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Forum -> Chinuch, Education & Schooling
Rivka schonfeld
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momesq




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Sep 28 2014, 5:18 pm
Has anyone tried rifvka schonfeld's workshops CDs for kriya, reading or spelling. I just saw the ad in this weeks binah and I definitely need help for my 3rd grade DD. I'm just not interested in wasting my money.
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granolamom




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Sep 28 2014, 7:38 pm
I called her a few years ago, we spoke for a while and she described her program and iirc, she even emailed me some samples. I dont remember why I didnt go ahead with it, but why dont you call her and discuss what you are looking for/need? I recall that she was very nice and pleasant to talk to.
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amother


 

Post Sun, Sep 28 2014, 8:27 pm
Now I dont know if this would bother you or not but keep in mind that she has no special degrees and yet she charges a lot. Notice how theres no initials after her name like Ms or MSW etc. I took my daughter there for therapy yrs ago, she charged a fortune (especially for someone who has no degree!) and it was a total waste of money!
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granolamom




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Sep 28 2014, 8:40 pm
oops, I may have mixed her up with someone else. I think the person I spoke with was a certified teacher. possibly with special ed degree as well.
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seeker




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Sep 28 2014, 11:43 pm
Just curious how much money we're talking about? Wondering what the market is like.

There are a couple of threads about a year old in the related topics under this post, worth checking out probably.
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TwinsMommy




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Sep 29 2014, 11:06 am
I'm not local so can't use in person workshops but did you say CD's? Can you point me towards a website to look at those? I've got two special needs kiddos in public school who need more interesting ways to work on kriyah at home rather than mommy or Abba saying "repeat after me..... now YOU do the next line...".
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seeker




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Sep 29 2014, 3:37 pm
I think the website is RifkaSchonfeldSOS.com or something like that. Google her. She does sell CD's, I don't know anything about them but if you're basically looking for alternatives to "read this, now that" I'm sure it will have something useful for you, though I'm not sure what the price point is. It'll be geared towards kids with difficulties in reading, not sure if your kids have that.
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momesq




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Sep 29 2014, 4:00 pm
Thanks. I'm looking for tried and true testimonials of those who used the program. I've spent too much on tutors therapists etc.
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amother


 

Post Mon, Sep 29 2014, 5:59 pm
Several years ago I bought her Kriyah Dynamics thing. It was $350 plus $50 (!) shipping, which she lowered to $25 after I refused to pay $50. Guess what I got? A fat binder full of xeroxed copies of the kind of worksheets a rebbe/morah would send home. Just rows of osios with little hand-drawn doodles. They were grainy, as if they were copies of copies, and some were copied crooked. There was also a very slim spiral bound "book" with tips and game ideas, 90% of which I knew already. I don't know what she's currently selling (I see her Kriyah Dynamics now comes with a CD), but please ask to see everything before you buy it. I live OOT so had to rely on a phone conversation with her. I would not have purchased if I had been able to see it beforehand.
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amother


 

Post Mon, Sep 29 2014, 6:02 pm
OP, if you post more details about your dd maybe I can give suggestions. I'm an SLP (OOT) who works a lot with kids who have reading issues, and I have a child who had these challenges as well (successfully overcome thanks to lots of work and a really great program, BH!). Happy to give advice if you want.
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seeker




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Sep 29 2014, 6:05 pm
For individual treatment you would probably get much more bang for your buck from a different program or provider, depending on your needs (if you describe more what you're looking for maybe we can provide better leads.) If you're looking for ideas to try yourself at home, as TwinsMommy was asking, the CDs might be worth a look depending on their cost. There's also a program I have seen advertised called "PATT" = parents as trained tutors which sounds interesting though I don't know anything about it beyond the ads; I think they offer a free sample conference call or something.
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amother


 

Post Mon, Sep 29 2014, 6:19 pm
TwinsMommy, I have a first grader in public school. I recently purchased Kriyah Coach, an interactive CD that teaches kriyah. It starts off with a review of the alef bais letters and sounds and then goes through each of the nekudos. Part of it is a rebbe teaching in a classroom, complete with first grade humor. My son loves it. There are also games to reinforce the letters/nekudos and little animated parts that are cute. It was maybe $28 - I think it was worthwhile. My son is picking up kriyah from the CD - he has special needs so I don't know if he'll actually learn to read perfectly from it, but it's certainly helping!
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TwinsMommy




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Sep 29 2014, 8:48 pm
I was considering Kriyah coach but then both twins quickly learned their alef bais and nekudos--- so they're past that stage..... they need work on fluency-- reading without being choppy and taking lots of frustrated breaks--- beginning vocab, work on k'sivah skills---- sounds like this program isn't for us, nor is kriyah coach but does kriyah coach have a more advanced version that doesn't focus on osiyos and nekudos but more on reading sentences and beginning to teich? feel free to pm me because now I'm off topic. back to talking about this gal--- $350 for a bunch of worksheets is highway robbery in my opinion, wow.
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seeker




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Sep 29 2014, 9:13 pm
So the CD is $350? Wow.
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TwinsMommy




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Sep 29 2014, 9:17 pm
nah I was referring to the system that amother bought for $350 --- don't know if the CD is cheaper-- it MUST be, but still it's not for us if it's focused on decoding and not on sentence fluency games and teiching, etc.
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seeker




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Sep 29 2014, 9:44 pm
amother wrote:
Several years ago I bought her Kriyah Dynamics thing. It was $350 plus $50 (!) shipping, which she lowered to $25 after I refused to pay $50. Guess what I got? A fat binder full of xeroxed copies of the kind of worksheets a rebbe/morah would send home. Just rows of osios with little hand-drawn doodles. They were grainy, as if they were copies of copies, and some were copied crooked. There was also a very slim spiral bound "book" with tips and game ideas, 90% of which I knew already. I don't know what she's currently selling (I see her Kriyah Dynamics now comes with a CD), but please ask to see everything before you buy it. I live OOT so had to rely on a phone conversation with her. I would not have purchased if I had been able to see it beforehand.

I don't know if you can blame the seller if you knew the tips and ideas already... you're just that smart, many people literally know nothing about teaching reading so any valid tips would be of value to them. As for the rest of your experience - well, thanks for sharing. Meh.
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Tirza




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Sep 29 2014, 10:43 pm
My experience with Rivkah Schoenfeld was very negative. I took my (then 8 year old daughter) to her for help with reading fluency. She spent half of the session bragging about her "phenomenal success rate" and the second half sitting with my daughter in a locked room, going over a reading comprehension passage that was at least 3 grade levels above her ability. She charged me $250, didn't offer any advice about how to help my daughter, and just kept insisting that I book another appointment for $150 for the following week. I walked away and never returned.
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amother


 

Post Mon, Sep 29 2014, 11:15 pm
Quote:
I don't know if you can blame the seller if you knew the tips and ideas already

I don't. I just wanted to explain what I got so OP knows to ask detailed questions before buying. When I bought the program I was under the impression that there was much more than an extremely slim volume of tips being offered. The description I was given over the phone didn't match reality.
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seeker




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Sep 30 2014, 12:00 am
All right, just checking. I checked out the sample pages on her website and while they are not revolutionary (and, seriously, Comic Sans??) they looked like good solid tips for someone who did not know much about teaching before. Though $350 sounds obscene, and have they never heard of priority flat-rate shipping? There are no prices on the website though. It would be a lot more normal if the price and buying experience were in line with other CDs and books in this genre.
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amother


 

Post Tue, Sep 30 2014, 12:30 am
Yes, I agree her tips are fine, and useful for people with little background in teaching. (One thing she's wrong about, though, is this repeated warning: "Never move to a later stage until the previous one is fully, one hundred percent mastered." It took my son two years to master the difference between beis and veis, for example. A spiral approach, with many opportunities to revisit material, was what he needed, and blending simple CVC words helped tremendously with finally learning some of the harder osios. Many kids with reading challenges are like my son in that way.)

For anyone considering buying, I counted the number of pages in the tips book. It's 28 pages long (text on one side of page only). So those 5 sample pages on her site constitute almost 1/5 of the entire book that I paid $350 plus insane shipping for (plus the fat binder of old worksheets). Again, I don't know what she's currently selling, so my information may no longer be relevant.

I could have gotten the same info by sitting down with a kriah tutor and paying her to spend an hour telling me what she does, which would not have cost $400. But hopefully the CD is much cheaper. Someone could really do a chesed and make some money at the same time by putting together a nice, professionally done app to work on these skills.
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