Dyslexia-friendly Bible Released

Veronica Neffinger | iBelieve Contributor | Updated: Oct 06, 2015

Dyslexia-friendly Bible Released

The Bible has been translated into countless languages in attempts to allow people from all places and nationalities to read God’s Word in their own language. Now, an effort to make the Bible more accessible for those with dyslexia has been undertaken.

Christian Today reports that Bible Society has produced two books of the Bible, the Gospel of Mark and the Psalms, in dyslexia-friendly versions.

The new versions have been released with thicker paper that doesn’t allow words from previous pages to show through, larger point size for the text, a simple Sans Serif font, and only one column of text per page.

The reception of this new version is overwhelmingly positive.

Thirteen-year-old Jacob James from Lewes in East Sussex, U.K. shared how the new Bible version is helping him with his struggle with reading due to dyslexia.

“With this version of the Gospel of Mark there was a bigger spacing between the verses which I liked and it was bigger writing. I liked that the verse numbers were bigger so it was easier to find the verses. I was able to read it for longer than a normal book. It depends what I¹m reading for how long I can read.”

James went on to say that with a few books, he can read for long periods of time, and the new Bible is one of those books.

“Reading this Gospel of Mark was like that. I could read it because it was easier and so I could read it for longer, so I read until I had to stop to do something else like have my tea. I enjoyed it."

Matthew Van Duyvenbode from Bible Society said that the Society was greatly encouraged by how well-received the dyslexia-friendly changes were. He added that many people are asking Bible Society when they will convert the entire Bible into a dyslexia-friendly format.

“We don’t know the answer to that one yet,” Van Duyvenbode said, “but we really hope that the Gospel of Mark and the Psalms open up part of the Bible to a whole sector of our community who couldn’t read it before.”

Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

Publication date: October 6, 2015



Dyslexia-friendly Bible Released