In frum schools, what exactly is meant by "kriah"?

JoyInTheMorning

Fri, Aug 09 2019, 8:33 am

I've seen the term "kriah" used in chinuch contexts. For example, in one of the Lakewood school threads, there was a discussion of whether some Lakewood schools for girls were more or less advanced than BYBP for kriah.

Kriah means reading, so I thought kriah as a school subject referred to learning how to read Hebrew. I'm having trouble understanding how this is a subject for more than one academic year. I figure that depending on a school's curriculum, students learn it in kindergarten or first grade. But Hebrew is a phonetic language, and once you learn the sounds of the letters and the nekudot, that's it, or so I would think. How is it an ongoing subject?

For boys, does it refer also to learning how to lein with trope?

Thanks in advance for explaining.

JoyInTheMorning

Fri, Aug 09 2019, 8:54 am

Simple1 wrote:

In later grades it's about fluency, speed and accuracy.

I'm still puzzled. If kids practice, they'll get it, unless there's a learning disability or some vision issues. Davening itself gives a tremendous amount of practice. Maybe you can memorize parts of davening, but in the early years, you frequently add new things, so there's plenty of opportunity for practice of new material. How is this considered an academic subject?

(I say this as someone who has been horrified at the disengagement of many kids (not mine, B"H) from davening in MO schools. Obviously you have to insist that kids actually daven in order for it to work.) I guess I'm just puzzled that this is an issue at all: are there RW schools where kids, say by the time they reach fourth grade, aren't perfectly fluent readers of Hebrew?

JoyInTheMorning

Fri, Aug 09 2019, 8:56 am

animeme wrote:

Also Rashi.

Okay, yes, that's a different story. Most Rashi texts don't have nekudot. Plus there's no punctuation, so you have to understand what Rashi is saying in order to parse it correctly and pause in the right places. Plus the script is so poorly reproduced in many of the sefarim they give out that it really is hard to distinguish between different letters.

That makes more sense. Thanks.

Simple1

Fri, Aug 09 2019, 9:02 am

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

In my girls' school, it ends after 4th grade or so. Also, at the older end of that range, I don't think it's an academic subject, more like they get practice homework sheets to read. Don't know about other schools.

Last edited by Simple1 on Fri, Aug 09 2019, 9:04 am; edited 1 time in total

amother

Mistyrose

Fri, Aug 09 2019, 9:11 am

Even though Hebrew is easier to read as it's phonetic, it's harder to master when it's not your native language. Unlike in English, where a nice portion of reading skills later on in elementary school is based on context clues, you don't have that when you don't understand what you're reading. More so, especially in grades 2-4 you don't have the motivation to read quickly and efficiently as you do in English because you don't understand what you're reading so there's no added element of accomplishment. That's why kriah is a struggle more than English reading in many schools

amother

Bisque

Fri, Aug 09 2019, 9:12 am

To reach optimal level of accuracy and speed, Hebrew reading (kriah) needs to be practiced for several years. When a child reads for meaning, meaning they understand what they are reading, that gives them the motivation to continue reading. The more they read the speed and accuracy picks up.

Today many schools teach the meaning of each part of davening. Many of these kids are more likely to daven when on vacation without being promoted.

keym

Fri, Aug 09 2019, 9:29 am

My experience is that davening is not really utilized for kriah practice.
The davening is mostly singing and chanting that they learned when they were young and they know it by heart.
In my kids schools, kriah is done with in grades 1-4 with unfamiliar text like Tehillim or a megilla so kids dont revert to memorization.
Each child is pulled out for 10 minutes a week. Their speed and accuracy are recorded and the goal is to improve both.
For example: week 1: read 50 words in 5 minutes, made 8 mistakes.
Week 2: read 52 words in 5 minutes, made 7 mistakes.

Homework is reading a few lines a few times a week for improvement.

As a teacher said to me, long term goal is for the child to become an adult who can read kinnus on tisha bav or slichos or all the extras on yomim noraim and be able to read comfortably and keep up with what everyones saying.

JoyInTheMorning

Fri, Aug 09 2019, 9:33 am

Reality wrote:

In my personal experience, the BY schools place a tremendous stress on perfectly pronouncing every word for davening. So they teach every "shva na" and "shva nach" for example.

I don't think that this is taught in the MO schools. Am I wrong?

Hmm. I didn't go to an MO school. I went to a school that was right-wing, affiliated with the Bais Yaakov movement, but not exactly a Bais Yaakov when I was there. There was an emphasis on dikduk, but most of the teachers were not that well versed on shva na vs shva nach, if I recall correctly. I learned that distinction from my mother, who is an expert on that. My teachers were also not great on making sure to put stress on the correct syllable. Two teachers, one male and (then) middle-aged or old; one female and (then) young, were wonderful exceptions and role models in this regard, but it certainly wasn't across the board.

Is it taught in MO schools? Not the ones I've interacted with. Worse, mistakes aren't corrected. Confuse shin and sin? As far as teachers are concerned, it's all okay. I'm horrified by this because mistakes get reinforced. I made sure to get my kids to read Pirkei Avot end to end under my supervision the summer after kindergarten in order to practice reading Hebrew and to make sure they got it right. Of course the phrasing is much easier in Pirkei Avot because of the clear structure, but I think those cues are helpful, though not actual crutches, when learning how to read.

I'm not a cruel mother. It's not like this took the whole summer. It was just an activity that we did for half an hour or an hour each Shabbat afternoon. (Plus we discussed the meaning of each mishnah after we read it, which is great for character development.) Add that to bentching and davening during the week, and there is room for plenty of practice without making kids feel overburdened.

JoyInTheMorning

Fri, Aug 09 2019, 9:44 am

amother [ Scarlet ] wrote:

I went to a mo school. I remember being tested in kriyah in 4th grade. a lot of kids just mumble their way through davening especially once they daven quietly to themselves.so I wouldn't depend on davening to teach kriya

In lower and middle school in my school, the job of chazanit rotated randomly among the girls. So each girl had plenty of practice reading a whole lot aloud. Who knows, maybe they memorized those parts.

amother

Scarlet

Fri, Aug 09 2019, 9:55 am

you said you went to a by type of school. I didn't. don't remember anything about a chazanit but its been a while. In junior high we davened with the "minyan" so no leading the davening then. In highschool it was the same one or two girls the whole time. noone else wanted to.

my dd is going in to 4th grade and she hasn't had a chazanit yet but thinks the older grades do. She did have kriya.

my dh has a reading disability. He struggles when reading out loud. He has been shliach tzibbur many times. Probably more then most men. He just practiced it a ton. leining he stays away from because its different each week.

JoyInTheMorning

Fri, Aug 09 2019, 10:05 am

amother [ Scarlet ] wrote:

Kudos to your DH! (As for leining, he might want to try learning some of the sections that come up a lot, like the leining for Rosh Chodesh.)

And yes, regarding BY vs MO schools: There is certainly an irony in the fact that girls in BY or BY-like schools get to be in leadership positions a lot more often than girls in MO schools, where they are together with the boys, and the boys take all the leadership positions.

Reality

Fri, Aug 09 2019, 10:12 am

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

I am talking about what is taught in the Bais Yaakov's today not when we were in elementary school.

Again, this is my experience in one Brooklyn Bais Yaakov. They place a huge stress on dikduk. They test the girls and mark them on every nekudah in a word.

These are not tests for the report card. These are oral tests administered by their in house kriah department. If your child does poorly they reccomend resource room.

I agree that the children may not connect kriah and davening but the teachers and admin sure do!

PinkFridge

Fri, Aug 09 2019, 10:13 am

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

Mystics Mavericks and Merrymakers Wink

Kol hakavod for thinking and being mechanech your children.
The emphasis on kriah, a school doing its best to make sure no child is left behind, is because if a child doesn't get kriah when young, s/he'll be struggling through her/his education and that's one way for a child to disenfranchised, slip OTD, etc.

amother

Apricot

Fri, Aug 09 2019, 10:21 am

amother [ Bisque ] wrote:

This. My MIL did not do the kriah hw practice with her kids growing up. Every single one has difficulties with reading and understanding Hebrew. And many of them are very bright students.

My DH's biggest struggle with Gemara is just reading and understanding the actual text. Once he gets it, he can come up with great questions and answers, but the lack of fluency really hinders him.