Top 10 Mistakes Schools Make

When Teaching Hebrew Reading

By Eyal & Tzippy Rav-Noy
© 2011, CAP IT, Inc.

Countless students of the Hebrew language have a hard time reading Hebrew. Their reading is not accurate, their fluency is low, and they are embarrassed to read in public.

THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE! A phonetic language like Hebrew should be mastered by everyone! Yet we find so many struggling Hebrew readers. We believe that poor reading is an outcome of the outdated and linear teaching methods that are universally taught in Hebrew Schools, day schools, and Sunday schools around the world.

In creating CAP IT! Hebrew Reading, our goal was to present a completely new paradigm in Hebrew reading. Thus, we did away with the old mistakes, and replaced them with newer, properly researched methods in education.

Below is our list of the top 10 mistakes made by many traditional Hebrew classes.

1. ARBITRARY SYMBOLS VS. “KINESTHETIC VISUAL MNEMONICS”

In most Hebrew teaching methods, students are taught to associate a particular visual shape (a consonant or a vowel) with a particular sound. For instance, the student is told that a “Bet” has a B sound. But why? No one knows. So the student is stuck with the task of arbitrarily assigning various sounds to foreign shapes.

2. SIGHT WORDS VS. PHONETIC READING

Many Hebrew teachers are so concerned with fluency they teach their students to recognize and read whole words (treating all words as site-words). While this would improve the student’s speed — it also sacrifices the student’s accuracy. This method neglects the fact that Hebrew can, and should be read phonetically (sound by sound, letter by letter, vowel by vowel).

3. ALPHABETIC ORDER VS. MEANINGFUL ORDER

In traditional methods, Hebrew is taught in the following order: At first, the students memorize all the consonants –– in the order of the Hebrew alphabet. Then they learn all the vowels. Only then do they begin putting the many combinations together in any meaningful pattern. This method prolongs the meaningful reading experience.

4. NAMES VS. SOUNDS

Most Hebrew teachers feel it necessary to first teach the names of the consonants and vowels, and only afterwards teach the sounds they make. But are the names really important to the reader?

5. 350 SOUNDS VS. ABOUT 40 SOUNDS

Many Hebrew schools engage in what we call “Single Step Reading” by turning three steps into one step. A Bet and a Patach would be recognized as Bah, ignoring the three steps necessary to come to that conclusion (—Identify the Bet, Identify the Ah, and blend the two to make Bah). In other words, the student is not taught to break each word to its smallest components, but rather to recognize consonants with their vowels together by relying on sight recognition. This means that the student has to identity and memorize about 350 different combinations (33 consonants x 12 vowels blended together). These 350 combinations function like sight-words. We believe this to be one of the main reasons why some kids are left behind, never learning to read Hebrew accurately and with confidence.

6. CRAZY ABOUT THE “SHVAH” RULE

A huge error made in most Hebrew schools is the burdening of first-time-readers with over complicated and mostly unnecessary rules. The “Shvah” being a classic example. In CAP IT! the “Shvah” is taught in a simple manner that avoids much unnecessary confusion.

7. MONTHS VS. HOURS

Most Hebrew schools take months, sometimes years to teach kids to read Hebrew. The same goes for the Jewish Day schools. The kids learn the Hebrew Alphabet year after year, then spend months learning to read Hebrew. But why drag out the ordeal over a period of months (even years)? It is annoying, frustrating, and only brings the student’s morale down.

8. TIMING = FLUENCY VS. ACCURACY = FLUENCY

Many Hebrew Schools actually time their students and chart the student’s progress. Does timing students reading really improve their fluency?

9. IRRELEVANT INCENTIVES VS. FUN LEARNING METHOD

Most students of the Hebrew language are lucky to have an interesting and talented teacher (thank goodness so many are). But the rest of the curriculum is dry repetition. To liven up the learning process and make it more fun, teachers have no choice but resort to candy, prizes, or some other irrelevant incentive method. Can learning to read Hebrew actually be fun?

10. LINEAR METHOD VS. THE CAP IT! METHOD

(“Concept And Personality Integration Technique”)
Most learning methods are linear, catering to only one kind of learner, whereas CAP IT! caters to all kinds of learners (visual, auditory, kinesthetic etc.), engaging their Mind, Heart, and gut Instinct –– thus involving the three centers of the human personality.

We believe these are some of the main reasons why students are left behind, never learning to read Hebrew accurately and with confidence.

At CAP IT! we are here to prepare, mentor, and support educators, in their effort to teach Hebrew reading properly.

To be fully trained in the CAP IT! method, and see how we address all of these concerns, contact us at:

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888.9.HEBREW
888.943.2739