![]() According to a famous midrash, Abram (aka, Torah’s Abraham) revolutionized theology when he realized that the idols in his father’s “idol shop” did not have the god-like powers ascribed to them. Abram’s wisdom, as well as his hutzpah in smashing the idols, opened up new lines of thought and practice for his time. Similarly, a number of Jewish educators have been smashing decades old beliefs and practices for teaching Hebrew in part-time/synagogue settings. Much of their early efforts smashed an (almost) singular Hebrew curricular focus on decoding prayers, resulting in students’ newfound energy and enthusiasm for Hebrew learning. Now these educators are beginning to smash long-held assumptions about decoding’s whys, whens and hows. Click the file below to read about four of the biggest smashes beginning to take hold on behalf of synagogue Hebrew. ![]()
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![]() Scroll down for the blogpost's PDF. This edited-for-space version is missing its middle paragraphs. There are at least two ways to play the game of dominoes. The first is the version my Granny played – tiles laid out on a table, with two to four players taking turns matching dots on one tile to dots on another tile. Everyone understood and played by the rules. The second is the way my brother played – working alone or with a friend to line upright tiles in an intricate pattern, then watching in awe after the first tile was lightly tapped. As each tile fell, it hit another and the energy moved throughout the system, sometimes moving in a straight line and sometimes branching off to create multiple moving paths ... For decades, we have been playing my Granny’s version of dominoes when it comes to Hebrew learning in synagogue settings. Long-held assumptions influence the rules for teaching Hebrew and everyone (well almost everyone) plays by the rules … [But,] for over a dozen years, Jewish educators across the country have moved from a decoding-focused learning model to one that is multi-faceted and embedded in a Hebrew rich environment. They tell us that their learners feel competent understanding Hebrew language in controlled settings, appear to enjoy using Hebrew in prayer, and have expressed a sense of belonging to people and places beyond themselves when Hebrew is taught dynamically, as my brother’s version of dominoes. So, todah (thank you) to my brother and others who love playing dynamically with dominoes. It’s my hope that those of us faced by the conundrum of Hebrew in our synagogue settings will embrace the metaphor and its power. Nachama Skolnik Moskowitz, #OnwardHebrew ![]()
![]() I recently received an interesting question about mastering decoding: how long does it take? The educator who posed it was impressed by the fluency of children featured in a section of #OnwardHebrew's "Conquering the Challenge of Hebrew Decoding" webinar that was held in summer 2024. To hear what prompted this question, view this section of the webinar (I've cued it up where you'll catch a little context, but feel free to start a little farther ahead at 24:30; end your viewing at 26:44). The educator who posed the time-it-takes question specifically noted: It seemed that the students really were “master decoders” in the examples that were shared. From what I could see, they were quite proficient. She then asked how long it takes to achieve the skill of decoding to this level of mastery. Indeed, one of the earliest stated goals of #OnwardHebrew is to develop learners who are competent and confident users of Hebrew. But interestingly, if one watches the children in the short video clips carefully, it is easy to see that they are not "decoding," a term that describes the building of words by sounding out letters and vowels. In English, we see this with a 5 or 6 year old who sounds out the letters in c-a-t or j-u-m-p. In Hebrew we would see this with a novice sounding out the Shin and the Kamatz at the beginning of the word Shalom before moving on to blend the other letters and vowel signs in the word. Decoding is often slow and laborious, yet, the children in the video were not struggling with the words at all. And why not? The children in the linked video clip were not decoding, but rather reciting words and phrases and matching them to the print. The first child starts by saying, "So when the teacher said 'gomel hasadim tovim' I knew that was in the middle of the prayer ..." Moreso, the child points to the words as he says them. Look and listen carefully - he is not decoding, but reciting a phrase that he knows and matches it to the print on the page. The same actions happen with each of the other learners featured in the video - they recite a word or phrase and can easily point to it on the page. Yes, they CAN decode, but what we see in these video clips are students who have mastered the blessing through the process of recitation, as well as the skill of basic decoding, and can match the two "sound-to-print." When I teased out what was going on with these children, I admit to being amazed with what they and their teacher (Linda Duke) had accomplished. Linda later told me that they spend a fair amount of time in class learning to recite the prayers and blessings children are responsible for in their synagogue's curriculum. And then they do work sound-to-print. In my efforts on behalf of #OnwardHebrew the past few years, I have become convinced that in the time we have and with the Hebrew language skills our children bring to the table (like "not much"), it's an unfair expectation for our learners to become "fluent and accurate Hebrew readers" (or even decoders).** In addition, as many of you have heard from me: if all one can do is decode, one cannot pray at synagogue speed. To be a successful "pray-er" a person must learn to recite the prayers and blessings. But then the magic happens - with the ability to recite and with a knowledge of decoding, a person can pray competently and confidently, siddur in hand. And THIS is what I feel is a fair expectation in part-time Jewish education. Thank you to Linda and her students for showing the way AND for the educator who sent me the question which forced me to take a closer look at what these video clips were demonstrating. And thank you to all who will take time to consider what this could mean for their own students, in their own program! It's time to change our expectations and to match our teaching strategies to these new goals. ** The video segment comes from the webinar, "Conquering the Challenge of Hebrew Decoding." On behalf of your learners, it is well worth taking 45 minutes of your time to view it to discover research from the "science of reading" as it applies to Hebrew decoding, as well as strategies that are worth our teachers/tutors learning to integrate into their repertoire. ![]() Full article in eJewishPhilanthropy.com, August 31, 2023. [Below includes just the first and last paragraphs] https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/hebrew-learning-in-synagogues-a-call-for-change/ No need to go running for the ice buckets, but I’m officially throwing out a challenge to all involved in synagogue/part-time Jewish education to lower the emphasis on, and decrease the amount of time devoted to Hebrew decoding. We are a quarter of the way into the 21st century, but still holding onto a last-century Hebrew-learning goal — the fluent and accurate “reading” of Hebrew prayers. No, I’m not suggesting that we stop teaching the Alef-Bet, nor Hebrew decoding skills. Rather, I am challenging us to expand our Hebrew learning goals... [The middle part of the article offers info from research on teaching reading, as well as Jewish historical realities that explain why we need to change our focus. Go read it!] Hebrew has the potential to touch our children’s hearts if we expand our learning goals, moving beyond an almost singular focus on prayers. I challenge educators and clergy to invite stakeholders to new conversations about Hebrew learning goals and to reconsider their assumptions about successful Hebrew learning. I also challenge colleagues to discover ways to create a more symbiotic relationship between Hebrew recitation and decoding. If a child can recite/sing G’vurot, can we not count that as an equal success to decoding it? And once a child can recite G’vurot, how can we help them complement their oral mastery of the blessing with the printed words on the page? This is relatively new territory – it needs all of our brain power. The gauntlet has been thrown down! On behalf of our learners, will you accept the challenge? ***** Rabbi Andrew Ergas, director of Hebrew at the Center, took the theme from the article above one step further in his own eJP opinion piece the next week: https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/its-time-for-teshuva-for-hebrew-education/. His words can inspire us to consider how else we can be connecting our learners to Hebrew, whether within or beyond our doors. ![]() [Updated 7/31/2024] At its core, #OnwardHebrew is a grassroots initiative that supports sound-to-print Hebrew learning in part-time synagogue settings. The rest, as we say, is commentary. It is not formal curriculum, nor a prescribed list of do's and don'ts, but an approach based on the research of how children learn languages sound-to-print. #OnwardHebrew had its beginning almost fifteen years ago when several education directors began chatting about their frustrations with Hebrew "reading" skills of children who completed sixth grade. Informally, the directors committed to piloting experiments that could change assumptions about Hebrew learning in part-time/synagogue settings. In the fall of 2017, they gathered in Cleveland to share successes, challenges and hypotheses for future efforts. From this beginning, #OnwardHebrew launched. Seven years later, what have we learned?
You don't have to go it alone!
#OnwardHebrew started with innovators who were willing to experiment and share their successes and challenges. Early adopters soon followed. In these initial stages of development, the initiative worked on growing its cache of "existence proofs," stories that answer the question, "does this really work?" Seven years later, #OnwardHebrew has not only grown its base, but education directors and synagogues across North America happily share their own stories of success and satisfaction. If #OnwardHebrew won't work for your educational program, that's fine, really. But if you are intrigued and find yourself questioning or struggling, don't give up too early! A change process takes time and benefits from outside support. How can we help? Nachama Skolnik Moskowitz, on behalf of the #OnwardHebrew Leadership Team ![]() For decades, teachers have been told that students produce better answers when the teacher asks a question and then waits 3 seconds before asking a clarifying question or saying something else. The 3 seconds of "wait-time" gives learners time to process their thinking and produce a response. But here's another application of wait-time ... I just read a recently published study that reports on the importance of having students learning new vocabulary wait 2-4 seconds before repeating a new word aloud. And why? “When a person repeats a word immediately after hearing it, cognitive resources are dedicated to preparing the production of the word and, as a result, these resources cannot be used to deeply encode that word. In contrast, if production is delayed for a few seconds, this overlap is avoided, allowing deeper learning and encoding to take place." So, I'm wondering a couple of things related to #OnwardHebrew:
I don't have answers to these two questions (nor do I know what this 2-4 second wait time would look like for the decoding process), but maybe someone would find this interesting to explore in their teaching. If you do, let us know what you discover via the #OnwardHebrew Facebook group! Nachama Skolnik Moskowitz ![]() I'm not sure where the phrase "breaking teeth" originated, but it has been used to describe the painful process of decoding, letter-by-letter. For decades, when new Hebrew learners (whether children or adults) have been asked to read aloud and the process is usually very very slow and laborious - they "break their teeth." But, of course, I'm here to tell you that there's a better way! At the foundation of sound-to-print learning is the principle that people need to know the sounds of a language prior to tackling the print. For #OnwardHebrew, on a macro level that includes being introduced to Hebrew Through Movement, Jewish Life Vocabulary and regular t'fillah. However, on a micro level, when working on decoding, learners can be given cues that preview the sounds for them. Why? It offers them some of the tools that they automatically have gained in their native language. Our Hebrew prayers, blessings, and texts like Torah and Haftarah were written 2000 years ago. The complex language and grammatical forms are difficult even for Hebrew native language speakers. Our new learners are at an even bigger disadvantage since they can't self-correct when decoding - think about the challenge when they see unfamiliar words like: וְשנַּנְתָּם לְבָנֶיךָ. So, instead of asking students to "sound out" a Hebrew word or phrase, we help them tremendously when we "cue" them in the four ways noted on the embedded image. How can teachers learn to do this? 1) Share and discuss this short video that explains easy-to-implement "cueing up" teaching strategies: tinyurl.com/Sound2Print. 2) Offer copies of the "four strategies" image. Right click on it and either download ("Save As") or Copy. Then, paste the image into a document and print for easy reference. Alternatively, check the "Files" in the #OnwardHebrew Facebook group for a downloadable copy of higher resolution. 3) Experiment with the "cues" and have conversations with colleagues to tweak your practice! Questions or comments? Please share them on the #OnwardHebrew Facebook group. ![]() #OnwardHebrew just published a very helpful (and relatively concise!) getting started booklet that offers assistance to educational leaders looking to adopt/adapt the sound-to-print principles of #OnwardHebrew in their educational program. The booklet answers such questions as:
In addition, there are What-Why-When-Who quick peeks offered for each of the four elements of #OnwardHebrew - Hebrew language (Hebrew Through Movement), Jewish Life Vocabulary, Hebrew t'fillah and the introduction of decoding after children have built the sounds of Hebrew (for "in" programs, that is in fifth grade or later). Interspersed are QR codes with links to short videos that provide extra information. And, as if that's not enough, there's a curated set of other resources - just enough to get an education program started, without being overwhelming. So, what do YOU want to know? ![]() By, Nachama Skolnik Moskowitz This blogpost is a response to an August 5, 2022 posting in the JEDLAB FB group, sharing a lengthy article by Saul Rosenberg. In it, Rosenberg offered an analysis of the challenges of teaching "fluent Hebrew reading in Hebrew School" and hinted towards a solution he is working on. To understand my blogpost, it would be helpful to first read/skim the original article. I apologize in advance for the length of my own response, but as you'll see, it hit a lot of buttons. Rosenberg’s chief concern seems to be that children in a part-time/synagogue educational program (as he notes, “left of Modern Orthodox”) aren’t learning to read Hebrew, which begs the definition of three different skills – reading (which is gaining meaning from the printed page), decoding (which is what I think the author really is talking about – letter > vowel > letter, etc., with no understanding) and reciting (chanting or singing from memory). The science of reading explains that one learns to read
In our part-time synagogue settings, our children do not have enough background or time to learn to read Hebrew or even achieve the thousands of sight words they have in English. Over the decades, synagogues have tried to create smooth decoders, but really, if one can only decode prayers and blessings (or even Haftarah, as the author would like to achieve), one cannot stay up at synagogue speed. Really, it is hard to smoothly read (or self-correct after trying to decode) siddur words like במשמרותיהם or לבבך because these are not words children instantly recognize in everyday language. To pray at synagogue speed, one has to have put the prayer/blessing in memory and then use the print to follow along. I suspect that a native Hebrew speaker who is in 4th grade or even 6th would stumble when asked to “read” the siddur or Torah; the vocabulary and structure aren't known to them. While Hebrew learning is important, I would argue that the way we have been teaching Hebrew in our part-time/synagogue settings has held the curriculum hostage. In some places, we have dedicated many more hours to Hebrew prayer practice than we have to focusing on the big, compelling ideas of Judaism. Hebrew decoding is a skill, but it doesn’t always touch the heart nor help learners grow and “become” in dialogue with Jewish tradition. In the last five years, a new model for Hebrew learning has been spreading across North America. Called #OnwardHebrew, synagogues and part-time programs that have adopted this approach spend years introducing their learners to the sounds of Hebrew, before moving to print. Children learn vocabulary with Hebrew Through Movement (HebrewThroughMovement.org) – an adaptation of the Total Physical Response (TPR) approach that is used to introduce vocabulary of holidays, rituals and prayers/blessings. They are also gain a rich collection of Jewish Life Vocabulary in context – “grab your siddur, we are going to t’fillah” is just one example. And, they pray regularly in Hebrew, learning to chant/sing t’fillot, thus placing words/phrases in memory. Unlike the decades old “traditional” model of learning Hebrew in part-time/synagogue settings, decoding isn’t introduced early, but rather later (often in 5th or 6th grade) which means that learners can take the sounds of Hebrew in their head and attach them to the print on the page. These older children are more experienced and motivated learners – learning moves relatively quickly and seems to stick. Teachers and educational leaders in #OnwardHebrew programs tell us that there is energy and excitement around learning Hebrew in ways they hadn’t previously experienced and that their children show both confidence and competence. Success is expressed differently from what the author of the Sapir Journal article has defined. Our programs have moved Hebrew learning from a bounded time (e.g., Sundays 9:15-10:15 and Tuesdays at 4:30) to one that creates a rich Hebrew environment throughout the time children are with them. And they are able to shift their focus from “Hebrew School” (check out this CASJE research study titled, "Let's Stop Calling it Hebrew School") to programs that create compelling Jewish learning, broadly defined. I'll end with two resources for those desiring to learn more about decoding with an #OnwardHebrew context. For a powerful webinar that provides a great overview, click here: https://youtu.be/0ayl0i0XpLA. For a webinar segment that explores why we are having trouble with Hebrew learning in part-time/synagogue programs and how the “science of reading” might influence changes, click here: https://youtu.be/zBX0Kz8DfJg?t=1487 Want to know more? Feel free to join the conversation on the #OnwardHebrew FB group. By Barb Shimansky, Director of the School for Living Judaism, Temple Beth Sholom, Miami Beach, FL ![]() When we decided to adopt the #OnwardHebrew philosophy at Temple Beth Sholom in Miami Beach, Florida for the 2018-2019 school year, we knew this would be a shock to the system. Hebrew had been taught in a “traditional Hebrew School” manner for decades. Classes were held twice a week for grades three through six, and learners spent most of this time sitting at tables and going around the room to read lines from primers and workbooks. There would be occasional deviations for things like holiday vocabulary. Learners were certainly learning to read Hebrew, but they were uninspired and unengaged. The relatively new #OnwardHebrew approach changed both the methodology and the narrative by which Hebrew could be taught, and we eagerly jumped “all in.” That is not to say that our constituents were necessarily so eager. Although there was expressed desire for our learners to have a more enjoyable experience, parents were generally uneasy about the idea of their children learning Hebrew differently. While I anticipated this, the pushback was pretty intense during the first year or two. The summer before we launched, a parent called me and said, “I have some questions for you about this Hebrew School where you won’t be teaching Hebrew anymore.” Caught somewhat off-guard, I took a moment before responding, “We will still be teaching Hebrew. It will just be done differently from how we have been doing it.” It turned out that it was not just this one parent who had the impression that we were abandoning Hebrew altogether. This was the rumor going around the community! I realized we needed to communicate differently if our families were going to buy-in to this approach. I will freely acknowledge that the change in my language around this was not one that occurred overnight. In fact, I continue to think about this and continually refine it. Perhaps the most effective thing I can emphasize it that I talk about what we DO, not what we DON’T do. I offer here some of the main points that I try to emphasize when speaking to parents. Overall Philosophy
Framing these conversations with parents in the positive and maintaining ongoing communication with them about what is happening with Hebrew education have been invaluable tools in elevating the success of #OnwardHebrew in our setting. I hope these tips and examples can be helpful to you, regardless of where you are in the #OnwardHebrew journey! |
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