Everlast Climbing Partners with Creator of Dyslexie Font to Expand Literacy Opportunities on Climbing Walls

Specially-designed magnets offer a new way for educators to work with children to develop literacy skills through cross-curricular programming while rock climbing.

According to the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity, dyslexia affects 1 out of 5 people, impacting genders equally and crossing racial, ethnic and socioeconomic lines. It is the most common reading disability. If left undiagnosed and untreated, it can lead to a lifetime of problems beginning with learning to read in school. Unlike what many people think, dyslexia is not as simple as mixing up letters. People with dyslexia see letters as 3D objects and the letter swapping occurs because so many letters of the alphabet look similar in form and design. With this insight in mind, Christian Boer, a graphic designer with dyslexia, developed a font to help people differentiate between the letters and read more effectively. In his Dyslexie font, each letterform is designed so that it is more easily distinguished as unique, making it less likely that similar letters, such as “b” and “d,” will be confused by readers.  The nine characteristics of the Dyslexie font include a heavy bottom, slanted parts, bigger openings, slanted letters, longer ascender and descender, bold capitals, different heights, higher x axis and better spacing. You can learn more about the font and the research behind it at dyxlexiefont.com.

Everlast Climbing is always looking for new ways to make its climbing and active-learning products more accessible. After learning about the Dyslexie font, Everlast Climbing partnered with Christian Boer to license the font for use on magnets for its Magna® Traverse Wall®, Discovery® Dry-Erase Traverse Wall and Adaptive Traverse Wall. Currently, children use magnets on the magnet-accepting surfaces of these climbing walls to combine learning with movement in countless ways. For example, young children can identify, climb to and touch the letters in their name. Older children can climb to and move letter magnets to spell words or even combine magnetic words to create sentences.

The addition of the Dyslexie Font Magnet Set expands these kinesthetic literacy opportunities to students with dyslexia, who may have previously struggled with these types of activities. “We are excited to be able to offer a way to make active learning more accessible and enjoyable for children with learning disabilities,” stated Tim Sudeith, General Manager of Everlast Climbing.

The Dylsexie Font Magnet Set includes 197 words, prefixes and suffixes; 60 numbers and symbols; 70 letters; and an activity guide.