In 2009, Hazzan Dr. Scott M. Sokol (now Rav-Hazzan) was the Korman Family Professor of Jewish Education at Hebrew College, Newton Centre, Massachusetts. He is also a board certified pediatric neuropsychologist and a hazzan and a rabbi in the Conservative Jewish Movement. He brings a unique perspective to the topic of Hebrew language acquisition from both neuro-cognitive and religious practice points of view.

His presentation, "Teaching Hebrew in Jewish Educational Settings", at the 2009 GISHA Conference focused on the results of a survey filled out by 40 synagogues, day schools and community-based supplementary schools in the Greater Boston area. The survey sought to answer the following general questions (S.M. Sokol, PowerPoint presentation, GISHA Conference, April, 2009):

1. Who are your teachers?
   
   
2. Is Hebrew language integrated into the overall education program of your school?
   
   
3. What are the goals of Hebrew language instruction?
   
   
4. What curriculum do you use for Hebrew instruction?
   
   
5. Do you have supports for students with special needs?

The following were posed to determine educational philosophies and priorities of Hebrew language instruction (S.M. Sokol, PowerPoint presentation, GISHA Conference, April, 2009):

1. Students should be able to decode Hebrew fluently. (Decode)
   
   
2. Students should be able to translate biblical or siddur texts with a dictionary. (Translate)
   
   
3. Students should be able to carry on simple conversations in Modern Hebrew. (Converse)
   
   
4. Students should be fluent speakers of Modern Hebrew. (Speak fluently)

His findings revealed that day schools use multiple curricula for Hebrew instruction, especially for Modern Hebrew, and synagogue-based schools use curricula that support the fluent reading of t'fillah (prayer). He also concluded that across educations settings Hebrew decoding was a shared goal of primary importance.

Dr. Sokol described the Dual-Route Model of Reading as being made up of two dissociated neurological systems (S.M. Sokol, PowerPoint presentation, GISHA Conference, April, 2009):

1. Grapheme/Phoneme Conversion System - the mechanism used to sound out letters into words. The result of this system goes to the Phonological Buffer, which holds that information until it arrives at the Phonological Output System, which instructs our vocalization system to say the word.
   
   
2. Lexical System/Addressed System - look up the visual representation of this word in our internal memorized set of words (internal dictionary). Once the word is identified, it is sent to the Phonological Output Lexicon, which transfers the information to the Phonological Output System, which instructs our vocalization system to say the word.

Typical learners first read by whole word recognition. Then, they learn phonological elements of the language. Eventually, they move beyond most phonological processing and go back to whole word reading strategies. In some forms of developmental dyslexia, one or both of these systems do not develop properly.

Dr. Sokol notes that our brain's lexical structure is organized by meaning, structure and frequency. The more we know about a word's meaning and the more often it is heard, the stronger its representation is in our lexicon. Likewise, the more often a word is read out loud and seen in print, the easier it is to read it by sight. Learning to read in an individual's native language is readily accomplished due to the high exposure to that language.

[In contrast] for children learning to read Hebrew in a non-native environment is quite a different matter. For most Americans, reading Hebrew is akin to reading a nonsense word. There are three types of words:

• regular - words whose pronunciation can be figured out by sounding them out, such as CAT
  
  
• irregular - words whose pronunciation must be known, such as YACHT
  
  
• non-words - pseudo-words that you need to sound out, such as BOKE

For Americans reading Hebrew phonetically, most Hebrew words are like the third category BOKE. (S.M. Sokol, PowerPoint presentation, GISHA Conference, April, 2009)

The reality of B'nei Mitzvah training in the United States is that most students will be required only to sound out the words of their assigned prayers, blessings and Biblical texts, but not be required to have each word that they utter in their cognitive lexicon. Therefore, Hebrew reading is in essence a nonsense-word reading task.

If we accept this reality, what does this say about how we teach Hebrew outside of Israel? "We need to learn about syllable structure and the relationship of vowels to syllables. Hebrew has a fairly straightforward system of long and short vowels that come together to form open and closed syllables. By learning how to properly divide complex words into syllables, it is much easier to learn to read and read well, even words that we've never seen before." (S.M. Sokol, PowerPoint presentation, GISHA Conference, April, 2009)

Dr. Sokol concluded his presentation with the following observations:

1. Schools need to engage in active discussions of the specific goals of Hebrew language instruction prior to implementation of any programs or curricula.
   
   
2. Across academic settings, those surveyed identified their primary goals for Hebrew to be the ability to read classical texts fluently.
   
   
3. Accordingly, emphasis on Hebrew language instruction should be placed on reading acquisition, specifically on developing fluent decoding strategies that are based on an understanding of the phonological and morphological structure of Hebrew.
   
   
4. There is a significant need for training of special educators for Jewish schools and especially training that provides Jewish studies and Hebrew expertise.

This author hopes to provide classical texts that are as visually helpful as possible for the novice Hebrew reader to decode. As will be shown, these texts address the third item on Dr. Sokol's list by revealing the syllabic structure of each Hebrew word to aid the reader in proper decoding and vocalization.

(Note: since writing this thesis in 2011, this author has indeed developed visually helpful classical texts (Torah, Haftarah, Megillot, and t'fillot) in a variety of formats to aid the novice Hebrew reader. These texts can be downloaded from this web-site as PDFs and are free to all. Enjoy!)