The Reading Wars and the Impact on Jewish Schools

Mrs. Chana Luchins

When parents send their children to yeshiva or Jewish day school, they may take it for granted that their children will graduate being able to read Hebrew. However, we are not immune to the zeitgeist of the culture around us. About twenty-five years ago, the Whole Language, immersive approach to Hebrew reading began sweeping the modern Orthodox school world. It was well-intentioned, exciting, and based on current research and ideas about reading prevalent at the time, and it was heavily predicated on the connections between spoken and written language. 

Over the subsequent years, a generation of Jewish children in grades 1-5 were taught by loving, well-meaning teachers with thrilling, high-interest, whole language, social-emotional-learning-infused curricular materials, designed to keep the attention of modern-day children and build a rich Hebrew literacy environment. Unfortunately, as happened when the Whole Language movement swept the English reading world over this period, the number of students who could not decode traditional Hebrew texts in middle school increased.

The Reading Wars

The Reading Wars refers to the debate over the best way to teach children to read. There were two sides in this debate, known as Whole Language and Structured Literacy, as well as a middle, compromise position called Balanced Literacy. Changing the way reading is taught represents a major investment in curriculum, training, and mindset, and there were very strong opinions on each side of the debate. 

The Whole Language approach conflates the acquisition of spoken language with phonemic awareness, decoding, and fluency, and is premised on a couple of key ideas. One fundamental notion was not separating the different facets of language development, namely, speaking, thinking, reading, and writing.  A second truism was that learning must be more student-driven and authentic to a child’s natural affinities. A lot of this was rooted in the philosophical premise that language is social and best learned through authentic experiences. Thus, applying these same ideas to reading meant that children would learn to read through exposure only to authentic texts and trade books that follow the child’s interests.

In the Whole Language model, meaning drives learning. It assumes that children read in a manner similar to experienced adults, constructing their own meaning from their experiences. Similarly, students would become writers just by writing, without explicit, direct instruction. There is no emphasis on letter formation, handwriting, or spelling, as these are not natural phenomena. This approach, which asserted the notion that reading is as naturally wired into the brain as speaking, had a major impact on Hebrew language instruction and reading in Jewish day schools. 

Current research supports the Structured Literacy approach to reading, based on what is known as the Science of Reading. Structured Literacy proponents argue that successful decoding instruction must be systematic, organized, and multi-sensory. Phonemic, phonological, and morphological skills can and must all be taught explicitly, systematically, and to automaticity. Each stage of reading must be taught to mastery, beginning with phonemic awareness and phoneme-grapheme connection. Writing is a tool to build both decoding and encoding, especially in the younger grades, through simple word and sentence dictations. There is explicit, organized instruction on understanding word structure and consonant-vowel patterns, including base words, prefixes and suffixes, and sentence structures. Students read controlled text.

In response to criticism that so many children were not learning to read with Whole Language instruction, a newer approach became more popular, emphasizing a word-study or phonics component to balance Whole Language. This was termed Balanced Literacy, and it made reading ever more complicated, as students learned both traditional phonics and Whole Language strategies simultaneously and in a disorganized fashion. 

In the Jewish education world, school leaders and teachers turned themselves into pretzels, trying to weave more phonics-based Hebrew reading into their primarily Whole Language Hebrew language programs. This was complicated and confusing, and continues unabated in our schools, as principals struggle to balance instructional needs and communicate effectively with stakeholders about the changes needed for our students’ success. In the secular world, this was also eventually deemed a failing approach by experts in reading disabilities and dyslexia, because it was confusing and not systematic enough. However, it remains a dominant model in many schools.

Hebrew Language Reading and Speaking

All living, spoken languages shift constantly, especially from generation to generation. However, the changes are small enough that the generations can understand one another, at least most of the time! Written language changes more slowly but also shifts over time. This is as true about Hebrew as any other language. 

In Jewish day schools, we expose our children to the Hebrew language in many forms, as the language has and continues to evolve over time. For the purposes of this article, I will focus on two general forms of Hebrew: the Hebrew of davening and Chumash, and modern Hebrew apropos for students in grades 1-5. 

Let’s begin with the written Hebrew of the Chumash and siddur, which is written with nekudot. This text-based language is phonetically regular, has many complex linguistic rules, and a high number of syllables per word. This Hebrew requires foundational phonemic awareness, sound-symbol correspondence, and multi-syllabic word fluency. The language is sophisticated with a subtle vocabulary, where small changes have significant meaning. Students are expected to be able to decode in traditional print, script, and (what are termed) Rashi letters. 

It is possible to decode this Hebrew with nekudot, even if one has little to no comprehension, although fluency increases with understanding. Because this Hebrew is not the spoken or written language of the country where any of us live, children have no additional opportunities to practice or get additional exposure to this language beyond what they practice in school or other formal learning programs.

The second form of the language is modern Hebrew. Most students at this age are still exposed to reading this language with nekudot. The vocabulary is repetitive and fairly simple. The words have fewer syllables and are linguistically simpler. Reading the word ‘toast’ in Hebrew is not as syllabically rich as the words in the siddur or the Chumash. Think of a word in basic Modeh Ani, like ‘lifanecha’, which has four syllables, compared to English or modern Hebrew, where the more complex elementary words at an equivalent level might have two or three syllables. 

For a long time, we were sold the idea that if our children focused on learning modern Hebrew, they would miraculously, or at least simultaneously and automatically, be able to read and understand the Hebrew in a siddur or Chumash. It seemed to be a win-win to immerse students in an environment that featured lots of modern Hebrew, as students would learn the language of Israel and also gain access to Torah texts they encounter in school and beyond. 

Observing our children over the last generation, we know now that this model does not work for everyone and has led to many children needing individual reading support in the older grades. In our noble quest to create a rich Hebrew-language environment, foundational phonemic awareness, sound-symbol correspondence, and multisyllabic fluency with nekudot became de-emphasized. As children entered middle school, some were struggling with reading more linguistically complex words and did not have strong ‘word attack’ skills to approach the unfamiliar. They could not divide words into syllables, sound out unfamiliar words, and then blend those syllables together.

Instead, they were using the common Whole Language strategies of using context clues from surrounding text or pictures, memorized vocabulary, sight words, or guess and check from the beginning of the word. With the subtle vocabulary and complex rules of this Hebrew, where one letter can change the meaning of the word, this approach was not helpful. While some of these strategies are beneficial after mastering fundamental decoding, especially once students are reading without nekudot, when they are applied without foundational skills, they lead to tragic consequences as students stumble in their reading of traditional Jewish texts. Also, because the vocabulary of traditional Hebrew differs from modern Hebrew, students need additional instruction to build their vocabulary base.

With such a large percentage of the current Jewish population speaking modern Hebrew, there is certainly an important value in developing fluency in modern spoken Hebrew as a school subject; it is clear, however, that these two vital skill goals need to be separated to be achieved. An immersive Hebrew language experience promotes spoken Hebrew skills and builds vocabulary and literacy. In the long term, this approach will help build the ability to read modern Hebrew without nekudot, as having a rich vocabulary, using context clues, and relying on strong sight-word reading become crucial for reading like an adult. But language immersion and sight-reading cannot be relied on in place of explicit decoding instruction. It was a mistake to assume that this would occur naturally without explicit instruction!

Responsibility as Leaders to Prioritize our Children’s Needs

I am not espousing a popular idea, and it is difficult to bust the myth that traditional Hebrew reading and textual skills are the same as speaking and reading basic modern Hebrew. But the reality is that participation in Jewish communal and religious life works best when people can read the Hebrew of the siddur and the Chumash. Our many amazing schools, with excellent educators, continue to produce very successful graduates with strong skills. Nonetheless, in the aggregate, we have a responsibility to the Jewish people to prioritize providing the best instructional practices in our schools.

As a school leader observing too many children struggling to participate in davening and Torah classes, often due to embarrassment or frustration with their Hebrew reading skills, it recently became clear that change just could not wait another year. Even one child evidencing some difficulties is too much, as each child is a world and will produce generations of descendants. When we change the instruction in the whole class, rather than providing alternate instruction just for the struggling readers, we change the trajectory of the Jewish people. 

We had successfully transitioned the English reading program from a Whole Language to the Structured Literacy model, with spectacular improvements in our reading screenings. Now, it was time to do the same for Hebrew reading, and neshamot were in the balance. Our children today already face so many religious challenges, and we need to provide every child with the reading tools they need to be participating members of the community, not just the natural readers. While the teachers were nervous, they were superb and growth-oriented, and we all took the plunge together. Here was our plan:

The Plan

1. Identify a research-based program that melded the best elements of a mesorah -based program with structured literacy/science of reading.
2. Reallocate limited funds for training three internal administrators/teachers as lead coaches and provide for groups of teachers in grades K-5 to have kriah training. Reallocate limited resources to focus all support on kriah instead of any other Judaic studies as a priority for the pilot year. In subsequent years, support can be more balanced between kriah, Chumash, and Hebrew language.
3. Encourage a passionate staff member to be the leader and meet with the teachers individually to assist with pacing and to answer questions, in addition to their regular supervisor. 
4. Work with the outside trainer to adapt an Orton-Gillingham-based program and implement it in our school’s station rotation model. 
5. Redo schedules to increase time for teacher training and meetings and increase the kriah time slot, while reducing other subjects strategically. 

Results and the Future

The immediate results by the second year of implementation are stark, as reading scores have increased on regular assessments. This is an ongoing initiative and will continue to grow and develop. As foundational fluency increases in the elementary grades, students in middle school will have greater capacity to build their vocabulary and sight-word reading skills, which are crucial for reading without nekudot. We will monitor the children’s progress, and may we have siyatadishmaya in our endeavors. 

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Mrs. Chana Luchins is the principal of general studies at Rabbi Pesach Raymon Yeshiva in Edison, NJ. She began teaching in 1995 and has served at RPRY for over 15 years. Mrs. Luchins holds an MS in special education from Touro Graduate School of Education and Psychology and supervisory certification through Rutgers University Graduate School of Education and Psychology. She is a New York and New Jersey certified teacher, with supervisory certification in New Jersey. Mrs. Luchins completed both the Hidden Sparks and YouLead leadership training programs.

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