A first-of-its-kind project aims to make it easier for kids with dyslexia to read the Bible

Children with dyslexia will gain a new opportunity to study the Bible this fall when the CSB Grace Bible for Kids hits the market.
The first-of-its-kind Bible was designed with dyslexic readers in mind. Everything from the typeface to the layout was aimed at improving readability for young people with visual processing issues.
“Dyslexia shouldn’t keep kids from reading the Bible. At its core, the CSB Grace Bible for Kids is meeting the need of helping young readers interact and connect with God in a personal way through His Word,” said Ben Mandrell, president of Lifeway, which worked with 2K/DENMARK and Cambridge University on the new Bible.
Dyslexia, which is believed to affect around 20% of kids, according to the Child Mind Institute, disrupts reading because it affects how you see words on a page.
As this digital project on dyslexia makes clear, dyslexia can make it seem like letters are jumping around.
If you concentrate, you can sort the letters out, but it takes you a lot longer to do that than it takes someone without dyslexia to read the same line.
“Some youngsters with dyslexia are able to keep up with their peers with extra effort at least for the first few grades. But by the third grade or so, when they need to be able to read quickly and fluently in order to keep up with their work, they run into trouble,” the Child Mind Institute reports.
One way to combat dyslexia is to use a typeface that fights against perceived letter movement.
The team behind the SB Grace Bible for Kids say they’ve done that by using a font that makes letters thicker at the bottom.
“In addition to the added weight to the baseline of letters, the Grace typeface helps readers differentiate between pairs of similar letters like m and n or p and q,” according to Lifeway’s press release.
The new Bible also has extra spaces “between letters, words, lines and paragraphs” in order to “reduce visual stress,” the press release said.
The new book uses the Christian Standard Bible translation of the Bible and it also offers some study materials aimed at children ages seven to 12.
A version of the Grace Bible for teens or adults with dyslexia is expected in February 2025, Lifeway reports.