Kriah: Connecting to Our Mesorah One Word at a Time
February 20, 2026
From Whole Language to the Science of Hebrew Reading: Takeaways from the Transition to a New Kriah Program
February 20, 2026
Mrs. Rivka Varnai
While the students at our Ivrit b’Ivrit school have consistently demonstrated strong conversational Hebrew and comprehension skills, we recognized that their accuracy in Hebrew reading (kriah) was lagging, as evidenced by both informal and formal data. Our school teaches some Judaic studies classes in Hebrew, with Hebrew immersion, Ivrit B’Ivrit, for all Ivrit. A priority for the school is for the students to develop a love of Israel and a fluency in modern Hebrew. However, we noticed that over the last several years, although our graduates speak and understand Hebrew fluently, their Hebrew reading, on average, contained many mistakes, inaccuracies, and letter and vowel confusions. This became increasingly apparent after COVID-19, when several kriah initiatives that had been underway were paused. We screen first- through fourth-grade students with the MaDyk Hebrew reading screening, and the data was clear. Additionally, the rabbis and teachers shared that during minyan and tefillah, their students were reading aloud with mistakes. Parents, rabbis, teachers, and students all recognized the issue but weren’t aligned on a path forward to close this gap. It was clear, though, that something had to be done to unlock the door to Hebrew reading and enable our students to fully access all opportunities in Jewish life.
Tanach (נחמיה ח:ח) describes how Ezra read the Torah to the Jewish people:
ויקראו בספר בתורת האלקים מפרש ושום שכל ויבינו במקרא
They read from the book of the Torah of Hashem clearly and explained it, and they understood what was written.
This description is especially powerful because it shows a clear progression:
- ויקראו – this is kriah; they read the Torah
- מפרש – clearly; they read it accurately
- ויבינו – they were able to understand the Torah
The first step in Jewish education is for students to learn to read accurately; once this foundation is established, there is the opportunity for lifelong learning.
Addressing Kriah
Two years ago, we launched a schoolwide kriah initiative to address this challenge on multiple levels. This included using data to inform instruction, adopting a new curriculum, creating weekly practice pages to engage both teachers and parents, and hiring a kriah specialist to guide the program and support classroom instruction. Now in year two, we have expanded the program by adopting a more comprehensive curriculum, restructuring the schedule to include biweekly kriah blocks for every grade, and engaging an external consultant. We are already seeing measurable gains in kriah—informally, through parent and teacher feedback, and formally, through testing data.
Assembling a Kriah Team
Conversations and ideas had been circulating for a number of years, and in the summer of 2023-2024, a group of leaders gathered to form a “kriah team.” The team consisted of the director of Judaic studies, the lashon coordinator, the director of student services, the principal, and a kriah specialist. By gathering a team from different departments in the school, varied perspectives were accounted for, and the momentum was built for a plan to move forward. In addition to bringing all the in-school stakeholders together, we knew we had to activate parent involvement to make a real difference. How would we get parents involved and on board?
Parents
The team wanted to create a simple yet effective way for students to practice weekly kriah skills at home so that parents could learn alongside their children and help them practice. They hoped to encourage weekly practice during the school year as well as summer practice at home. Parents had shared that they weren’t sure of the different rules for the vowels, especially in cases where Ashkenazi and Sephardi pronunciations differed. At school, we teach kriah with the Sephardi pronunciation, where kamatz and patach make the same sounds, as do segol and tzeirei, but parents may not have learned it that way when they learned to read.
We decided to create a “kriah key” containing all the basic kriah rules. Developed by Mrs. Nechami Peysin, our kriah specialist, it is a one-pager with two sides that has all the nekudot and their sounds. Additionally, we understood that the shva rules are complicated, so the back of the two-sided sheet contains all the common shva rules, with sample words and explanations in English.
Choosing a Curriculum
The next step was choosing and implementing a kriah curriculum. During year one, we used the Aleph Champ day school curriculum, which provided very clear practice pages for all the vowel sounds. The Aleph Champ day school curriculum is geared toward kindergarten and first grade, and the font is clear and easy to read, with lots of great practice pages in a sequential order. The kids loved reading the sheets and practicing one skill at a time until mastery. We used the program with grades 2-8, and each grade worked on the same skills each week. It worked for the first year, but we realized we needed a more comprehensive curriculum tailored to different age ranges for our next steps.
For year two, we were looking for something more comprehensive that would start with foundational skills and progress to more complicated multisyllabic words. By surveying our resource teachers and partner schools, we analyzed a few choices and decided to use Kriability as our schoolwide kriah curriculum. Kriability is designed for grades K-5, but we use Tal Am for first grade, so we decided to use Kriability for grades 2-8. The Kriability program consists of six books containing hundreds of practice pages. In addition to practicing letters and nekudot in isolation, there are many different opportunities to practice reading words and sentences, as well as spelling exercises. The books are arranged by skill level and difficulty, and children work their way through each level.
The Kriah Block
Two problems arose: one was the schedule, the other was sustainability. The feedback that we kept hearing was that teachers didn’t have time to devote to kriah teaching, and during year one, the lessons were taught unevenly in the classes. Some teachers really bought into the curriculum and identified more strongly with the mission, so they carved out consistent time to work on kriah a few times a week, while other teachers would just do a quick review of the skills once a week. The kriah team came up with a solution to carve out consistent times in the schedule, making it manageable and sustainable for teachers. We came up with a kriah block for the primary grades. Every primary grade (1-4) has two 30-minute kriah blocks each week dedicated to teaching Kriability (or Tal Am in first grade). During those kriah blocks, there are three teachers in the room: the classroom teacher, assistant teacher, and a Judaic studies resource teacher. The kriah block begins with a whole-group lesson using the BenQ board, and then the children split into small groups to practice with teachers. For the middle school, the teachers elected to devote Friday lashon lessons to kriah.
Sustainability
Sustainability was another area of concern that came up. How could we invest in a core group of teachers and train them in the curriculum so the school has the talent and expertise to keep this curriculum running from year to year? We addressed this issue from a few different angles. First, we hired an in-house kriah specialist to lead this program. She was tasked with becoming an expert in Kriability through independent learning and training directly with Kriability. As the in-house expert, she is tasked with answering questions that arise, sending weekly kriah emails with lessons for the week ahead, and providing ongoing support to the teachers. Additionally, all the lashon teachers teach the kriah lessons, so they receive direct training from Kriability and from our own kriah specialist. As the year goes on, we are noticing how teachers are becoming more comfortable with the curriculum and are helping each other with ideas and strategies.
The Data
The kriah improvement was evident quickly and quite dramatically. For example, on the MaDyk Hebrew reading assessment for third grade last year, after one year of Aleph Champ intervention, one class’s kriah accuracy average improved over 19 percentage points from spring 2024 to spring 2025. I’ve included a chart with third-grade growth data from four years, 2021-2022 through 2024-2025. (Note the dramatic dip during COVID-19.)
The data, both formal and informal, demonstrated the need to address kriah and shows that our interventions have been effective. As we look to the future, the following are questions that we are still working on:
- How will we monitor the progress across all grades, and especially in our middle school?
- After reaching a certain acceptable standard for kriah skill, do we need to continue to target every grade, or are the younger grades enough?
- How do we take the reading skills the students mastered and ensure they are applying them to daily Jewish living skills, such as minyan and davening?
By thinking outside the box, assembling a team of educational leaders, and working with families and students using high-quality materials, schools can address the kriah needs of their students and produce accurate Hebrew readers ready to contribute to Jewish life and learning.
Mrs. Rivka Varnai holds a BA in general and special education from Touro University, a Master of Education in Reading with Reading Specialist Certification for grades K-12 from National Louis University, and Illinois State Board of Education certification in Elementary Education for grades K-9 with an LBS1 endorsement. Rivka has extensive training, skills, and experience in the top literacy intervention programs and assessments. She serves as the director of student services at Hillel Torah North Suburban Day School in Skokie, IL, and she is passionate about kriah and teaching children to read Hebrew with accuracy and fluency.