Four year old having a hard time with Aleph Bais

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amother

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 4:30 pm

Does anyone know how I can teach my child the aleph bais, she knows up to ‘heh’ but after that she’s mixing up all the letters. Her class is already up to ‘yud’ but she can’t keep up. I’ve been focusing on one letter a week but as much I show her and review she keeps calling zayin daled and vav veis and so on. I don’t know how teach/review it with her. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

mha3484

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 4:33 pm

What do her morahs say? I think 4 is young and some times it just clicks when they get older.

amother

Red

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 4:36 pm

This isn't unusual for age four. But usually judaica stores have games or books that can allow you to reinforce the learning in a fun way.

keym

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 4:57 pm

Games. Bingo, lotto, matching.

amother

Babyblue

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 5:16 pm

I know my kids had exercises specifically aimed at distinguishing look-alike letter pairs. Bet and kaf, reish and daled, vav and zayin.

Just One

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 5:18 pm

Speak to her morah to find out how important it is for her to pick it up this year. Four is quite young but if they'll be focusing on kriah next yr she needs to have the foundation this year. If they'll be relearning it well next year just let her be a kid and don't stress yourself out.
If the teacher feels it's important for her to learn it this year ask her for methods and resources you can use.
Games are good for retention, not teaching.

amother

Mint

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 6:46 pm

Does she know colors and shapes? Just asking to see if she can remember the names for those things that are also visual

trixx

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 6:48 pm

https://scenicrouteliteracy.co.....bais/

amother

Goldenrod

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 6:52 pm

First rule out vision!
My 9 yr old is still struggling with kriah. We just discovered major vision issues that a regular eye dr didnt pick up. Wish wouldve known when he was that age. I noticed already difficulty at age 4 but didnt know what issue was.

Motherhood

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 8:26 pm

I’m dealing now with a student that is having difficulty with the aleph bais. Can you try it the other way around? Instead of asking her what is this, ask her to show you the “vav”. She may have a word retrieval problem and nothing else.

amother

Jetblack

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 8:29 pm

4 is still young. Are they learning it this year so they should know it or just to get acquainted with the letters? By us they learn it in nursery but don't expect the kids to know it. In kindergarten thay really learn it well.

amother

Puce

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 8:31 pm

amother [ Goldenrod ] wrote:

What kind of eye dr picked it up? What are the issues? How are you addressing them?

amother

Taupe

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 8:33 pm

amother [ Jetblack ] wrote:

In Lakewood kids are expected to know the aleph Bais when starting primary.

amother

Mauve

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 8:39 pm

4 is young, I wouldn't be concerned yet. Keep practicing, buy toys with aleph beis and play games with her. Just keep exposing her at this point.

amother

Red

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 8:40 pm

amother [ Taupe ] wrote:

In Lakewood kids are expected to know the aleph Bais when starting primary.

It's only the end of December. Primary doesn't start for another 8 months.. there will be plenty of practice and repetition by then.

amother

Goldenrod

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 8:42 pm

amother [ Puce ] wrote:

What kind of eye dr picked it up? What are the issues? How are you addressing them?

Went to a special eye dr for cash that did a thorough evaluation. Everything related in vision. He has eye contingency which is causing double vision. So he basically sees as if one sentence ontop of other

Not saying this is issue but should definitely rule out a vision issue

amother

Jetblack

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 8:46 pm

amother [ Taupe ] wrote:

In Lakewood kids are expected to know the aleph Bais when starting primary.

Isn't primary pre 1 a? In nursery they introduce the aleph bais, in kindergarten they really learn it, in pre 1A they do nekudos and start kriah.

amother

Salmon

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 9:14 pm

I think you should take this seriously. Don't panic, but definitely consider getting a fun, warm, loving kriah expert who uses multi-sensory Orton-Gillingham type activities (make sure it's not just a morah and not just someone who took a short kriah course) to work with her (play based activities since she's so little).

My son at 4 was the same. He couldn't remember past "hey". We had testing done when he was a bit older and found that his issues were with short-term memory, word retrieval, symbolic cognition, and some other stuff. We worked so long and hard with him, hired tutors for years, did everything we could, and he's a kid who still struggles enormously in school. Kriah was so hard for him despite us doing everything we could. He's very behind in learning and has low self-confidence and behavior issues. This has impacted our whole family on multiple levels, especially because he struggles with yiddishkeit since he doesn't feel successful with his learning. It's so painful.

If I could do things over again I would have hired someone excellent to work with him back when he was 4 instead of doing aleph bais enrichment activities with him on my own. I shouldn't have waited until he was 6.

I'm not trying to scare you, OP. Iy"H your child's situation will be quite different. But you won't lose out by being proactive instead of taking a wait and see approach.

amother

Honeydew

Wed, Dec 30 2020, 9:19 pm

My 4 year old was also having a hard remembering which letter was which. Her Morah had recommended to put pictures/drawings around the house of whatever letter she is learning that week in order to help her learn and remember the letter. I did not get up to doing that and around that time that I spoke to her Morah about it I bought the book Alef Beis Adventures With Ziggawat. The first book has the letters Alef-Yud and has a story involving each letter. It also has hints for the shape of each letter and I would try to reinforce the hint and show my daughter the shape in order to help her remember. We would also review her homework from alef until what she was up to each weekend. But I stopped feeling pressured about it because I did not want her to feel it especially since she is only 4 and she may just need to get a little older before it all clicks. I need to decide if she will repeat kindergarten or go ahead to Primary/Pre-1A due to when her birthday falls out, and needed to take how well she was catching on to the Alef-Bais into account.

Her Morah also mentioned there is another method for teaching it that some people use and that if we needed to we would look into trying it out, but at this point bli ayin hara things seem to be moving along better.

So Op, as others mentioned, there could be something else going on, but I just wanted to mention this book in case it's something that would be helpful for you. It seems to me that it reinforces the letters in a fun way for the kids and also provides helpful hints for remembering them. (As far as I am aware, I am not affiliated with anything having to do with this book.)

amother

Smokey

Thu, Dec 31 2020, 9:46 am

My son had this at age 4. I used memory tricks for the letters. Basketballs bais (or button Bais) doorknob daled, hopping hay, very straight vav, zig zag zayin, challah ches (made the shape out of challah) taffy tes (made the shape out of a laffy taffy), candy kaf, ladder lammed, are some that I remember - some are mine and most are from his school. My favorite was chaf- I said that when my grandfather didn’t have a candy to clear his throat, from candy kaf, he used to make the “ch” sound due to his congestive heart failure, while trying to spit up phlegm ... well I was desperate for mnemonics and it did work Smile

Also he’s a November baby so I had him repeat pre 1 a (that’s the kindergarten year of age 5). Then, in the summer after his second time around, we did kriah all summer long with a slurpee chart. Finally he seems to be okay. Other things I did was pour salt on a plate and have him draw all of the alef Bais letters in salt before starting kriah. I also bought a cute Judaica alef Bais puzzle that had themes behind each letter - like yud had Yerushalayim behind it.

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