Women Type Designers: SANDRA GARCÍA & DAFNE MARTÍNEZ
Sandra García, born and raised in Colombia, and Dafne Martínez, born and raised in Mexico, are young designers based in Mexico City. As part of the 2021 Typographer-in-Residence program organized by the Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography, they designed the typeface Achtli specifically to improve the experience of learning to read in young children. They write:
We conducted a field study with primary school students between the ages of five and seven who were in the process of learning to read. . . . We also interviewed teachers to understand what difficulties they encountered in teaching the reading process and the use of typography. . . . After analyzing the results, we reached the following conclusions: Typefaces with similar morphological forms make it difficult for early readers to distinguish some characters from others. A typeface with distinct qualities could assist their memory to identify and differentiate them more efficiently. . . . [The Achtli typefaces has] unique, distinctive properties, with moderate contrast, semi serif endings, and slightly flared stems to emphasize the weight on the endings. The warm, modern shapes with fractured, rounded ends give the typeface a bold yet friendly personality.
The name Achtli is the Nahuatl word for “seed,” a metaphor for reading, as learning to read is like a good seed that grows and flourishes. The examples shown here are from Achtli: A Typeface for Early Readers, one of four volumes in the set Mujeres Hispanas y Tipografía, a program highlighting the talent and creativity of Hispanic women designers, published in Pasadena, California by the Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography in 2022.
Fundamental. Mounted photo of a pretty little girl sitting in a rattan chair reading a picture book. Moore studio, Rutland, Vt.
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I taught my younger sibling to read with my collection of Ladybird books, long since out of print. They were the Puddle Lane series and we both loved them.
My sibling especially liked the books about the Iron Boy and Sandalwood Girl. I used to read those until we both knew them by heart.
We also had a couple of episodes still on VHS tape, which we used to enjoy watching together. I don't think they had a favourite one, but I think mine was about the Magician (the brilliant Neil Innes) accidentally turning himself green when he was taking inventory of his magic items. He'd forgotten what some of them did and tested them, knowing that he wouldn't make anything that was dangerous.
Couldn't find that one on YouTube, but there are lots of others. Here's another that I also remember fondly:
Tommy never learned how to write. He was grown in a lab and abandoned left to peruse the world as a child. He picked up speech sure, but he spent his time playing with eyrn instead of learning how to read like a pussy. When he woke up on the dsmp, for the disk saga it didn't matter, he just had tubbo read it aloud, bullying him for dyslexia all the way through.
During Lḿanburg however, it started to hurt. He saw how beautiful the declaration of independance was, the swooping script of Wilbur creating waves of freedom on the page. He started by secretly tracing the letters in the dirt until Wilbur found him.
"i can teach you you know" Wilbur had said. Tommy jumped, he hadn't realized wilbur was there, his footsteps left unheard.
Tommy accepted, because he wanted to learn to read (spend time with his older brother wilbur). Will started by teaching him the letters, and then sounds, but there was always something to prepare for. By the time the election rolled around, Tommy could tell what letter was which (except for d and b, those were tricky) and could read spell pog.
Wilbur read out the vote count, and Tommy will never forget that, it was horrible, seeing Will's face drop, and then the horror when they were exiled. In pogtopia, Tommy would try to bring it up again, but Wilbur was manic and uncaring. Not now Tommy. I'm busy Tommy. DROP IT, YOU INSUFFERABLE CHILD. Tommy never noticed how when wilbur tried to write things his hands shook so bad his once perfect script was ruined.
After the explosion, Tommy didn't want to learn. After all, why learn to read if he can never see his brother's poetry spilled across a page.
Because the beginning of 3rd grade is the end of 'learning how to read' we still do phonics warm up. One of the things we do is 'phonemic transformations'. It looks like this-
pla ab plab
(the first is an open syllable w/ a long vowel, the next two are closed with a short vowel. These are predictable segments of words in English and the rules are reliable in >85% of English words.) Each day we do 5 rows- one for each true vowel.
Anyway, today my class realized that if we mix them up randomly, it sounds like we're speaking an alien language. So if you need to make-up a language, there's a rule you can use. Honestly, a lot of the time, it sounds like Dr. Seuss words!
love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking
"A story doesn't need a theme in order to be good" I'm only saying this once but a theme isn't some secret coded message an author weaves into a piece so that your English teacher can talk about Death or Family. A theme is a summary of an idea in the work. If the story is "Susan went grocery shopping and saw a weird bird" then it might have themes like 'birds don't belong in grocery stores' or 'nature is interesting and worth paying attention to' or 'small things can be worth hearing about.' Those could be the themes of the work. It doesn't matter if the author intended them or not, because reading is collaborative and the text gets its meaning from the reader (this is what "death of the author" means).
Every work has themes in it, and not just the ones your teachers made you read in high school. Stories that are bad or clearly not intended to have deep messages still have themes. It is inherent in being a story. All stories have themes, even if those themes are shallow, because stories are sentences connected together for the purpose of expressing ideas, and ideas are all that themes are.
He started reading because he needed to know the animal names. Reading needs to come from intrinsic drives, from curiosity or passion or something completely different. When it is a choice kids will find joy in it, if it is a chore then the ability to read for fun is hampered, subdued and all that remains is a job. The task at hand for homework is to finish the lines in order to do something else.
But reading is a muscle, if you don't train your muscles will lose their vigor. Reading is also a key to participating in society.
Help kids find joy in reading by helping them find what they want to read.