Keshet Tanakh is the brand name of the project to provide biblical and t'fillah texts in a variety of formats suitable for use in self-study or for students with different learning styles. This project is an off-shoot of Linda Sue's master's thesis entitled, "New Orthographic Methods For Teaching Novice Hebrew Readers".

Torah texts, Haftarah texts and the texts of the Five Megillot (Shir HaShirim, Ruth, Kohelet, Eikha, and Esther) are available in a variety of formats. These PDF texts are all free for the taking (!).

Keshet Tanakh texts are specially formatted Hebrew texts, which have been shown to mitigate challenges faced by beginner Hebrew readers, of all ages and abilities, in areas such as syllabification and phrasing. The format employs:

• advantageous font choice and point size
• extra horizontal space between phrases, words and syllables
• extra vertical space between lines
• distinct visual representations for sheva na' and sheva nach
• distinct visual representation for kamatz gadol and kamatz katan
• verse numbers rendered in both Hebrew and Hindu-Arabic numbers
• a carriage return before the beginning of each verse
• no carriage returns in the middle of a cantillation phrase

Using DavkaWriter 7 (a popular Hebrew word processing program), Linda Sue wrote a series of macros (small computer programs) to reformat biblical source texts. The formatted texts can be used in a variety of teaching and learning environments:

• B'nei Mitzvah training
• prayer recitation practice
• Hebrew text study

Results of this project have shown that better formatting of Hebrew text improves reading fluency and accuracy for both typical students and individuals with special needs.

Formatting Samples:

Whole Words / Phrases

Whole Words / Color-Coded Phrases

Syllables / Phrases

Syllables / Color-Coded Phrases