Reflecting on our Hebrew Instruction

Once a year when our 3rd-9th grade students are at Shabbaton, the teachers who teach Hebrew reading and I gather to meet.  

Each year varies a little in who joins us depending on the classes.    

Each year the conversation is a little different.  

This year, the 3rd -7th grade classroom teachers and I met to talk about what works in our Hebrew instruction, to identify our challenges, and plan some new strategies. 













We talked about how important it is to assess students, to track their progress and to match them to appropriate texts.    


Two of the biggest challenges that we see are student retention, especially over the summer, and student wanting to read faster and smoother and not slowing down to read syllable by syllable. 

Some of our new strategies include:

• Create an acknowledgement program whereby we recognize student achievement and encourage students to do some review on their own. 
• Start and maintain a list of strategies for supporting growing readers, ways of helping them to slow down, notice the letters more carefully and read accurately. 
• Explore how we can use electronic media to create support materials. 

If you have observations and ideas that will help us, please share!