THE FLUENCY GOAL

How To Get There Without Driving Students Crazy

© CAP IT, Inc. Eyal & Tzippy Rav-Noy 

THE READING CIRCLES*

FLUENCY AND COMPREHENSION

Based on Nancy Bell's Reading Circles

The above Venn Diagram is a snapshot of our general and guiding philosophy in creating our CAP IT!® Hebrew Reading products and services. It is this basic philosophy that has enabled us to create a two year, comprehensive Hebrew reading solution for schools. Schools that take our training and implement our reading products are guaranteed to have their 5 year-olds decoding Hebrew in just two months, roughly between Labor Day and Thanksgiving.

We believe that reading fluency can be achieved, but only if we take the students through the proper steps. Here is how it works.

1ST CIRCLE: DECODING SKILLS

One’s ability to read Hebrew with fluency and comprehension (represented by the big circle) depends on three elements (represented by the three smaller circles).

The first — and most important element — is strong Decoding Skills (represented by the top small circle). Without decoding skills, the student must guess, or resort to needless memorization of hundreds of sound combinations, or even thousands or words. Unfortunately, this all important skill, is often given short shrift because of various immersion methods, or just a lack of a coherent and purposeful curriculum. Our reading program (Level 2: Learn to Read Hebrew) tackles the Decoding element head on, ensuring that every child receives the tools to decode any word, with ease and confidence, in just a few short weeks.

2ND CIRCLE: SIGHT WORDS

After gaining proper decoding skills, the student can enhance their fluency and speed by adding Sight-Word recognition to their bag of tricks (represented by the small circle on the right). REMEMBER: Outside of Israel, where the student is not familiar with the Hebrew language, sight-words recognition is a serious problem. It is not easy memorizing words when one does NOT know their meaning. Nonetheless, if the student practices certain words often often and learns their meaning, these words will be stored in the student’s “Memory Word Bank” for easy and quick recall.

Our fluency program (Level 3: Read Fluent Hebrew, Siddur Edition) reinforces the decoding, while building a wordbank of 222 of some of the most common Siddur words.

3RD CIRCLE: LANGUAGE & CONTEXT

The last step the student will use to enhance their fluency, is their ability of using language and context clues (represented by the small circle on the left). When the student is able to recognize the meaning of the sentence, or understand its context, fluency is naturally increased. This, of course, is the very last step in fluent reading, and the most inaccessible to non-Hebrew speakers.

CONCLUSION

The CAP IT!® curriculum takes the student through the first two circles (with an introduction to the third). Our Level 1: Get Ready to Read Hebrew (Ages 4+) fully prepares students for our reading program by teaching younger students the Hebrew consonants and vowels through the use of our Tactile Visual MnemonicsTM. Our Level 2: Learn to Read Hebrew (Ages 5+) tackles the all important decoding skills (1st Circle). And Level 3: Read Fluent Hebrew, Siddur Edition (Ages 5+) transitions the student from decoding to sight-word recognition (2nd Circle).

Teaching students to read fluently requires we give them all the tools they need in order to read Hebrew accurately and with confidence.

CAP IT!® offers a complete solution to Hebrew reading. We train, mentor, and support educators in their effort to teach Hebrew reading properly and painlessly. Please contact us with any questions regarding our products and services.