The emergence of written language represents one of the most transformative developments in human cultural history. Prior to the development of writing systems, knowledge accumulated across generations, including customs, traditions, technical skills, and strategies for adapting to environmental conditions, was transmitted primarily through oral communication and embodied practices. As the volume, complexity, and social significance of this knowledge increased, oral transmission presented important challenges for its preservation, stabilization, and dissemination. These conditions contributed to the development of systems capable of externalizing, storing, and transmitting knowledge beyond the temporal and spatial constraints of face-to-face communication. The emergence of writing, together with the complementary practice of reading, fundamentally transformed the relationship between human beings and knowledge by enabling information to be recorded, preserved, accessed, and transmitted across generations and geographical contexts. Writing thus became not only a means of preserving cultural, artistic, and technical knowledge but also a powerful technology for extending human communicative, symbolic, and intellectual capacities. Its significance, however, extends beyond the preservation and transmission of information. Writing also illustrates how technologies that become deeply integrated into everyday cultural practices can gradually become naturalized and consequently perceived as almost invisible. From this perspective, reading and writing can be understood not merely as neutral skills, but as culturally acquired technologies that profoundly shape the ways in which humans access, organize, represent, and communicate knowledge. Once fully integrated into everyday life, writing becomes so deeply embedded within human activity that it is no longer regarded as an external technology but rather as an intrinsic component of human cognition and social interaction, functioning as an adaptive strategy to the environment [1]. In this sense, writing and reading are often perceived as natural abilities. However, reading does not emerge spontaneously during human development; rather, it is a culturally acquired cognitive skill that requires explicit learning and instruction [2]. Today, only a limited number of societies remain substantially outside systems of literacy, while in most cultural contexts the ability to read and write has become a fundamental condition for social, educational, and professional participation. The acquisition of literacy is therefore a central objective of formal education, placing considerable responsibility on educators to support the development of reading and writing skills while accounting for the substantial individual variability that characterizes learning trajectories. This variability reflects differences not only in learners’ cognitive and linguistic profiles but also in their prior experiences, educational contexts, and interactions with the learning environment. The diversity of learners represents only one dimension of the complexity addressed by pedagogical research. Educational processes are shaped by multiple interacting variables, including instructional practices, sociocultural conditions, technological environments, and the characteristics of the learning context. Over time, research on learning to read has progressively refined its understanding of the cognitive and linguistic mechanisms involved in reading while adapting instructional approaches to successive transformations in the technologies through which written information is produced, represented, and accessed. These transformations encompass major transitions in the history of written communication, including the development of increasingly abstract writing systems, the transition from manuscript to print culture, and, more recently, the widespread adoption of digital media. Contemporary technological developments have further expanded the range of modalities through which information can be generated and represented. Artificial intelligence, in particular, has introduced tools capable of producing and manipulating diverse forms of digital content, including text, images, video, audio, and three-dimensional representations. Despite this multimodal expansion, text-generating artificial intelligence systems have had a particularly significant impact on educational practices. Their rapid diffusion is partly related to the accessibility of conversational interfaces, through which users can interact with AI systems by entering written prompts and receiving textual responses on commonly available digital devices. This mode of interaction highlights the continuing centrality of written language within contemporary human–computer interaction. Even as technological systems become increasingly multimodal, reading and writing remain fundamental mechanisms through which individuals formulate intentions, access information, construct meaning, and communicate with digital systems. Technological innovation has therefore transformed the modalities through which information is produced, represented, and accessed, while maintaining the central role of written language within many forms of contemporary communication and knowledge construction. This continuity is particularly relevant when considering accessibility, as changes in the technologies through which text is produced and consumed may create new opportunities for adapting written information to individual cognitive and perceptual characteristics. The remainder of this work is organized as follows. Section 2 presents an overview of the principal theoretical models of reading and the mechanisms involved in the acquisition of reading skills. Section 3 reviews major core-deficit theories of dyslexia, with particular attention to the reading difficulties and error patterns commonly documented in individuals with dyslexia. Section 4 synthesizes findings from studies conducted across different writing systems that have investigated typefaces incorporating design features intended to enhance readability and reading comfort and to potentially reduce difficulties associated with dyslexia. Finally, Section 5 proposes a systematic workflow to guide the design and evaluation of highly readable, dyslexia-friendly typefaces.