Large print isn't just a vision thing. If you have ADHD or dyslexia, the size of the text on the page directly affects whether you can focus, whether you retain what you read, and whether you finish the book at all.
Walk into the large print section of any library and you'll see the same thing: seniors browsing mysteries and romance. The signage says "Large Print." The implication is "for old eyes."
But scroll through ADHD and dyslexia forums and a pattern emerges that publishers have completely ignored.
These aren't edge cases. This is a whole audience that's been borrowing from a section they feel awkward visiting.
For dyslexia, the mechanism is visual crowding. When letters and words are packed tightly, the brain has to work harder to isolate each character. Larger text with more spacing reduces this cognitive load. It's not about seeing the letters — it's about decoding them.
For ADHD, it's about sustained attention. Dense text is visually overwhelming. Your eyes lose their place. You re-read the same paragraph three times. You give up and check your phone.
Larger text means fewer words per page, more white space, and a clearer visual path. Each page feels accomplishable. You turn pages more often, which creates small dopamine hits of progress. This matters more than most reading advice acknowledges.
ADHD brains struggle with tasks that feel monotonous or visually undifferentiated. A 400-page novel in 10pt font is a wall. It all looks the same. There's no visual progress. Your brain checks out.
Large print changes the math. That same book becomes 600 pages, but each page has less text and more breathing room. You finish pages faster. The physical act of turning pages gives your brain the novelty and progress signals it craves.
This isn't a hack or a trick. It's accommodating how your brain works.
If you have dyslexia, you've probably been told to "try harder" or "read more." The real issue is that standard print books are formatted for neurotypical brains. Tight letter spacing, thin fonts, and narrow margins all increase crowding — the core visual processing challenge in dyslexia.
Large print addresses crowding directly. Letters are bigger. Spacing is wider. There's more room for your brain to process each word without interference from surrounding text.
For a deeper look at dyslexia-specific fonts, OpenDyslexic, and e-reader settings, see our dedicated large print books for dyslexia guide.
Physical large print books work, but they have limitations — you're stuck with whatever font and size the publisher chose. An e-reader lets you control everything.
Kobo gives you granular control over font size, font type, line spacing, margins, and text weight. OpenDyslexic is included as a standard font option. In Canada, Kobo also lets you borrow library ebooks for free through Libby — Kindle can't do this.
Set it to 22pt, extra line spacing, wide margins, and a warm screen tone. It's a genuinely different reading experience from a standard paperback.
View on Amazon.ca →Affiliate link — we earn a small commission at no cost to you.
See our full Kobo accessibility setup guide for step-by-step instructions.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: many people with ADHD or dyslexia who would benefit from large print don't use it because they feel weird about it. The large print section feels like it's "not for them." They don't want to explain themselves to a librarian.
Nobody needs to explain. Large print is for anyone who reads better with it. Period.
If you're a librarian reading this: the ADHD and dyslexia communities are quietly borrowing from your large print section already. Acknowledging them — even with a small sign that says "Large print helps with focus and reading differences too" — would mean a lot.
We wrote more about this in who are large print books for? if the stigma angle resonates with you.
For both ADHD and dyslexia, audiobooks aren't cheating — they're a legitimate reading format. Many people find that listening while following along on an e-reader or in a physical book dramatically improves comprehension and retention.
The Libby app gives you free access to both ebooks and audiobooks from your Canadian library. Some people alternate: audiobook in the car, large print at home.
See our audiobook guide (the services are the same regardless of age) and our comparison of large print, audiobooks, and e-readers.
You don't need a diagnosis code to pick up a large print book. You don't need to justify your font size settings to anyone. If bigger text helps you read more — and enjoy it more — that's the whole point.
Reading is the goal. The format is just the delivery system.