface.
Related: display duration that varies by word length measurably improved reading rate in readers with central vision loss. Word length is not the same variable as dyslexia, but it points the same way — the timing of the presentation matters at least as much as the shape of the letters.
Where single-word reading helps, and where it does not
RSVP removes the line. No line means no line to lose, and no crowding from neighbouring words. If your difficulty is tracking across a line, that is a direct benefit.
But removing the line also removes nearby words and makes rereading harder. If your difficulty is holding a sentence together, try a format with more context and compare what you can recall. The studies cited here do not establish that guided highlighting is best for adult book reading.
What to look for
- Adjustable letter spacing, not just font choice
- A speed you can lower well below the default, not just raise
- Pauses at punctuation
- Files that open from your device without an upload
See also RSVP reading with ADHD — for adults and what RSVP reading actually does.
References
- Word-length timing study (2001) — reading rate in central vision loss.
- Rayner et al. (2016) — review of reading speed and comprehension; not a ranking of display formats.
- Di Nocera, Ricciardi & Juola (2018) — Italian RSVP experiment; displayed speeds differed from actual reading speeds.