Comenia Script is a typeface family developed by Radana Lencová. She began work on it 2002–05 as part of her doctoral thesis, and continued its development for a further five years. Between 2005 and 2010, in collaboration with the Pedagogical Faculty of Charles University (PedF UK) in Prague, she conducted tests in schools to evaluate the typeface’s suitability. The model was approved in 2012 after two years of additional testing by the Ministerstvo školství, mládeže a tělovýchovy (MŠMT), or Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, in cooperation with PedF UK.
Comenia Script by Radana Lencová, 2022
Lencová produces and markets the typeface, as well as related educational material and písanky, or copybooks, herself. Her method is used to teach handwriting in Grades 1 and 2 (6–8 years old), and is considered to be especially helpful to students who suffer from dysgraphia, or are left-handed.
Sample pages from Umím psát na cestách 1 (2021) by Radana Lencová, Nakladatelství Svět
Comenia Script comprises unjoined letters with out-strokes, which can be written at different slants, and are based on humanist italic styles of the Renaissance period. The uppercase letters are simplified, and several of them like the B, D, E, F, P and R feature a short in-stroke that begins before the vertical stem. In Grade 2, students may learn alternate forms of some letters like f, k, y, G and J. In Comenia Script, unlike in the model attributed to Dr. Václav Penc, diacritic marks are written along with the letter they are associated with, rather than after the word has been written. While the letters can be joined by students in higher grades, it is not recommended in the model and rarely happens in practice.
