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Op-Ed: Why Mendel Can’t Read

by Eyal Rav-Noy

As students settle into another school year, it is an opportune time to reflect on an inconvenient truth: Too many children struggle to read Hebrew.

Much to teacher’s and principals’ dismay and parents’ frustrations, about 20 to 30 percent of children are not reading on grade level. Schools must invest heavily in an always occupied resource room, and parents are forced to hire tutors, an unwelcome addition to an already high tuition cost. Some of these children will be labeled with colorful acronyms such as ADD, ADHD, or LD, while others will be given medications as they keep getting into trouble by displaying at-risk behavior. Success in Chumash and Gemara will be out of the question, and one need not look far into the future to understand the predicament these children will face. The inability to give children the Hebrew reading skills they need not only damages their self-esteem, it threatens their future involvement in Jewish life. Imagine the terror and panic that seizes a young man who is called up to recite during prayer service before the entire community, or a father who stumbles through Kiddush before his wife and children.

To solve this reading problem, we must have an honest discussion about its origins. It is my contention children are not reading fluently because of a fundamental misunderstanding of what is usually referred to as the “Mesorah Method” (“MM”) , also known as the “Kamatz Aleph UH” method. The Mesora Method that was espoused by all religious rabbis in the past — including the Rebbe and his predecessors — has been distorted to mean the exact opposite of what it originally meant, and influential educators have propagated these mistaken theories and convinced a generation or two that their approach was the only acceptable, kosher, and Chassidishe way to teach children. For years these educators have backed their claims by pointing to various sources. I contend that these educators have misunderstood all the sources, letters, and talks regarding the issue, and have sentenced thousands of students to undue hardship and confusion.

Before setting the record straight on the MM, a little introduction into the Aleph-Bais is in order. We must first understands the basics of our written code before we understand its reading methods.

UNDERSTANDING THE ALEPH-BAIS

The Aleph-Bais is a difficult, but efficient reading and writing system.

Primitive writing systems are easy because they use pictographs, pictures for words, like a picture of a hand to signify the word “Stop!” The Aleph-Bais is difficult because it forces people to do two things that are unnatural: consciously split the words of speech into their smallest sounds, and imagine that these sounds have shapes (e.g. T = תּ). Thus, a word like Torah ( תּוֹרָה ) is split into tiny sounds, T + OH + R + UH. These sounds get their own corresponding symbols and some symbols are blended together: T is blended with OH, R is blended with UH (the final HEH is silent). The upshot is that the Aleph-Bais is efficient because once you have memorized the various sounds and their corresponding symbols — the shapes of the letters and vowels — you can theoretically read and write an infinite number of words. This is a much more efficient method than memorizing different pictographs for each and every word.

This brings us to a startling conclusion: Sounds came first; letters are merely their symbolic representations. Therefore, most students are incorrectly taught how to read. They are introduced to letters first, and are told that these letters have sounds. But this is backwards. Letters don’t exist in nature. Letters don’t have sounds. Sounds of speech do exist in nature, and we symbolically represented them with letters. Only later did we name the letters Aleph, Bais, Gimmel, etc. One thing is clear: when it comes to reading, a letter’s “sound” is more important than its name.

HOW THE “MESORAH” BECAME THE MESORAH

With this knowledge in mind we can reconstruct how reading was once taught by teachers and parents. A teacher would open a Siddur, or any other book that they were lucky enough to possess. They would point to a letter and teach its sound. The teacher would then repeat the process with other letters, and possibly some vowels, teaching the student how to blend sounds together. They would repeat this process with all the letters and vowels until the student grasped the information completely, at which time the student would be an independent reader. Whether or not the teacher would teach the letter’s names is irrelevant at this point, as will be made clear below.

The method can be summed up as follows: First teach the student a letter then teach him a vowel, and finally teach him how to blend the two together: “Kamatz Aleph UH!”

All was well until a new trend was introduced by certain educators. These educators got teachers to change the way they taught children how to read Hebrew. Here was their idea in a nutshell. Educators made the following observation: Hebrew can be read without vowels. So they concluded that they did not need to teach vowels. Then they went further: Why should we teach the letters, why not simply teach whole words instead? For example, show a student the word “Abba” and tell him that this word says Abba. We can skip teaching letters and vowels if we can just teach entire words. Out of convenience I will refer to this approach as “Whole Language.”1 It is unsurprising that the rabbis were horrified by this development. It sounded absurd! Hebrew was always taught by first teaching the student the small sounds of language and showing him how to blend them together: Kamatz + Aleph = UH. Suddenly they were told to skip the “details” and teach students to memorize “whole” words. No wonder that the rabbis fought this tooth and nail. They argued that their traditional (Mesorah) approach was superior to the new one. Decades of the “Whole Language” experience has proved them right!

The rabbis added another argument for preserving what became known as the Mesorah Method: If we do not teach students letters and the vowels, they will never learn them! This means that students will not know letters’ and vowels’ names, shapes, numerical values, and so forth. The rabbis were right about this, too. Over decades, the Mesorah Method’s original intent was lost, distorted, and misapplied. How did this happen? Answer: It was taken literally! I will refer to this approach by the name: “Literalist MM.”

THE “MESORAH METHOD” TAKEN LITERALLY

Whole Language never took off within the Frum world, so most Frum people forgot what the “reading war” was about. All that remained was the term “Mesorah Method” or “Kamatz Aleph UH Method,” but most people forgot why this method was developed to begin with. The disaster soon followed: People took the words literally. “Kamatz Aleph UH” no longer meant “teach the student the individual letter sounds and vowel sounds, and then teach him how to blend them together”; instead it was understood to mean “only teach the student the name Kamatz, and only teach the student the name Aleph, make him say the names: Kamatz, Aleph; and only afterwards must the student say: UH!”

So instead of fighting against Whole Language, the MM was misunderstood to mean the following:

1. When teaching to read, we must follow this order: First the student needs to see and say the Kamatz, then he needs to see and say the Aleph, and only afterwards does he conclude: “UH.”

2. The letter and vowel “names” are the most important piece of knowledge the student needs to know, as opposed to the letter and vowel “sounds” which are not as vital.

3. Only a Kamatz and an Aleph together can make the sound UH. Meaning: Letters and vowels on their own have no sounds. Only when they are joined together do they make a sound.

This distorted approach to the MM’s original intent hinders the student’s ability to read properly by artificially creating four problems:

1. Students read upside down.

2. Teachers teach the letter names and not the actual sounds the letters and vowels make.

3. Students have to memorize far more information than they would otherwise need to.

4. Some educators have taken an even more extreme approach by altogether denying that letters and vowels have sounds.

The above four points are interconnected and, taken together, they are the main reason that so many of our children cannot read on grade level.

I would elaborate on these points in detail.

PROBLEM 1: READING UPSIDE-DOWN

After working with Moshe, age 6, for less than 5 minutes at my CAP IT!® Learning Center, I knew that I had my hands full. Moshe was reading upside-down! To my amazement, Moshe would articulate a bottom-vowel before he would articulate the letter sitting right on top of it. He was puzzled by my explanation that Hebrew should be read from top to bottom, first the letter then the vowel. “But you are contradicting my Cheder teacher. He told me that I have to read from the bottom to the top,” he told me with a troubled look on this face.

Did Moshe’s teacher really tell him that? Why? The explanation is as follows:

The first and most obvious problem caused by the Literalist MM is that the student is taught to read “upside-down.” When a student is taught “Kamatz Aleph UH,” they take it literally: First they look at the Kamatz, then the Aleph, and then they say them together: “UH.” This sounds simple enough, except that it does not work. I would illustrate by substituting the generic “Kamatz Aleph UH,” and instead using the more practical “Patach Bais BAH.” Taken literally, the student must identify the lower symbol, i.e. the vowel named Patach (which makes the sound: AH). Afterwards, the student looks at the higher symbol, i.e. the letter named Bais (which makes the sound: B). Once this is done, the student is expected to integrate the two symbols together, and create the sound: BAH. Taken together, this should sound as follows: “Patach + Bais = BAH”. But why BAH? It is a lot more logical to conclude that “Patach + Bais = AHB.”

The reason for this is that Hebrew is supposed to be read from top to bottom and right to left! The “Kamatz Aleph UH” approach reverses the order and forces the student to read upside-down, from the bottom (Kamatz or Patach) to the top (Aleph or Bais). But this is impossible to do. As all Hebrew readers know, every Hebrew sound begins with a consonant (a letter) and ends with a vowel. Sometimes these vowels are under the letter, and sometimes to their left, as in a case of the Cholam. There is one main exception to this rule: the “AHCH” at the end of a word.

This leaves the student in a quandary: Does he read from top to bottom, or bottom to top? Most students discover the answer on their own: Hebrew is read from top to bottom. This means that the teacher’s implied direction of “bottom to top reading” must be ignored by the student. While some students figure out that they should be bypassing the teacher’s explicit instructions and read Hebrew “top to bottom,” too many students cannot “reverse engineer” the teacher’s instructions. Any student who fails to do so will end up totally confused by this contradiction.

I would point out that it is only the “Ashkenazy Literalist MM” that suffers from “dyslexia” as it teachers its students to read upside-down. The “Sephardi Mesorah” has it right: “Aleph Kamatz AH,” Aleph before the Kamatz, top to bottom. Could there really be two different traditions here? Of course not! The Mesorah of teaching students to read “Kamatz Aleph AH” was never meant to be taken literally. It originally meant: Teach the students the individual parts of the code before you teach them how to blend these parts together.

PROBLEM 2: WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Recently, at a training seminar I conducted at a local day school, I began by introducing myself and then asked the teachers to do the same. But there was a catch. I introduced myself as Eyal, but I instructed everyone in the room to refer to me as Shimon. I then asked the other teachers to introduce themselves by name, but I interrupted them by explaining that we should refer to them by another name. So Shira would be called Chaya, Shmuel would be called Refael, Baruch would be called Shmaryahu, etc. It should come as no surprise that no one knew who had what name or who should be called what. It did not take long for the teachers to understand the point behind the mess I had purposely created: It is difficult enough to remember one actual name. It is almost impossible if one is then told not to use it, and that a totally different name should be used.

The Literalist MM insists that teachers must first teach the letter names, and only after the student knows the names can they proceed to learn the sounds that correspond with them. This works for some students, but not all. While students seem to grasp a symbol’s name, many don’t seem to hold on to their corresponding sound. Parents and teachers phrase the problem like this: “The child seems to know their Aleph-Bais, but for some reason they can’t read.” Why is this so?

The explanation is as follows: Reading is a rational process consisting of identifying symbols and corresponding them to sounds which will later be grouped into syllables, words, and concepts. This means that the first task a student is faced with is identifying the symbols on the page and corresponding them to their associated sounds. The fact that these symbols also have a “name” is irrelevant to the reading process, a process establishing correspondences between symbols and sounds. When it comes to reading, the names of the letters and vowels are a hindrance. Take for example the word “Siddur.” It is unimportant that the “S” sound is called “Samech” and that the vowel underneath it is called a “Chirik.” What matters are the “S” and “EE” sounds, and that together they say “See,” and that they form the first diphone (i.e. consonant + vowel) of the word “Siddur.” The names Samech and Chirik are completely beside the point. One can be a perfect Hebrew reader and never learn the symbols’ names.

Most students can hold on to multiple associations. They can remember that a ס is called a Samech, and that it also makes the sound: “S.” But for too many students these multiple associations are a source of confusion. Many students end up thinking that a Patach says “PAH,” a Kamatz says “KUH,” a Tzere makes a “Tz” sound, etc. The same confusion applies to some consonants. For example: many children think that Aleph and Ahyeen say “AH.”

In summary, the Literalist MM subverts the natural and intuitive reading process, and substitutes it with an unnatural and artificial process. What should be a “First Level Association” — the symbol’s sound — becomes a “Second Level Association.” And what should be a “Second Level Association” — the symbol’s name — is turned into a “First Level Association.”

This subversion slows students’ ability to decode words, hinders their fluency, and cripples their confidence.

To be sure, students can and should master the letter’s and vowel’s names. The letters are especially necessary for page numbers and Biblical chapter and verse demarcations. But teaching students the symbols’ names before teaching them the sounds burdens them with information they do not need, and hinders their ability to read.

Those upholding the Literalist MM argue that the names should be learned first, because they fear that if students are not first taught the letters’ names they might never get around to learning them. But this is an example of how ideology can lead people to “fight the previous war.” Remember that the MM was developed to fight those who argued that letters and vowels should not be taught at all, and that words should be taught as a whole.

But once the MM is understood in context, there is no issue with teaching the students the sounds first, and only later teaching them the names of all the letters and vowels.

Still, there will be parents and teachers who insist — for spiritual reasons — that letter names be taught before the letter sounds. I would have them keep in mind the following points:

1. Both parents and teachers should be aware of the potential problem this can cause, and be ever vigilant regarding any negative consequences to the student’s ability to read.

2. This entire process should take place outside of and before the “K’riah” class. Once a child begins to learn to read, the names of the letters should be dropped, and the sounds should take their place. After the reading class is over, the names can be reintroduced.

PROBLEM 3: INFORMATION OVERLOAD

Rivky, a fifth grader, is an excellent English reader, but to her parents’ frustration, she can’t read Hebrew without mistakes. “How can it be?” they asked me. “English is so much harder than Hebrew!” After evaluating Rivky, the answer was clear: Rivky had an excellent visual memory and was therefore able to memorize words without any difficulty. She navigated English through sight reading. When it came to Hebrew, Rivky was confused by the “hundreds of little symbols” and decided to memorize words instead — a strategy that backfired.

How did Rivky come to the preposterous conclusion that Hebrew has “hundreds of little symbols”?

Doesn’t Hebrew have only 22 letters and about a dozen vowels? How did she come to see them as “hundreds”?

The explanation is as follows: The reading process is the identification of symbols and their correspondence with sounds that make up language. This cognitive ability is made difficult by the arbitrary relationships between any given symbol and its corresponding sound. There is no reason for anyone to assume that a Bais has a B sound, or that a Gimmel has a G sound. There is no B-ness in the shape of the letter Bais, and there is no G-ness in the shape of the letter Gimmel. This means that in order to read, one must memorize many arbitrary associations between sounds and symbols.

It is self-evident that the fewer arbitrary symbols one needs to memorize, the easier it will be to learn to read and to become fluent. It is easier to learn to read a language with 26 letters than one with characters and symbols numbering in the hundreds.

Hebrew contains 33 consonants and 12 vowels (depending on how you count them). All Hebrew words are combinations of these letters and vowels. The Hebrew reading process consists of three steps: Identify-Identify-Blend. First the student must “identify” the first sound (the consonant), then they must “identify” the second sound (the vowel), and then they must “blend” the two sounds together. For example, first the student would identify the B, then identify the AH underneath, and then “Blend” the two to make: BAH.

The Literalist MM drastically changes this process. When a student is taught that a בַּ is “Patach Bais BAH,” the student is forced to memorize the entire combination together. There is a reason for this: Patach + Bais cannot equal “BAH.” It doesn’t even sound like BAH. A Patach contains the following sounds: P, T and CH.

Where is the P sound, the T sound, the CH sound in BAH? Furthermore, a Bais contains a S sound. But, there is no S sound in BAH either. So the student knows that he must skip the “Patach” & “Bais” sounds and only retain the “BAH.” To repeat: B + AH = BAH. But under no circumstances does BAIS + Patach = BAH.

The Literalist MM engages in what I refer to as “Single Step Reading,” because it turns the aforementioned three steps (Identify-Identify-Blend) into one giant step. A Bais and a Patach would be recognized as BAH, ignoring the three steps necessary to come to that conclusion. In other words, the student is not taught to break each word to its smallest components, but rather to recognize consonants with their vowels simultaneously.

There is a significant difference between the two methods. Instead of teaching students to decode from individual sounds to blending sounds, the Literalist MM forces them to rely on sight recognition of already blended sounds. Instead of the student having to identify 33 consonants and 12 vowels and blend them together, they now need to identity and memorize hundreds of different combinations. This means that students must memorize almost a dozen times more information to be able to read accurately. This problem is further compounded by those many “dots and lines” that make up the Hebrew vowel system. These vowels look quite similar, and are therefore easily confused.

The Literalist MM multiplies the number of arbitrary associations the student must memorize, making the reading process cumbersome and, for some students, unmanageable. The irony is that those who advocate for the MM are unknowingly subverting it! The original MM had students learn the parts of speech, letters and vowels, as opposed to the Whole Language approach which had students memorize complete words. Yet nowadays the Literalist MM makes a similar demand on students by forcing them to memorize hundreds of combinations when they can simply get away with memorizing a few dozen.

Lastly, according to the Literalist MM, Hebrew does not have one Patach, but actually over 20 different Patachs: a Patach under an Aleph, a Patach under a Bais, etc. The same would apply to all the vowels. In the same vein, the Literalist MM has more than one Aleph. It has over 10 Alephs: one over a Patach, one over a Kamatz etc.

If you are confused, imagine the confusion going on in the mind of a five year-old trying to learn to read according the Literalist MM.

PROBLEM 4: IDENTITY CRISIS: 0+0=1

The most extreme claim made by the Literalist MM advocates is that the Hebrew letters and vowels do not possess any sound at all, but only when they are joined together, letter + vowel, do they make an audible sound. This conclusion is a natural byproduct of the literalist approach. After all, if only a Kamatz + Bais = BAH, then Kamatz alone must not say anything, and a Bais alone must not say anything. This idea — that letters alone have no sound — was presented in various articles, postings, and seminars for Chabad educators and is believed by most I have spoken with. These educators have come up with an explanation to back their theory: Letters are like a body, and vowels are like a soul. Therefore only when the body and the soul are united can they make an audible sound. But independently they make no sound at all.

Accordingly — these educators argue — teachers may not point out to students that Bais is like Baruch or Bais Chabad, because a Bais has no sound. A Bais is only a Bais. That is all. It has no “B” sound! It is a body without a soul

I would make the following points:

1. A teacher who claims that letters and vowels do not have corresponding sounds must not be allowed to teach K’riah (Hebrew reading). There is nothing more damaging to a student’s ability to read than telling them that letters and vowels do NOT have corresponding sounds. While these teaches may be endowed with strengths in many fields, they do not possess the basic understanding of the Hebrew language and how it should be taught. They have no business teaching our children how to read.

2. The argument that letters and vowels do not have sounds is demonstrably false: Almost every Hebrew word ends with a letter that possesses no vowel, and yet we have no problem hearing its sound.

3. This argument is directly contradicted by Gemara Shabbos 104a, which lists every letter and matches it with words that begin with the same sound (the most famous being d and s which are associated with ohks kund — “Be Benevolent to the Poor”).

4. This extreme approach is based on a talk of the Rebbe that was taken completely out of context.3

5. This approach that letters and vowels have no sounds was always, and will always be ignored by every single Chabad institution! Any parent who has, or had, a child in a Chabad school, saw with his own eyes the scrapbook that the child created when learning how to read: Bais is Bais Chabad, Gimmel is Geula, etc. Would these educators argue that all these scrapbooks that use letter-to-word-associations must be stopped? They actually do advocate that these scrapbooks should not be made. But as day follows night they will be ignored!

Even the most experienced educator should know their limits: K’riah teachers are not linguists. Other peoples’ children should not be used for spiritual experimentation.

CONCLUSIONS

Hebrew is a phonetic language that can be mastered by everyone, yet we find so many struggling Hebrew readers. This issue can be avoided if those running our school systems realize that there is a flaw in their teaching method. They have misinterpreted the Mesorah by taking it literally, and consequently developed a completely new and unworkable reading method for the four reasons detailed above.

The reason why educators misunderstand the Mesorah is that many instructors do not grasp the reading process. They know next to nothing about language acquisition or epistemology (which is the acquisition of knowledge), nor do they know the history of the reading wars. Institutions hire teachers based on other qualifications. But everything comes with a price.

Admittedly, not every educator consciously forces all of the above mentioned four problems on their students. But this is irrelevant for the following three reasons:

a. Even one of these problems would suffice to confuse students.

b. The Literalist MM’s instructions are inherently confusing and contradictory, so the student is likely to get confused. Whether this is a conscious act by teachers or not is irrelevant.

c. These four problems are inherently interconnected. So one mistake could — in the student’s mind — lead to the others as a direct consequence.

An examination of the sources will bear this out. I urge the reader to go back to the letters and talks that discuss this issue and take a second look, now that they understand what the issue is really about.

The good news is that these problems can be avoided. We can stop confusing students with conflicting instructions, information overload, and illogical postulates. We can make learning to read Hebrew simple, easy, and fun. With a little effort, we can minimize the number of children who struggle with Hebrew. For this to happen, we must embrace the original and authentic Mesorah, which always was and will be: Teach your children how to read Hebrew!

Eyal Rav-Noy is a Chabad Shaliach and director of JLA (Jewish Learning Academy), specializing in adult education and outreach. He is the author of the book “Who Really Wrote the Bible? And Why it Should be Taken Seriously Again.” He has lectured on the topic of Biblical Literature and Archeology, and made radio appearances all over the US. Together with his wife Tzippy, he founded CAP IT, Inc., a company that offers complete Hebrew reading solutions through its unique curriculums and educational methods. Their reading kits are being implemented in schools around the US and Canada. They offer their services at the CAP IT!® Learning Center, where they evaluate and treat students with learning disabilities and special needs. For feedback regarding this article, he can be reached on his site: www.CAPITLEARNING.com

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29 Comments

  • thank you!

    incredible article. thank you for writing and sharing and enlightening everyone on this very important issue.

  • what about english?

    its just as important if not more important to know how to read the language of the land which is English

    please please teach your children English so they can provide for their families

  • Hershel Moss, Mosad Chok leYIsroel

    I don’t agree with you.
    Below I list your crucial proofs:

    1) You wrote: “Almost every Hebrew word ends with a letter that possesses no vowel, and yet we have no problem hearing its sound.”

    Actually, seforim bring that the last letter has a Shva.

    2) You wrote: “This argument is directly contradicted by Gemara Shabbos 104a, which lists every letter and matches it with words that begin with the same sound (the most famous being d and s which are associated with ohks kund — “Be Benevolent to the Poor”).

    The Gemara states ”Gimel Dales–Gemol Dallim.“ What does it have to do with Sounds of letters? It has to do with the Names of the letters!

    3) You wrote: ”This extreme approach is based on a talk of the Rebbe that was taken completely out of context.3 [sic]”.

    Please clarify.

  • Thank You

    Thank You for working on this topic. Children who struggle in reading find it difficult to stay frum.

    You hit on all the reading issues, except one.

    10% of the population sees moving/blury letters. Those people are unaware that the rest of us don’t see this. They don’t mention it, its normal to them.This is not corrected by regular glasses nor is it tested for by regular eye Dr.s. This is corrected by colored lenses. Check Irlen lenses on the web.

  • Hershel Moss, Mosad Chok leYisroel

    I do agree that many of our children have serious challenges in learning, and kriah, in particular. And we need to find creative and innovate ways (thinking out of the box) to teach them. I commend you, Eyal, for the endeavor.

  • Interested

    Thank you for the very interesting essay. I hope teachers that truly care will attempt to revert back to the original methods.

    Rabbi Rav Noy, in your opinion how long should it take for children to master the basics of Kriyah? I am not sure which method they use in Beis Rivkah, but the girls learn the Alef-Bais at age 3, review it again (for the whole year!) at age 4, and at age 5 in Kindergarten they review them AGAIN and only start touching on nikud towards the end of the year. I do not see the purpose of this and it leaves the brighter students bored and lost.

  • Perhaps a super talent

    Twenty years ago my son could not pick up the curly letters of the aleph bais, even with resource room. He went to a special ed yeshiva for a year, where, with special methods and cards etc. he learnt to read (Hebrew) and then went back to yeshiva. He had no other problems later with reading (English or anything else).

    I believe it was an overload, that he was supersensitive to the curly shapes (or any shapes) – as when he was still small he brought in a drawing of my building with all the turrets and windows and also a picture of a drumset, with the bolts and with all the details bolts perfectly drawn – he had done them from memory, not from seeing them before him (which is not an average ability).

    So, I concluded that he had a SUPER talent with regard to line etc. – not a weakness and it was an overload, coming from an unusual sensitivity to this aspect of vision being overloaded on a childish brain and he couldn’t process it.

  • Satisfied Customer

    Thank you for explaining this so eloquently. My daughter learned how to read with the Rav-Noy’s CAP it method. I can attest that she has stronger reading skills compared to her older siblings who learned in the traditional method.

  • nsker

    <i>Letters don’t have sounds. Sounds of speech do exist in nature, and we symbolically represented them with letters. Only later did we name the letters Aleph, Bais, Gimmel, etc.</i>
    Aside from the obvious ideological problems we might have with this statement, even if we assume a human origin approach to aleph-beis, I do not quite agree. There is a duality between the written and spoken representations, and for a literate person the underlying text is the same. It is not that a letter is secondary to a sound that it represents. A developed human language includes more than a collection of sound sequences. A language is equipped with grammar, which first influences how words are written, and only then induces us to speak them correctly.

    Perhaps some kids may have an easier time thinking of the sound first, but it is not the reality, not even in other modern languages with developed grammar. Kol sheken in Hebrew, where words and letters represent the <i>essence</i> of things. Jews all over highlight this by pronouncing the same written letters with different sounds, each according to his tradition, but the text is consistent.

    Even more so when Hebrew is not your first spoken language: sounds are not acquired before the alphabet.

  • A. Mechanech

    unfortunately this is full of kfira. The world was created with oisiyois. They came first! The problem is a problem – but not tyo be solved with krira…

    Reb Yoel once explained that we have to realize that the oisiyos themselves are Torah. So as long as it takes a child masters 1st the oisiyos then the nekudos which can be taught with the oisiyos in a phonetic fashion (each vowel rhymes with its vocalization).

  • YOSHER KOACH

    Ayal –
    First of all YOSHER KOACH!

    The idea that so much more than just not being able to read is at risk is an extremely important factor in how these children grow up.
    Its hard enough trying to grow up, each and everyone of us has our own individual differences, but try growing up with a label of STUPID , RETARD, SLOW, OR THE FACT THAT OTHER PARENTS WON’T ALLOW THEIR CHILDREN TO ASSOCIATE MUCH LESS MENTOR ANOTHER CHILD LIKE THIS IS DISTURBING AS WELL AS SAD.
    I no longer wonder why some children aren’t doing well in yeshivos. The average yeshiva teacher is not trained to deal with education in a professional manner.No one should be an educator that hasn’t gone thrue professional training – seminary isn’t enough- and sensitivety training as well.
    So many people are teaching today that have no business being in a classroom, either due to having a parent or relative in the institution or etc.
    Teachers don’t belong running other programs, choirs or whatever when they have students and a class to teach.
    It’s very nice to be able to multi task but if you don’t have the time to work with a student to make their transition in class or with work then why do you have time for extra curriculer jobs that interfere with your more important job or educating your class?
    Bochuring can run choirs and tzvos hashem etc programs.

    For all our outreach efforts and programs, those that are “ HOME” should have their needs met first.
    The idea that you don’t want your child to be dragged down by associating with a child with learning differences tells it all .
    Sad to say this attitude is prevalent amongst the shluchim and their children.
    Tolerance is’t taught and breeding arogance and with an over blown self image is taught instead.
    Unfortuately having been the target of such behavior I was forced to watch as a child of mine recieved the very same behavior.
    Our values are important. We need todo more than TEACH , WE NEED TO LIVE- kindness and humility and openheartedness not just to money donors children. Or fellow shluchim’s children. This isn’t an exclusive club.
    Those who teach their children insensitively by their own actions – because its not enough to just mouth the words YOU NEED TO ACTUALLY LIVE BY THEM are doing future generations an injustice.
    You might think that by toughening up your kids and teaching them to build themselves up at the expense of others will make them stronger and more self seficiant but it is only teaching them to be uncaring and hard and you will eventually find yourself at the end of that kind of behavior when you least expect it.
    If we are to be successfull people and a successfull nation we need to raise our expectations and retrain ourselves and our children to not step on others in the rush to success.
    You can be a winner without mowing everyone down.

  • Rabbi Y. Botnick

    BSD

    A parent and a melamed in our mosed both brought this new technique –for sale– to my attention. The parent mentioned the op-ed as well.
    Many of the points raised and challenged are twisted interpretations of our mesorah. For example, I have never heard anyone claim that “The letter and vowel “names” are the most important piece of knowledge the student needs to know, as opposed to the letter and vowel “sounds” which are not as vital”. We do claim that they are also important. The letter is a “guf”; the nekuda- a neshoma. To be significant, they must be combined. (Rabbi L. Goldstein, in his valuable kuntres suggests that this is the reason why our mesorah is to teach in a manner that the author of this piece suggests is “upside-down”. So that the neshoma should precede the guf.)
    On the other hand, that “only a Kamatz and an Aleph together can make the sound UH. Meaning: Letters and vowels on their own have no sounds” is part of our mesorah! (see IK Vol. 8 p. 82 and elsewhere).
    If one is to be melamed zechus, he will presume that the author simply did not listen to the linked sicha in its entirety.
    Regarding Hershel Moss’ comment see hisvadius 5742 (Chai Elul) bottom line of page 2196 where the Rebbe says that the last letter of a word has a shva nach but does not need to write it (as it is there by default).
    To state that “A teacher who claims that letters and vowels do not have corresponding sounds must not be allowed to teach K’riah (Hebrew reading)…..” is too brazen to even comment about. I would suggest that the author research this area much more carefully before making more inaccurate claims. I have only pointed out the few inaccuracies that I have the ability to respond to in the 15 minutes that I now have free. I will leave a more detailed rebuttal to others and have no doubt there will be quick in coming.
    The maskilim, too, attempted to replace our mesora. To do so by distorting it is unthinkable.

  • To #7

    I agree with you about the method in B.R.
    They take a long time for the Aleph, Bais letters so kids know it so perfectly that when it comes time to blend and read they should know it so well that it goes smoothly. At age 5-6 in pre 1-A they rush to read at the end of the middle and end of year and then it becomes a problem. Maybe thats why kids have reading issues. IN first grade they need to know it well enough and not spend a whole year just practicing to read. So you can have a kid in headstart who knows alef bais inside out, but cant read. she hasto wait another year.
    YOu have kids who stuggle in pre1-a to read and it follows for a few years till they can read Hebrew fast.
    I dont know what the solution should be.

  • To #13 & #11

    to #13
    Rabbi Botnik wrote:
    On the other hand, that “only a Kamatz and an Aleph together can make the sound UH. Meaning: Letters and vowels on their own have no sounds” is part of our mesorah! (see IK Vol. 8 p. 82 and elsewhere).

    sorry rabbi, it does not say that in IK vol 8 or anywhere else!

    Eyal is correct in many issues he raises, good for him

    The only issue I have is he ignores the issue brought up by the rebbe again and again, about the kedusha of the letters and vowels, and the kedusha IS IN THEIR NAMES!!!

    that MUST be taught first BEFORE READING see sicha shavuos mem tes (hisvaaduyos 5749 V3 page 278 heoroh 32 or sefer hasichos mem tes vol 2 page 498 heoroh 46)

    If someone could contact Rabbi Moshe Smith, he had many horaas from the rebbe in yechidus about kriah
    p.s. #10 makes a valid point

  • Zippora

    For those children who letters jump around or see double or just can’t focus on the page, or just tire quickly from reading or are dyslexic, etc. these are visual processing issues that 25 – 30% of the population struggle with. VISION THERAPY uses special exercises that retrain the muscles of the eyes to work properly together and not jump around, etc. See a COVD trained Developmental Optometrist in your area for an evaluation. You will give your child a new lease on life drastically eliminating accommodations and tremendously improving self-esteem in addition to the obvious of being able to read properly!!!!!!! Check out COVD.ORG for full information and how to find someone in your area. No joke! My daughter is a whole new person whose intelligence can now shine!!!!!

  • Dyslexia

    Besides contradicting Jewish sources to teach that way, as well as the Fridika Rebbe in Likuddi Diburim, you obviously dont have this problem your self and can only be talking from what you have “seen” NOT “experienced”.
    Not sure where to start, but you obviously don’t have much of an idea what dyslexia is, otherwise you would probably scrap your theory.

    No one know what dyslexia is although there is a lot of research and neuroscience on it. I’m dyslexic and have been researching it for 9yrs,

    The best theory I’ve come across is the book “The Gift of Dyslexia” by Ronald D. Davis, although I’m not sure that’s fully correct either.

    It seems that the Chabad world is new to this whole concept of ADD, ADHD, LD its only been in the last few years that people came out and spoke about it, trying to do something to help. But they still don’t know about Dyslexia. Dyslexia doesn’t mean your stupid or dumb Einstein was dyslexic, its just that the brain processes information differently.

    Personally to make the long story short i think the write should do some more research on dyslexia before writing an op-ed about difficulties in reading. 1 in 4 people have issues with reading.

  • Likudi Diburim 5 CHAPTER 39, SECTION 10

    The Rebbe Rayatz now addressed R. M[ordechai] D[ubin] and R. A[vigdor] V[olshanak]:
    You ought to deepen your endeavors to support Torah
    study in this country, so that the requisite means will not be lacking. I am an agent to pass this obligation on to you.
    All you fellow Jews present here are witnesses that I have passed on my shlichus.
    Why don’t you take notice of your good neighbors, Po- land and Lithuania? Nu, about Poland you might answer that it is a big country — but Lithuania, with the same num- ber of Jews as Latvia (May they all increase!), has a number of large yeshivos. Every township has a junior yeshivah, as well as Talmud Torah schools and chadarim in which devout melamdim teach Torah authentically, as in bygone years. Every Lithuanian Jew and Jewess cherishes Torah study; a yeshivah bachur is precious in their eyes, and highly es- teemed. And what is there in Latvia? A barren wasteland! Where are your yeshivos? Where are your Talmud Torah schools? Where are your chadarim?
    The people of Riga and of Latvia at large certainly con- tribute generously for tzedakah to support yeshivos and many other causes. May G-d indeed bless them. But they alone have nothing. True, Riga used to be an isolated city and that is why it did not become a Torah center. But over the last ten years, since Latvia became an independent state, you should have thought of how to turn it into a Torah center. It is the obligation of all of you, well-established and wealthy householders, to raise funds for the dissemination of Torah study .
    Set up chadarim and yeshivos, but make sure that the funds are directed to support the genuine study of Torah. Little children, for example, should be taught to read by the old method: kometz-alef — o; kometz-beis — bo; pasach-alef, and so on. The letters and the vowel signs of the Torah are sacred — kometz signifies Keser, pasach signifies the Sefirah of Chochmah — and the sanctity of these consonants and vowels shines into the souls of toddlers and ensures that they remain pious Jews.
    Fathers and mothers should be told that their children should learn to read by this method; it has an actual effect on their lives. There has arisen a generation that seeks to tear away from Jews this sanctity of the letters and the vowels. They make an impression of being great lovers of their brother Jews and caring for the welfare of little children, whereas in fact they use this approach to uproot the sanctity of the letters and the vowels.
    I am telling you, these people are your worst enemies; they turn children into disbelievers. May G-d grant all Jews long and healthy years. But mortals don’t live forever — and no children taught by these people are ever going to be Kaddish-sayers. Keep in mind that your whole life, your concern that your child should grow up a Jew, depends on how you choose a cheder and a style of education.

  • Can’t Read = dyslexic

    Dyslexia is a general term for disorders that involve difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters, and other symbols, but does not affect general intelligence. It could also affect things like, time keeping, writing, spelling, math, general organization..

    There are so many theories about how to prevent it, help it, correct it, whether by the colored glasses, or learning methods etc. People have all kinds of theories as to what it is, the letters blurring, jumping, falling of the page or the page is to bright so they dim it with colored glasses, there are even theories to say that dyslexics think in pictures not words and thats why they are so good at things that include visualization.

    But the truth is no one knows for sure what it is, and it affects people of all cultures and languages, “not just the kids learning to read Hebrew”. There are even Chinese who have difficulty reading Chinese (which is not an alphabetical language)

    There are many famous dyslexic including Albert Einstein, John F Kennedy, Winston Churchill, Whoopi Goldberg, Leonardo De Vinchi, Gorge Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Ford, Steven Spielberg and many more. One thing is for sure dyslexic people “don’t” have learning difficulties they’re probably smarter them you and me, they “Just learn differently!” and until that it understood any kid named ADD, ADHD etc. in our society will have self esteem issues.

    Not to go into details (google it) but there are many different learning styles and everyone learns in their own way, kids should be able to discover their way of learning rather than be taught how to learn.

    Dyslexic are usually very talented people and have the ability to shine in other areas other then this “word oriented” schooling society.

    Nuf said, i suggest anyone who is interested should read the book the gift of dyslexia as #17 mentioned, I’ve read it and it may not solve all the reading problems, but it definitely will help to understand what yourself or your child is going through.

  • Rabbi Levi Goldstein

    Please visit http://www.chinuchtime.com and see how the Rebbeim make it very clear, that if you don’t teach the child the names of the letters and nekudos, and afterwards the blend of both, using the specific words of “komatz alef aw”, etc,
    he will chas veshalom grow up to become a…., rachmana l’tzlan.
    the exact wording and references are in the article at chinuchtime.com (formerly http://www.chinuch.CO).

  • Sounds Wrong!!

    about letters having “sounds” or not. The Rebbe states clearly, in sicha 18 Elul 5782, that letters and nekudos are just like a body and a neshama.
    one without the other is SOUNDLESS!! see there.

  • Moshe Schwartz

    A simple suggestion: After finishing learning from an Aleph Bais sefer, kriya does not improve, but gets worse through practice in Siddur or Chumash unless the child already knows how to read. What will help is reading other Kosher Aleph -Bais seforim, one at at a time slowly and carefully. The subject is huge , and is not accomplished for most talmidim with one sefer. Here is an example of a Kriya problem that will not be learned by practicing kriya in Siddur. In Siddur , there are about 9 Shiyns for every Siyn. The child forgets about Siyn after 9 Shiyns and will not learn it properly. The Aleph Bais seforim deal with this and so many difficulties in kriya. We are rushing are students into learning that they are not yet ready for,and unless it is complimented with realistic Kriya practice the results are destructive for his Torah Learning, Yiras Shamiyim,success and happiness in Yeshiva.

  • S.

    Rabbi Adelist of Cheder Darchai Limud has helped many boys with learning difficulties, including dyslexia to learn how to read WITHOUT breaking the Mesorah.

  • LET-S NOT FORGET THE KIDS!

    Thank you for an excellent article. Amazing! For all of you out there that are so worried about our children’s neshamas, you are missing the point. Spend a day with a child that is lost and confused y after day in school, feeling like a loser that he can’t read like the rest of his class. Now that is a Neshama to save!

    Please let’s make this conversaion about our kids! Not about what we think the Rebbe said! It is mamosh PIKUACH NEFESH!

    I know first hand what the Rav-Noy’s is doing in LA and beyond with his program and teaching method. They are not only making a difference in the way Hebrew Reading is being taught in general, but also doing amazing work with students who struggle with learning disabilities. I personally know a couple of children who have been struggling for years and they fixed the problem in just hours. They are now back in the classroom and right on track! Does you really believe that their Neshama – which was saved by this method – is damned by Hashem because these kids didn’t learn to read the exact right way? I don’t. I think Hashem accepts their reading no matter how they got there. Isn’t there some Baal Shemtov story about that?

  • Rabbi Y. Botnick

    to Anonymous # 15.

    Sorry, in my rush I gave you a mm that does not say it explicitly, my mistake. However, as anyone who has studied the mesora as taught by our Rabbeim knows, the Rabbeim do spell out, many times, that an ois or a nekuda alone make no sound. See Hisvadius 5742 vol 4. top of p 2197, (IK vol pg 188 regarding nekudos,)Keser Shem Tov p. 220; Maamarei admor hoemtzoei, chelek beis, p. 30 to name a few.

  • Ergo

    I do believe that the GOAL is the point! Whatever way works is the right way! If the student does not learn in one particular way, it is not the student’s fault! It is the teacher’s job to use a method that helps each child succeed. This is why teachers must be educated in more than one methodology. Anything less renders an unskilled teacher, one that is limited in his or her ability to offer the best chance a student is entitled to have in order to reach optimal potential. A good teacher should be continually seeking ways to reach every child in their charge. THEY are the ones who must have a flexible mindset. THEY are the ones who must never blame the child. THEY are the ones who should seek new ways, even if their respective schools do not demand it. THEY are the ones who have the incredible blessing of working with our kinderlach, who are blessings themselves. It’s whatever works.It should not be a rigid approach. Some of our own adults would be better off right now, if they had had the good fortune of experiencing ways to learn that were tailored more for their way of learning. In the past, this was not taken into account. This is surprising, since the Rebbe himself often spoke of approaching each person at the level he is in a given moment. A child is a person, ergo….

  • Please....

    Please think about the goal. I agree with Ergo. What is more important, that the student learn or that the student doesn’t learn but has been taught in the same way as the philosophy (or whatever) of a particular teacher? Let’s be honest and let our egos get past a stubborn streak. It’s the children we’re working for, not ourselves. If you are steadfast in a belief and are closed to expanding your skills as a teacher, then you should not be a teacher. Sorry to say that, but sometimes people are in the wrong job. No shame, just a fact. Furthermore, a headmaster or principal of quality should inspire staff to improve and even provide training or reading resources.

  • mitzvah

    It may not be a stubborn streak or ego. It might be a lineage of belief and practice from years and years of devotion, etc. However, as many things have changed over many years, we should take a look at why there are more students with specific challenges in learning. These challenges are real, and to ignore them is ignorant and unfair. There are more chemicals in the food most of us consume. They affect many of us, both physically and mentally. There is more pollution. It affects many of us negatively. There is more exposure to electronic output. This affects many of us negatively. Just because they are not overtly or immediately experienced doesn’t mean they are not affecting us over varied amounts of time. And it is not unreasonable to believe that these things affect our children in any number of ways, including in the school environment. So perhaps we need to consider this in a nondefensive way, a nonthreatened way, a loving , compassionate, continued devotional way, with the present reality in mind. If we hold on too tight, we might miss an opportunity to reach a new level of mitzvah. Baruch Hashem.

  • Evelyn

    I am a professional reading specialist. I have taught English and Hebrew reading to hundreds of children and teens who struggle, for one reason or another, with language and reading. Students with reading difficulties often need a different type of instruction than their typical peers. This approach is often more systematic and multi-sensory.

    I am surprised that the author of this article did not include training in syllable division and rules. Also, there are some words that can be taught whole, just like a child learns to recognize his name before he might understand its corresponding sounds. Children can learn Hebrew sight words such as: baruch, shabbat, and shalom. It is exciting for a child to be able to actually read some commonly used Hebrew words.

    Kriah teachers need good training. Too often teachers teach the way they were taught. “Al pi darchp” should include differientiation in kriah methods. There is not just ONE right way.