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In this ongoing debate of whether to continue learning or only do chazoroh, I’ve been hearing opinions to both ends. Today, I got feedback in writing, which I’d like to share with you below:

Rabbi Roitenbarg from Gateshead, who coaches multiple schools with their kriah curriculum needs, reported in this email a 90% success rate for the classes who’ve continued with the kriah curriculum via phone conferences/ recordings. (Without Zoom – Audio Only)

Some teachers’ fears of students’ lacking interest or engagement for ‘phone learning’ are merely obstacles causing them to refrain from teaching new material. It is truly a concern, and there’s no question whether we will have the same amount of participation with remote learning; especially when done through audio only.

On the counterpart, we have to remember that we can’t spoil the good for the perfect; still we can aim high by thorough lesson planning to create short, yet powerful lessons that will captivate the students’ interest and engagement.

Yes, there is a fear of some children lagging behind, however, in exchange, a lot more fall behind when we don’t continue teaching new material. At the same time, those who have continued teaching new materials are reporting high levels of success with the students’ abilities in the those areas.

To conclude, it is our recommendation that the kriah curriculum continues throughout these times and that the curriculum objectives for each grade should be met at the end of this school year. This year’s remote learning is anytime more effective than the next year’s teacher’s live lessons, due to the teacher’s unfamiliarity of the content.

I’d love to hear your feedback! Please share your experiences advancing in your curriculum by commenting on this post.

A Freilichen Yom Tov!

Brave Mechanchim areFighting the Long Term Corona Effect

“Well, I did not grow up going to school like you did” That’s what my grandfather told me in a conversation when I met him recently.

Think about it, the WWII is b”h over, still, they missed their cheder years forever.

Corona Virus drama and physical danger will bez”h be over one day (hopefully sooner than later), will it affect our students ability to read forever?

Now is their chance to attend kita alef, pre 1A or whatever grade they are, no 2nd chance, we can choose to stay focused and realize that it’s their only chance or we can get distracted through the media fares and panic. When the virus will be gone will our students prime time of learning how to read also be gone?

Let’s fight the long term effect of the corona drama and virus. Let’s stay focused! As long a school is open, let’s focus on continuing with our curriculum objectives and leave the fears outside school buildings!

This unique workbook, intended for children aged 4-5, includes work pages for writing readiness, by drawing circles to complete various tasks.

The goal of the workbook is enabling and strengthening in-hand manipulation, and creating control and limits as preparation for good and correct handwriting.

The workbook is constructed using a unique method of drawing circles that progresses gradually. Beginning with simple, formless circles, up until the creation of a result that is significant to the child, including circles in different sizes and places, so the child will gain satisfaction from what he has drawn and acquire writing skills in the optimal fashion.

The circle drawing process is gradual, experiential, colorful, and spectacular, and includes beautiful pictures that create an exceptionally pleasurable learning experience. We hope you will enjoy the book.

We are pleased to inform you that due to popular demand we are, Be”H, once again offering a Kriah Course for Tutors By Rabbi Dovid Unger Shlit”a.

The course is intended for those who teach kriah to students who have learning difficulties and can benefit from private help to help them succeed.

Throughout the Kriah workshop, you will gain the necessary knowledge, skills and tools to help you in your objective of teaching your students Kriah and get a better understanding of children’s reading struggles and how to help them.

We are here to introduce you to the Kriah Tracking Project.

In the past few years, we’ve been asked by many principals to collect and share kriah testing results from across the schools who are using our curriculum to help with implementation and setting reasonable goals. After months of work we are able to pull this off by starting our new Kriah Tracking Project

The Kriah Tracking Project is a year round program to track progress of students who are in the process of learning how to read. The purpose of this project is to give us a deeper insight on understanding the process and help coaches and teachers make more informed decision for better student outcome.

The project is divided in phases as per the curriculum setup with the initial phase starting immediately collection data for חודש כסלו testing.

The practical steps are as follows:

1. Trained coaches do testing in the schools as per the training given to them earlier this month.
2. Testing data is being submitted by the coach through an online test results submission form.
3. Report and analysis is shared with coaches and participating schools.

We invite all schools using our curriculum in any of the grades to participate in the initiative as this will help us learn and discover new insides over how kids learn to read.

Should you have any questions, please submit your information through the form below and someone of our team will reach out to you.

Teachers and curriculum coaches often express the vital role principals and other school leaders have on curriculum implementation, in this article with share some reasons why it is that way.

Teachers and coaches who feel that the principal is into the curriculum together are subject to more robust implementation.

When a school implements a new curriculum, much support comes from the passion that leaders conveyed about the learning the school is undertaking. The preparation meetings that are arranged, the teamwork and the support the faculty gets plays a key role in the implementation process.

• It is important that the principal addresses teachers’ anxiety about the change, and assures that they would work together and that continuous improvement mattered, not perfection. Lowering the cost of making mistakes and providing safe spaces for teachers to experiment, creates an environment in which teachers are relaxed and express openness to learning new ways of instruction.

• Principals should act as the ‘lead learner’ rather than the ‘lead evaluator’, checking in and out the classroom for the purpose of learning and growing themselves as to how teachers are doing. Teachers will appreciate and praise such visits and the message they will get is “I’m too spending time to learn about this new curriculum and teaching directives”.