Op-Ed Response: Don’t Blame the Mesorah

I write this op-ed as a response to Eyal Rav-Noy’s article titled, “Op-Ed: Why Mendel Can’t Read” from Oct 24th. As a Lubavitcher Special educator directing a learning enhancement program in Crown Heights which includes children with reading difficulties, I am compelled to respond to some of the views outlined in the article which I feel are heretic in nature from a spiritual standpoint and inaccurate and misleading from a professional standpoint.

The author asserts that the way our mesorah is interpreted by mainstream Chabad mechanchim is misconstrued and the cause of the struggles some of our children are experiencing in learning how to read Loshon Hakodesh. He bases this on four main points.

1) Reading upside down – The children think in the context of Kametz Aleph ‘Aw’ which puts the vowel before the letter (when the vowel are on the bottom of the letter).

2) What’s in a name – We teach the names before the sounds, when the sounds are more important.

3) Information overload – The child is expected to memorize two words for every single phonetic combination which makes reading difficult.

4) Identity crisis – Children are taught that the letters do not have sounds and that we are not allowed to say that the letters create sounds when this is obviously not true.

These four factors are the sole cause for reading problems in our communities and why 20% to 30% cannot read Hebrew properly.

The author then suggests that we teach the sounds of the Aleph Beis first and change the order of Komatz Aleph ‘Aw’ to Aleph Komatz ‘Aw’.

I must state clearly that to change the above would be breaking parts of the mesorah as the names of Aleph Beis and nekudois are holy and the order the mesorah is undisputedly Komatz Aleph and not Aleph Komatz. The author has inaccurately represented the true mesorah. In addition, the author shows an ignorance of the nature of reading difficulties and dyslexia by assuming that the mesorah is to blame for the reading problems facing our communities.

Rabbi Levi Goldstein’s article on the mesorah is well written and backed with numerous sources. One can take the sources at face value without relying on others’ interpretation. I would suggest that everyone should be familiar with it before jumping to a conclusion. It can be downloaded from his website www.chinuchtime.com.

I will attempt to give a basic understanding of what dyslexia is based on the mainstream scientific research and what we can do for children that struggle without breaking the mesorah. I will then try to briefly outline why the above 4 pointers are kefirah (heretic) and inaccurate.

WHAT IS DYSLEXIA?

Contrary to the myth that dyslexia is the reversal of letters, dyslexia is a weakness in the brain in processing the sounds of language to symbols and in turn producing them into speech sounds. It can carry delays in vision, auditory, or speech. This will universally affect reading in any language.

For more on Dyslexia look up the International Association of Dyslexia http://www.interdys.org/FactSheets.htm

WHY THE MESORAH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH READING DIFFICULTIES

How to remediate kriah:

Kriah is built on blocks.
1) The letters
2) The vowels
3) The two together which form an open syllable (Kametz and Aleph = ‘Aw’)
4) A letter –vowel-letter to form a closed syllable
5) Two and multi syllable words
6) There are also some special rules (such as silent Aleph, yud at the end of a word etc…)

The problem lies not in the mesorah. The child needs to memorize the sounds of the vowels, the letters and then put them together, before moving on to reading closed syllables and multi syllable words. In the mesorah way the child learns this through remembering the sounds by the beginning of the name (Aleph = Ah, Komatz = ‘Aw’). If the child masters open syllables this way vs learning the sounds on their own, it will not matter. Skipping the mesorah without mastering this step will reach the same difficulties in kriah.

The problems begin when this step is taught quickly and the child has to move to two and three syllable words within a few weeks of Pre 1A. While the Movoi Lakriah and its Eizer counterpart are solid books, they expect that the child catches on to create open syllables correctly, and can read three syllable words right away. This works for 80% of the population, but not for the 15 -20% of the population that suffer from some sort of a reading delay (as quoted by the International Dyslexia Association). These children also need to master the skill without patterns as the kriah books usually have patterns which handicap these children. I advocate that these children be given much reinforcement sheets of open syllalbes before moving on their kriah books to closed and two syllable words.

If remembering the sounds the mesorah way proves to be inadequate, only then should they learn the sounds separately from the names as a remedial tool without compromising on the mesorah by skipping it out.

For the 80% that do catch on, they do fine with the mesorah in learning how to produce multi syllable words. The slowed reading we see in this population is purely lack of practice. Rabbi Yanky Karp of Psok Li Psukecha, a telephone recording system for kriah has in his possession thousands of kriah recordings from schools all over the country. A student’s recording from Elul to Nissan can testify the extent how much practice really does improve kriah.

HOW EACH POINT IS HERETICAL AND INACCURATE

Reading upside down – The mesorah in the past was always to read Kametz Aleph ‘Aw’ in that order and not the other way around. There obviously must be a reason for it. To say that it was by accident and we should change to Aleph Kametz ‘Aw’ is a change and a break from how it was done. Especially from the sicha of Chai Elul 5742 which explains how the letters and nekudois are like the neshama and guf. The neshama is put into the guf and not the other way around.

Children with reading difficulties usually find more problems with vowels and not the consonants both in English and Hebrew. It makes sense for the child to isolate the vowel first. (In English, this is not possible as the vowels come later, so the child just reads each letter separately) Ultimately, the child has to memorize all 300 or so combinations of open syllables by sight with numerous practice before moving on. It doesn’t matter if they think of the vowel first or the letter first. If an educator thinks that this will make it or break it, at least the child should be introduced to the concept through kametz aleph ‘Aw’ first to imbue him with kedusha.

What’s in a name – There are numerous sources from the Rebbeim about the kedusha of the names aside from the fact that Hashem created the world with oisyois and not reading words. The rebbeim emphasized how important it is for the child to learn the names. The following are some quotes from various sources.

Igros Kodesh Vol 13 P93.
“The holiness of the Alef-Beis letters, the Nekudos, as well as their names originate from Moshe Rabeinu who received it from Hashem at Har Sinai. The names of the Nekudos are the acronym (Roshei-Teivos) of the names of Malochim etc.”

Igros Kodesh Vol 8 P82.
“It is obvious that one must teach children how to read by first teaching them the letters and the Nekudos separately, as it is a well known fact as to how much the Gedolei Yisroel as well as our saintly Rebbeim “waged wars” for this purpose, to engrave into the children the holiness of the Alef-Beis letters and the holiness of the Nekudos”.

Aside from this, were we to teach the sounds first, we would cripple all our children, even the reading bright. In preschool when the children learn the names, their brain is simply not mature enough to understand the sounds for the symbols of the letters, it is easier to remember the symbols as names and then when they turn five years old and mature they are ready to understand that these symbols have a sound to them. This is why even non-jewish schools all teach the names of the alphabet in preschool before the sounds. In fact, most 3 year old children hearing the Morah say Aleph for Abba are unable to generalize and produce another aleph sounding word.

Information overload – This is total fiction. The child is not expected to memorize two words for every syllable. The child learns the sounds of the letters and vowels just the same. Only, he is using the beginning of the names to remember them instead of having to remember them as a sound on their own. This is why every English teacher spends weeks and weeks teaching the sounds of English which do not work that way, yet most children learn the sounds of Aleph Beis in a mere few days. The remedial population will need to spend much more time learning the sounds and producing open syllables regardless of the method as mentioned earlier.

Identity crisis –The author asserts that children are taught that the letters do not have sounds and that we are not allowed to say that the letters create sounds. This is also inaccurate. The children are taught that the letters and vowels do have sounds. Only, these sounds are taught through remembering the beginning of their names in the order of kametz aleph ‘aw’. What the Lubavitcher mechanchim are saying based on the Rebbe’s sicha from Chai Elul 5742 is that the sounds of the letters only get pronounced through the vowels and spiritually speaking their whole existence only happens through the vowels. So much so, that the end of a word which seemingly does not have a vowel, still has a hidden shevo.

As mentioned above, if a child has difficulty producing open syllables fluently this way, then remedial sheets can be introduced which teach the sounds of the vowels and the letters separately before joining them together, but only after the mesorah has been introduced to imbue the child with kedusha.

TIP FOR DYSLEXIA

I will add one more detail about the nature of reading difficulties. If a child sees something as important, the learning process will go much smoother and his or her abilities will be enhanced. A difficulty may be minimized or even eliminated.

From the time a child interacts years before learning how to read in Pre 1A, wire their brain to want to read by reading to them as much as possible, and make sure they see their parent reading and learning as much as possible. This is especially so, if a family member already developed a reading difficulty.

Rabbi Yehuda Adelist MA SpEd is the director of Cheder Darchai Limud, a learning enhancement program in Crown Heights for elementary boys. He has worked in remediation for over 9 years. He can be reached at (347) 743- 6132 or jewishspecialed@gmail.com