Single-storey (schoolbook) vs double-storey (conventional).

Of course schoolbook isn't really a satisfactory description since many want a single-storey /a/ for other reasons including something as fickle as fashion.

Have a look at this thread: http://typophile.com/node/67538

N

Are you looking for a model for reading or for writing?

While the descriptive distinction is usually single-storey vs. double-storey, what we're really talking about is a distinction between the basic shaping of a number of letters — a, g and, less prominently, y — in formal (bookhand) and informal (cursive) Italian humanist writing on which the modern forms of our alphabet are based. The bookhand provides the model of typographic text that we read most, and the cursive provides the model for most handwriting, even unconnected 'print' letters.

I recall some studies done in the UK some years ago that found there was no benefit to using the single-storey a in teaching children to read, and that kids had little difficulty learning to recognising the typical typographic a, or understanding that this represents the same letter as the other form. Conversely, teaching kids to read using only a single-storey form that is going to be much less common in everything they read in the rest of their lives seems perverse.

I presume the reason the single-storey form has been favoured in primary reading education is that it corresponds to the form that the kids will learn to write. But I'm not convinced that learning to read and learning to write are closely related activities, even though their matter involves the same set of signs.