Is Red Text on Yellow Paper the Secret to Better Attention and Retention?

Each week, we host a Zoom meeting for parents of students enrolled in Nonverbal Autism Homeschool. Parents are able to speak directly to Ken Sims, aka Mr. Sims, the inspiration behind this program. Mr. Sims has been a special education teacher for 30 years, and has a reputation in his community as a teacher who takes students off the certificate of completion track and helps them earn high school diplomas. 

During this hour, parents ask any questions they may have about homeschooling their student. Heather and Mr. Sims offer amazing tips and ideas to tackle all subjects at all levels of learning. 

One nugget of information that I have heard a few times over the years is the use of writing important information you want your student to remember or focus on, using red ink on yellow paper. 

The first time I heard this I was a little confused. Mostly because my brain is stuck in the world of a mix of graphic design education and website readability knowledge. But after hearing more about it, and doing a little research as well – I totally get it. I get it so much that I’m going to try this with my daughter on some math information, because I feel that is where we are stuck the most. 

The New York Times’ article “Reinvent Wheel? Blue Room. Defusing a Bomb? Red Room.”, discusses a 2009 study published on the website of the journal Science that explored the effects of color on cognitive task performances. The quick take on it - 

Red groups did better on tests of recall and attention to detail, like remembering words or checking spelling and punctuation. (NYTimes)

Doing a little more research on this topic, it is noted that the method of using different colored papers is often found to benefit those with dyslexia. Now, that doesn’t mean just because your kid isn’t diagnosed with dyslexia that they won’t benefit from this method. 

According to MookiWellBeing, using colored paper can,

 “Reduce visual stress. Dyslexia can cause people to see words as moving or blurry. Coloured paper can help to reduce this visual stress, making it easier for people to focus on the words they are reading or writing.”

I feel this very much in line with how many of our students can become overwhelmed when there is too much text on a document. For example, when tackling a worksheet with six sentences, we often advise to cut the sentences into strips and focus on just one at a time. Nonverbal Autism Homeschool also advises parents in training videos to create cardstock ‘blockers’ with specific cutouts that will visually block the other material on the page so the student can focus on one thing at a time. 

Learning new concepts can be overwhelming, and having too much text is overstimulating - so what if you took the key pieces of a topic you want your student to focus on, and put them in red text on yellow paper?

Give it a try and see how it goes for a while. Let us know if this method works for you - we would love to hear from you!

Want to join us for the Zoom sessions? Enroll your student today in our homeschool program - check out what we have to offer!

Jennifer Bullock, Contributing Author

Homeschooling-experienced mom to a tween, non-speaking daughter, Jennifer is also Marketing Outreach Coordinator for The Autism Oasis. With 20+ years experience in marketing, advertising, and social media communications, you will see her occasionally supporting the blog and social media channels with various content related to Autism Oasis.