Hebrew Program

Our Hebrew Reading Curriculum begins formally in 3rd grade (in Pre-K – 2nd grades, we are exposing students to Hebrew letters and words, without the expectation of mastery). Our curriculum has been designed and implemented specifically for our school and we have experienced great success with it. The curriculum is teacher facilitated, but is proficiency-based learning that is self-paced by the individual students — meaning that the students are able to move through curriculum units and prayers as quickly or as slowly as they need to, at a pace that serves the education needs of each individual student; as soon as a student has been assessed by a teacher and the teacher believes they are prepared to move on, the student moves to the next unit or prayer. The curriculum is broken into three levels that allow for fluid movement through skill development.

• Hebrew Decoding – In this level students learn the fundamentals of Hebrew Decoding; students learn the names and sounds of Hebrew consonants and the sounds of Hebrew vowels. In the final stage of this learning unit, students learn to put together one consonant with one vowel to form a single syllable.
• Building Fluency – In this level of Hebrew, students learn to read one, two, three and four syllable words. Once students can comfortably decode up to four-syllable Hebrew words, they begin learning prayers.
• Prayer Mastery – In this level of Hebrew, students learn the prayers first from the Friday night service and then from the Saturday morning service. Rather than proceeding through the prayers in order, they progress from simplest to most complex, so that the students gain stronger and more confident reading skills as they go. In order to pass from one prayer to the next students must:
  • Read the prayer
  • Chant the prayer
  • Identify the part of the service it is in
  • Know five key vocabulary words that speak to the core meaning of the prayer
  • Summarize the meaning of the prayer

Mid-week Hebrew

Twice a week we offer an optional second day of Hebrew, giving our students in grades 3 – 7 an extra hour of focused Hebrew tutoring. Though this second session is optional, it is highly recommended for students in 5th and 6th grade who are on track to have their bat or bar mitzvah in their 7th grade year!