Background

= TEACHING PRINCIPLES:  = ** ABOUT HEBREW LANGUAGE AND DECODING **

Several articles, posted to The Hebrew Project Wiki (__TheHebrewProject.wikispaces.com__) impacted the thinking of Cleveland’s Jewish educators in developing a more grounded approach to the teaching of Hebrew prayers. These include: “Hebrew is not a subject to be taught,” by Cyd B. Weissman [] See especially the section on prayerful Hebrew.

“Why Bonnie and Ronnie Can't Read the Siddur,” by Lifsa Schachter in the //Journal of Jewish Education//, Vol 76, Issue 1. [] The article is not posted online, only the abstract. It is worth, however, tracking down.

“What you need to know to help learners decode Hebrew effectively,” by Lifsa Schachter []

// Derech Halimud // – The way to study, by Avram Mandell []

In integrating the core ideas of these articles, Cleveland’s Jewish educators have shaped its new curricular materials for prayer on the following teaching principles:


 * 1) Provide lots of Hebrew __aural experiences__ prior to and while exposing children to the language in printed form. ** As a baby, a human being first hears language, then progresses over the years to speaking, reading and finally writing; the normative language learning sequence is from sound to print. On the other hand, most supplementary school Hebrew programs move from print to sound: “Look - this shape is a //Bet// with a //kamatz// underneath it – say //bah//”). It behooves our educational programs to begin not with print, but with aural language. Options for this include the following:
 * TPR (James Asher, Total Physical Response) offers a full-body connection to Hebrew language. Students of all ages love it and they become familiar with a large vocabulary that they will later encounter in print. In addition, TPR doesn’t require teachers with native proficiency. An overview of TPR is here: [] . [An experimental TPR Hebrew curriculum has been developed by Dr. Lifsa Schachter with the support of the JECC; for more information contact nmoskowitz@jecc.org .]
 * For schools that have chosen a prayer focus, lots of singing and chanting of selected prayers is important. Yes (contrary to what some teachers think), students should have the sounds of a prayer in their head before they learn to decode it … just as they know the sounds of the English language and its vocabulary and grammar before beginning to learn to read.


 * Be clear about the __distinction among reading, decoding and reciting__ ** [|[1]]
 * When we __read__ we are deriving meaning from printed symbols. We read what we see and we know. And often we read what is of interest so as to enrich ourselves and attain meaning. Unfortunately, even if our students were native Hebrew speakers in the 4th or 5th grade in Israel, Jewish prayers would not only be hard to //read// because of their formal, adult-level language, but they’d also not be considered the most engaging content for the age-group. For our American students who don’t know enough Hebrew to be able to read the prayers, other approaches are therefore important.
 * When we __decode__ we sound out previously unseen words. Therefore, it’s important to develop skills in all three decoding tasks: 1) Visual discrimination, 2) Connecting sound to symbol, and 3) Producing sounds.
 * When we __recite__ we repeat sequences we have sounded out previously many times. It is what most adults do in synagogues. Just check where the eyes are as adults chant prayers, and remember that reciting //Ashrei// countless times does not transfer to being able to decode untaught texts.

For more details, see “What you need to know to help learners decode Hebrew effectively,” by Lifsa Schachter. []
 * Teach according to __sound Hebrew grammatical principles__. ** We should not transferprinciples for teaching English reading to teaching Hebrew decoding in an unmediated way because of the significant differences in the two alphabets.
 * Hebrew is a consonantal alphabet; all the letters are consonants and have sounds.
 * The three letters ב כ פ can be sounded in two ways, depending whether or not they hold a //dagesh// ( בּ כּ פּ )
 * Unlike English, Hebrew has no letters that serve exclusively as vowel letters. At the same time it does include four consonants that sometimes function as vowels: א ה ו י . When they are being used as a vowel, these letters will not have a vowel sign or a //sh’va//. Only in this use are they silent.
 * The vowel signs serve as prompts but do not have independent sounds.
 * The names of the vowel signs help teachers communicate effectively and help children master the way the vowel signs shape the sound of the consonant.
 * The //sh’va// is not a vowel sign. This is critical to being able to break words into syllables, a skill that is important to teach from the very beginning.


 * Provide students with __tools to become ‘word solvers.’__ **
 * Teach them how to break words apart into syllables (see the “What you need to know” article, cited above, pages 7-11).
 * Draw on their considerable knowledge about reading.
 * Be aware of interferences from student knowledge about reading English – which is a true alphabet, unlike Hebrew.
 * Provide tools for figuring out words based on sound grammatical principles.
 * Provide many experiences that __promote visual discrimination and matching symbols to sounds__ **__.__ Whether individually or in small groups, sounding out words or phrases should be a very limited activity.


 * __ Tell stories __ about Hebrew words and the Hebrew language **that point to its richness and relevance. One great resource is //How the Hebrew Language Grew// by Horowitz.


 * Remember that __it’s not about your “teaching,” but about student “learning”__ and what they eventually do with their new understandings, knowledge and skills. **The learning cycle includes __input__ (i.e., what a teacher teaches), __intake__ (i.e., the assimilation by the student of that information) and __output__ (i.e., what a student does with the learning). Often teachers remain focused on the input (what s/he does in the classroom as a teacher) without paying attention to what and how the students are learning. Moreso, the goal of a prayer curriculum should move beyond “being able to fluently decode or recite the prayers used by the synagogue in preparation for bar/bat mitzvah” to a focus on how a person’s prayers of the heart and prayers of our people help him/her grow as a human being, and deepen his or her Jewish connections. Thus, the end-goal is not just about being able to recite Jewish prayers (which is the result of one __input-intake-output__ cycle), but more so about an enriched life (the result of a different __input-intake-output__ cycle). The “Seven S’s” used in this curriculum document better help achieve the latter goal.


 * Decide __which prayers you really wish to teach__ and in __what order__. This might be: **
 * //Based on the congregation's worship service//: For instance, congregations that do not //daven// (pray) the last part of the עֲמִידָה in Hebrew, might not give these prayers curricular priority.
 * //Based on the order of the service//: A curriculum could group the prayers in the order of the Jewish worship service, or by section (i.e., teaching שְׁמַע and its blessings one year, and עֲמִידָה the next). ָ
 * //Based on difficulty//: For learners still new to decoding, some prayers are more challenging than others. Case in point is the full ¨ וְאָהַבְתּ which is hard to decode because of the many times a //sh’va// appears in words; it is best saved for students with some confidence in their skills. Thus, it is useful to consider which blessings and prayers might best be taught in the year after students learn all the Hebrew letters (i.e., short, non-complex), which ones might be the focus for students two years beyond learning decoding (a bit longer and more complex) and which ones might be best for students just a year or so away from their bar/bat mitzvah.


 * Provide __adequate time__ for students to learn about and practice a specific prayer. ** This means making sure that there are enough calendar sessions for students to explore the meaning behind a prayer, as well as learn to recite it, and practice decoding skills. For most prayers, this probably means scheduling 4-6 sessions, each (plus review). Adequate time also means making sure that each student has numerous opportunities each class session to recite and decode.


 * Overcome the __issue of student absences__ **. When a child misses a class, a learning gap is created that is often not addressed. However, there are some potential solutions to bridging the gap. For instance, a classroom teaching assistant can be assigned to spend a few moments catching a child up at the next session. Or, more creatively, an assistant can be asked to film short teaching segments (10 minute maximum each) and make these available by email to families or via QR codes posted in the classroom (these can be scanned with a smartphone app for easy accessibility). The technologically fearless could even create a computer-based tutorial using Jing ( [] ). The point here is that specific attention needs to be paid to students who miss sessions.


 * Create __avenues for student-accountability__, monitored by a department head or the director **. One director tested his sixth grade students and found that on average they did not know 4-5 Hebrew letters and vowel signs. There is no way students can be expected to “decode fluently” if they do not recognize all the elements of the Hebrew alphabet. Directors who report higher levels of success in their Hebrew programs have set up accountability-systems for specific Hebrew goals AND they are the monitors of student success. One said, “I’m pretty tough – if it’s not 100%, the student doesn’t get credit for achieving that level of learning. If it __is__ 100%, we celebrate that student’s success as a school during our weekly assembly – there’s an immediate reward and recognition.”


 * Bring the __meaning__ behind the prayers alive! **For our students, memorizing Hebrew words out of context becomes a learning exercise that won’t stick. Think about what it would mean as an adult to be given 8 words written in Korean (assuming for the sake of argument that the person could decode this language) and asked to memorize the words so as to better understand a moving poem on a spiritual subject. Or, think about what it would mean to be taught Korean prefixes and suffixes to "better understand" a full paragraph. It’s all a bit meaningless. While teachers may use these tools at times, focusing on them won’t help connect learners to the bigger ideas of Jewish prayer. On the other hand, teachers could help students engage with the meanings of the Jewish prayers through a variety of hands-on (and heads-on) activities.


 * __ Link the silos __ between classroom learning and actual prayer experiences **. Our ultimate goal should not be “teaching about prayers,” but rather helping students become prayerful-beings. This means learning to express gratefulness for things we might normally take for granted, as well as offering praise for the goodness in life. Our //siddur// offers a structure developed by rabbis who lived hundreds and hundreds of years before us, as well as wordings for offering praise, petition and thanksgiving. As educators, it’s important to think about the bridges we should be creating between the natural prayerful spirit of a child and the words of our //siddur//. As one rabbi explained, “I used to think that the 15 minutes we have for //t’fillah// each time a student is with us was too short to do anything. But when I consider the teaching moments as “15 minutes plus 15 minutes plus 15 minutes” added over a student’s time in our school, I realize I have a powerful opportunity to enhance the prayer experiences, bridging together classroom learning and actual //t’fillah//.”

[|[1]] This was pointed out long ago in a helpful article by Yosi Gordon in the first //Jewish Teachers Handbook// (ARE).