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Dyslexic Kriah

ד and ר are one stroke apart.
For some children that is the whole problem.

Two seforim — Pink Level DX and Red Level DX — set in Dyslex-Kriyah, a Hebrew face drawn so the letters that get confused stop looking alike. The same font is in the Learning Portal, so the sheets you print can use it too.

The same three pairs, twice

See it rather than take our word for it

On the left, the face the seforim are set in. On the right, Dyslex-Kriyah. The pairs are the ones dyslexic readers most often swap.

Three pairs of Hebrew letters, shown first in the standard sefer face and then in the Dyslex-Kriyah face, so the two can be compared.
Pair In the seforim In the DX seforim
A single stroke at the corner ד ר ד ר
One squared, one rounded ב כ ב כ
A gap at the top left, or none ה ח ה ח

What makes it hard

Hebrew asks more of a reader who is already working harder

Reading right to left, in a block script, with the vowels carried underneath rather than in the letters. Four of those features work against a dyslexic reader at once.

  • Letters that look alike. ד and ר, ב and כ differ by a stroke.
  • Letters that flip. A block script gives few cues about which way up a shape belongs.
  • Crowded text. Tight spacing runs characters together, and each one has to be picked out before it can be read.
  • Nikud on top of all of it. The vowels are a second layer of marks to hold while decoding the first.

Three things the face does differently

Drawn against those four problems

  • Heavier bottoms. Weight low in the letter anchors which way up it sits, so it is harder to read rotated or flipped.
  • Shapes pushed apart. Where two letters differ by one stroke, the difference is drawn larger than the script strictly needs.
  • More room. Wider spacing between letters and words, so a character can be seen on its own before it is read in a line.

The research behind these is largely English, but the principles are about how a reader tells one shape from another, and they carry over when the drawing is done for Hebrew rather than borrowed from it.

Two levels today

Where a child starts, and the level after it

  1. Pink Level DX

    The beginners' Kriah sefer, for a child at the very start. Same program, same order of skills, set in Dyslex-Kriyah.

  2. Red Level DX

    Kriah Sefer Level 1, for a child building fluency once the letters are known.

Flashcards and worksheets are available in the font as well. If schools want more of the program in it, that is what decides which level is set next — tell us what you would use.

In the portal

Every sheet you print, in the same face

Dyslex-Kriyah is one of the fonts the Learning Portal draws with, so a Smart Sheet, a Smart Test or a set of Smart Cards for a child who needs it comes out in the face their sefer already uses.

See the Learning Portal

Who drew it

Jake Shoag

Dyslex-Kriyah was designed by Jake Shoag, a high school junior at Fuchs Mizrachi School in Cleveland, who is dyslexic and built the face to solve the problem he had been reading around. It is his work; we set our seforim in it.

Tell us which children you are teaching

If you have a child the regular seforim are not reaching, say so and we will tell you whether these are the right thing for them.

Talk to us See the seforim