https://doi.org/10.35290/rcui.v9n2.2022.546

Methods for teaching modern Hebrew

Métodos para la enseñanza del hebreo moderno

Date of reception: 2021-02-07 • Date of acceptance: 2021-04-20 • Date of publication: 2022-05-10

Eti Deri1

University of Murcia, Spain

eti.deri@um.es

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8748-4057

Antonia Cascales-Martínez2

University of Murcia, Spain

antonia.cascales@um.es

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8966-2558

María Encarnación Carrillo-García3

University of Murcia, Spain

mariaencarnacion.carrillo@um.es

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8741-8412

Resumen

El idioma es un componente importante en la cristalización de la identidad cultural y

nacional de los estudiantes en Israel, ello se hace evidente en los esfuerzos realizados para

introducir el hebreo en las escuelas. En este contexto, el objetivo de este artículo es hacer

una revisión de las habilidades relacionadas en cómo el cerebro aprende a leer y escribir,

y revisa los enfoques metodológicos básicos para la enseñanza de la lectura y la escritura;

y en una segunda parte, revisa dos métodos comercialmente disponibles para la enseñanza

de la alfabetización hebrea, con el fin de definir y establecer como conclusión sus

características y los puntos clave de una metodología adecuada, para la enseñanza del

hebreo moderno.

Palabras clave: método de enseñanza, enseñanza de la lectura, enseñanza de la

escritura, hebreo

Abstract

Language is an important component in the crystallization of the cultural and national

identity of students in Israel, as is evident in the efforts made to introduce Hebrew in

schools. In this context, the objective of this article is to review the skills related to how

the brain learns to read and write, and reviews the basic methodological approaches for

teaching reading and writing; and in a second part, it reviews two commercially available

methods for teaching Hebrew literacy in order to define and establish, as a conclusion,

their characteristics and the key points of an adequate methodology for teaching modern

Hebrew.

Keywords: teaching methods, reading instruction, handwriting instruction, Hebrew

Introduction

The Hebrew language, Jewish literature and culture is at the center of language education

in the elementary school in the State of Israel. The integration of each student in studies,

society and culture is accomplished through their mastery of the language. The language

is an important component in the crystallization of the cultural and national identity of

the students in the country.

At the beginning of the establishment of the State of Israel, the residents did not speak a

single language. Each immigrant brought with them the language and culture on which

they grew up with. In Israel, a situation of multilingualism was created and a uniform

language was needed to create something unique and unifying (Carrillo, 2021). Ben-

Raphael et al. (2006) explains that the task was not easy because the immigrants came as

religious and secular, Oriental and European, and each ethnic group absorbed the culture,

religion and beliefs of their Diaspora state. As will be describe in detail, in the literary

review, Eliezer Ben Yehuda and his colleagues, late 19th and early 20th century, made

great efforts to introduce the Hebrew language, as an official language in the land of Israel

in general and in schools in particular (Ben-Raphael et al., 2006).

According to Bar-Adon (2018), many programs were written for the study of the Hebrew

language spoken from those days, which was used only as a sacred language, in prayers,

blessings and Bible study, to now a days; and Walters (2019) highlight the findings of his

investigations that reveal important insights into learners’ experiences, enjoyments,

frustrations and expectations regarding both the purposes and the processes of learning

how to read in Hebrew and raise issues about learning and teaching, so the debate about

it opened. Share (2017) argues that research on the process of literacy acquisition in the

Hebrew language broadens the perspective of research in this field, mainly in aspects

related to phonological awareness, reading and spelling.

In recent years, in Israel schools, teaching staff have been given autonomy to decide the

textbooks for the teaching of Hebrew. Because of that, our main goal is to stablish the

principal characteristics of a proper approach, that on one hand could be useful for

choosing the adequate textbook, or on the other hand could be useful for designing

activities to be implemented in the classroom by those teachers that would want to make

their own educative resources.

This article, in its first part, reviews the skills related to how the brain learns to read and

write, and it reviews the basic methodological approaches to teaching reading and writing;

and in a second part, it reviews two commercially available methods of teaching Hebrew

literacy in order to define and establish, as a conclusion, their characteristics and the key

points of an appropriate methodology for teaching Modern Hebrew.

Literature reviews are necessary to consolidate the foundations of a discipline, and it helps

the discipline to progress at the theoretical and conceptual level (Palmatier et al., 2018).

In this paper, the method of literature review related to the teaching and learning of

literacy and the teaching and learning of literacy in the Hebrew language has been

followed. The protocol followed was as follows is shown in Table 1.

Table 1

Method

Formulation of the problem: the review of the literature on literacy methods developed in the theoretical framework

made it possible to know the theoretical foundations of literacy. This has helped to define the characteristics that a

literacy method should have, in order to be able to critically review the literacy methods for teaching Hebrew: In

the secret of letters (in Hebrew Hesod Haotiot) and The magic Key (in Hebrew Maftech Hkesem).

Literature search: the search for references followed the classical scheme of carrying out an initial search in Web of

Science and Scopus. The terms used in the search terms were: Literacy, Multisensory Approach Hebrew. Once the

initial set was obtained, the search was extended through Google Scholar, with the aim of identifying other studies

not covered by both databases, and relevant to the issues raised in this paper.

Evaluation and selection of studies: In order to select the papers relevant to the object of this study, a review of titles

and abstracts was carried out, establishing as selection criteria that they dealt with Literacy, Multisensory Approach,

Hebrew. This process allowed 64 papers to be selected for review.

Assessment for the selection of the studies: The criterion for the selection of the studies was that the works to be

analyzed should deal with the development of literacy in pupils in the first years of primary education. After this

phase, the number of studies to be reviewed was 19, and the chapters: How does the brain learn to read? And Literacy

Methodologies were developed.

Data extraction: The data obtained after the literature review were used for the description of the mother tongue

literacy methods and for the description of the two literacy methods for learning Hebrew: In the secret of letters (in

Hebrew Hesod Haotiot) and The magic Key (in Hebrew Maftech Hkesem).

Analysis and synthesis: We proceeded to analyze and synthesize the characteristics of a literacy method for teaching

Hebrew in relation to the data obtained from the literature review in relation to the parameters: eclectic approach,

brain friendly, the three levels of work: Word-sentence-text and the activities related to the student development.

Conclusions: conclusions have been drawn using the synthesis of characteristics for a literacy method applied to the

two methods reviewed: In the secret of letters (in Hebrew Hesod Haotiot) and The magic Key (in Hebrew Maftech

Hkesem).

Note. Own elaboration

1.1 How does the brain learn how to read?

It is important to bear in mind the brain activity when learning how to read, to facilitate

this process for each student. According to Sousa (2017) learning to read successfully

requires three neural systems and the development of specific skills that will work

together to help the brain decodes abstract symbols into meaningful language. On the one

hand, the visual processing system scans the printed word; on the other hand, the auditory

processing system sounds it out in the head, and finally, the frontal lobe integrates the

information to produce meaning. And it is important to highlight that during this whole

process the angular gyrus helps decode the visual word recognition signals for further

processing in the left hemisphere’s language centers (Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas).

For the integration of this neural systems to result in successful reading, the student should

develop specific skills related to phonological and phonemic awareness, the alphabetic

and phonic principles, vocabulary, fluency and text comprehension (Sousa, 2017;

Wasserstein & Lipka, 2019), concepts described in detail in the following chart down

below.

Table 2

Skills for reading

Phonological

awareness

Recognition that spoken language can be broken down into smaller components:

sentences into words, words into syllables, and finally syllables into individual sounds.

This recognition comprises the identification and manipulation of onsets and rimes,

awareness of alliteration, rhyme, syllabication and intonation. Phonological awareness

help to see the differences between ship and sheep.

Phonemic awareness

Before addressing print, students must be able to recognize that words are composed of

individual sounds (phonemes) and that these sounds can form new words. This skill is

known as phonemic awareness (a subdivision of phonological awareness) and includes the

ability to differentiate a sound (first, middle or last) from the rest of the word, to separate

words into phonemes and to recognize a particular phoneme in a word.

Alphabetic principle

The alphabetic principle defines the idea that spoken words are formed of phonemes and

that phonemes are transformed in the written language into letters This system of

representing phonemes by letters is very effective, as a large number of words can be

written with a small number of letters. Linking the letters with their sounds in speech

allows the reader to recognize lots of written words.

Phonics principle

Phonics is a pedagogical approach that is based on the alphabetic principle and associates

letters and sounds with written symbols. To show phonics knowledge, children are able to

change a letter in order to form the words cat or can. Only learning the relationships

between letters and sounds during phonics teaching does not necessarily lead to phonemic

awareness.

Vocabulary

Readers normally have a word in their mental dictionary in order to recognize it in written

texts. Students learn the meaning of most words inductively through exposure to written

language in conversations, listening to adults and when reading by their own. Teaching

vocabulary related to complex concepts is useful when words are not common for their

everyday language.

Fluency

Fluency is the ability to read a text orally with speed, accuracy and appropriate expression.

Children who lack fluency read slowly with difficulty, find it very difficult to remember

what they have read because reading badly affects their working memory. Frequent

reading helps reading fluency. Developing good reading fluency will improve reading

comprehension because learners do not spend time decoding words, and therefore focus

on meaning.

Text comprehension

Comprehension is a process that begins with the identification of words, accessing the

meaning of words in context, recognizing grammatical structures, making inferences and

checking oneself to make sure that the text makes sense. When faced with several

meanings of a word in a text, the brain has to select the one that makes sense in context.

Developing the ability of selecting the proper meaning according to context is very useful

for being a efficient reader.

Note. Own elaboration based on Sousa (2017)

Taking into account the reading skills mentioned and with reference to Hebrew literacy,

it can be described as an overall process in which two complementary aspects are

included: reading and writing. Some investigations related with the learning of Hebrew

should be mentioned, in this sense, based on Torgerson et al. (2019) and Karpman (2019)

we could say that teachers of Hebrew should bear in mind that children should be able to:

read and write with confidence, fluency and understanding; self-correct while reading

based on phonic, graphic, syntactic and contextual cues; write with autonomy because are

able to plan and revise their own written texts; learn vocabulary; read and write with

correct spelling and grammar; have legible handwriting; and finally, know and understand

a range of fiction and nonfiction texts.

In order to develop those skills mentioned in the Hebrew language, children should

acquire different competencies related to three levels of the written code, that is, on the

one hand the word-level (phonics, spelling and vocabulary), on the other hand sentence-

level (grammar and punctuation), and this should be given as well as text-level

(comprehension and composition). Vaknin-Nusbaum & Raveh (2019) speaks about the

importance of increasing the morphological instruction in Hebrew because develops

awareness of the morphemic structure of words that contributes to extracting meaning

from texts. The work of Shechter et al. (2018) suggests that explicit instruction of Hebrew

linguistic components is also relevant during the initial years of schooling, as a promoting

element of reading fluency among skilled readers.

Some learning experiences related to the written language in Hebrew are developed at the

same time as Tolchinsky & Sandbank (2016) explain, because children’s growing

command of the notational and rhetorical characteristics of written language occur in

parallel, as forerunners of the lengthy path that lies ahead of children before they master

overall organization of texts.

Bitan et al. (2017) examined the effect of orthographic transparency and familiarity on

brain mechanisms involved in word recognition in adult Hebrew readers, and they found

that the temporo-parietal region of the brain is associated with spelling and phonology,

because it was activated by diacritical marks and deactivated by vowels. And they found

that vowels have a high degree of familiarity in the reader, and therefore there is a low

level of brain activity, and concluded that orthographic transparency and familiarity of

letters contributed to word recognition.

Lipka et al. (2016) present a study that analyses the development of several different

cognitive and literacy skills to reading fluency in Hebrew among Grade 1 students, and

the results of their research conclude that there is a need for literacy methods to work on

reading fluency and spelling in the early teaching of Hebrew. Other author, Vaknin-

Nusbaum (2018) tested the morphological awareness to reading comprehension in

Hebrew in 100 second and third grade students on three types of morphology: inflections,

derivations, and construct formation, controlling for vocabulary knowledge and found

noteworthy differences in reading comprehension but not in word spelling and

phonological decoding, and highlights the desirability of deepening morphological

awareness to facilitate reading comprehension.

Teachers of Hebrew should promote the skills described in the Table 2 above through a

methodology that is appropriate for this purpose and in order to work in a global way the

word-level, sentence-level and the text-level of Hebrew language. Besides, in order to

choose an optimal methodological approach to teaching reading and writing according to

how the brain learns, it is important to know the positive and negative points of the

different methodologies in order to adapt them to the educational objectives and to a brain

friendly methodology. We will now review the theoretical underpinnings of each of the

basic methodologies.

Literacy methodologies

Throughout the history of education, different methodological approaches have been

developed to teach reading and writing in the mother tongue. Literature on mother tongue

teaching classifies the teaching of reading and writing into synthetic, analytical and mixed

methods. Each of the three methods has advantages and disadvantages, depending on the

nature of the language being taught, the age of the students, and their main way of learning

related to visual, auditory, kinesthetic, or tactile, for example (Rendón et al., 2019; Piñón

et al., 2018; Tinta, 2020; Gomes-Franco, 2019).

Next, a revision is done based on Rendón et al. (2019), Piñón et al. (2018), Tinta (2020)

and Gomes-Franco (2019). In the case of the first type of methods, synthetic methods,

they have their origins in the alphabetic proto-methods developed in ancient Greece. Later

on, during the 16th and 17th centuries appeared the phonetic methods, and later, in the

18th century, syllabic, iconographic and semi-globally based methods appeared. In

general terms, synthetic methods can be considered the so-called "traditional" methods,

which start teaching the simplest linguistic structures (grapheme, phoneme, syllable) and

then move on to more advanced structures such as the word and the sentence. Different

kind of variations of these methods are used nowadays. Depending on the initial linguistic

element studied, they are classified as follows:

 Alphabetic methods: teach reading by naming each of its letters isolated from their

phonetic value, in a certain order and then combining them later.

 Phonetic methods: teach reading by presenting phonemes individually. There are

several variants of this method: onomatopoeic (imitating sounds), gestural or

kinesthetic (with movement), phonetic-mimic (combining the two) and multi-

sensory (visual-auditory-kinesthetic-tactile).

 Syllabic methods: teach the syllables first. One form of this method is the photo

syllabic method, which illustrates each syllable with a picture.

Throughout history, in addition to, and in order to improve the methods for teaching

reading and writing, during the 17th and 18th centuries various scholars, including

Comenius, devised a different way of teaching reading and writing, starting teaching the

language from the globality of the linguistic fact (words and sentences), a method that

was called analytical or global. Among its principles were to:

 Follow the natural order of spoken language and the global perception of familiar

sentences.

 Delay the process of decomposition.

 Encourage learner action and playful teaching activities.

 Encourage learning in an undirected way.

 Prioritize visual function over auditory and motor function.

 Encourage the reading of mental or visual ideas.

 Focus on students' centers of interest.

Both methodologies, synthetic and analytic, besides, have been reviewed over time and

it has been found, and although both have positive points, they have negative points as

well. In the case of the synthetic method, these negative points can be summarized as

follow:

 It favors mechanical learning to the detriment of other forms of learning.

 Starting from the simplest units of language (letters, sounds…) to the most

complex, the reverse of the natural evolution of language.

 Slow down the development of reading speed, because it captures the attention of

a very small visual field related to each letter or syllable, and favors regressions

when reading.

 Avoid the personal discovery of reading by presenting the child with the keys to

reading.

 Learning is based on repetition of decoding reading fragments and imitation of

adult writing.

 Text comprehension is sacrificed because decoding of the written code is

encouraged when reading.

 Letter-based methods lead to spelling.

 Syllable-based methods lead to syllabification.

As far as analytical or global methods are concerned, the negative aspects are as follows:

 The units of language study are overly broad (sentences), and their complexity

can be very difficult for children learning to read.

 Identification of new words is not possible without knowledge of the written code.

 Inaccuracy and invention are encouraged in reading in increasing order as the

visual field of vision increases: word-phrase-story.

 When the broad reading units come from the adult context, they do not respond

to children's expression.

 It favors learners of the sensory-visual thymus, but not learners in whom other

senses predominate in learning, such the auditory one, for example.

 The learning process is slower because it involves the learner having to know all

the words in order to understand the text.

 Its correct implementation needs highly trained, creative and active teachers.

Piñón et al. (1999) explain that from 1920 methodologies had an important evolution and

mixed methods emerged, bringing together the positive aspects of synthetic and analytical

methods; based on the idea that the teaching of reading and writing cannot be done in the

light of a single approach, but must be eclectic, combined and multifaceted.

From the point of view of mixed methods, when faced with a written text, the child should

understand it as a whole, but it is also important for him/her to discover the combination

that exists in the text, analyzing the relationships that exist between phoneme and

grapheme, as far as possible inductively, encouraging a true mental analysis. Although

this should not be to the detriment of using deductive teaching strategies, for some

phonemes, letters and syllabic sounds that need to be explained. Because of that, it is

interesting to make a first review of the positive aspects of both synthetic methods and

analytical/global methods, because they will be the basis of the mix method. In relation

to the so-called synthetic methods highlight among its main benefits:

 They help to learn the written code because of the correspondence between

grapheme and phoneme.

 It allows the association of visual, auditory, motor and tactile images to be

established and is effective even for children with sensory-motor or physical

impairments.

 It makes the child autonomous, being able to identify any word presented to

him/her for the first time, because he/she has the keys to decipher the written code.

 It is an economical system, in relation to the time and energy needed to implement

it, as only a limited number of alphabetic and phonetic signs need to be taught and

learned to make all possible combinations.

 The isolated perception of phonemes ultimately aims to fuse them into more

meaningful units such as words and phrases.

 Correct articulation and accuracy in reading and writing are achieved.

 The most effective transfer from the oral to the graphic system occurs at the

syllabic level.

As far as analytical or global methods are concerned, the most beneficial points of these

are:

 They respond to infant perception and eye movement by large units.

 Encourages meaningful motivation and creative attitude in increasing order,

depending on the starting point of the unit of thought, from smallest to largest

(word, sentence, story).

 Recognition is higher when the recognition unit is less complex (word).

 It encourages intellectual work and research on the part of students.

 Visual observation and retention contribute to better acquisition of spelling.

 Students whose way of learning is based on visual perception benefit from this

method.

 It favors the global training of the pupils because it works from the cognitive,

affective and motor levels.

Therefore, in order to establish a theoretical basis for the correct development of an

eclectic methodology for teaching reading and writing that combines the best of the

synthetic and analytical methods, it is desirable that in the eclectic method, words,

phrases, simple passages are selected carefully graded, so that children can analyze,

compare, synthesize them from the beginning and simultaneously, so that they can

become familiar with all language units in a proper order while learning the mechanism.

Currently, two commercially available methods of teaching Hebrew literacy that are used

in secular Israeli schools now a days are discussed below, in order to determine their main

characteristics that define what kind methods are, that is, synthetic, analytical or mix

methods. Specifically, they are: In the secret of the letters (in Hebrew Besod Haotiot) and

The magic key (in Hebrew Maftech Hkesem).

2.1 In the Secret of the letters (in Hebrew Besod Haotiot)

As an introduction to the method In the Secret of Letters by Carmela Langenthal-Nesher

published by Panel Or in 2014, the editorial explains that the program for teaching

Hebrew reading expresses the worldview that human beings are different from each other

and fundamentally curious, and therefore curiosity is an engine that leads to success; and

besides, the editors explain that the purpose of the study techniques in the book is to put

a smile on the faces of the students, to enrich and encourage motivation. The method is a

differential method that provides a solution for different styles of learning. It is based on

the curriculum of the Ministry of Education.

Along the book we can check the presence of texts from various fields of knowledge:

humorous, operators, songs and stories. According to the editors these texts have been

carefully selected to create an experience and thrill.

The illustrations in the books are colorful, and the objective of this illustrations are to

create experience and enjoyment, in order to help to create knowledge, as editors explain.

The method is divided into eight booklets:

• Ready-to-read booklets (letter recognition): five workbooks to impart the

reading lessons (familiarity with the sounds).

• Writing and practice booklet: one workbook for practicing the writing of

the letters, the texts and the typeface.

• Booklet for the development of reading fluency: one workbook for

practicing fluency when reading (including calculation of standard reading

time).

• Holiday booklet: one workbook for learning to read and write with

contents related to cultural and historical events for the Hebrew

community related to their holidays, such as: Purim, Passover, or

Independence Day, for example.

In the first phase of the program there is a great emphasis on getting to know the letters

of the alphabet. Hebrew belongs to an alphabetic system where the letters represent the

phonemes, the phonetic units of the spoken language. The reader must then know the

sound that each letter represents. This stage is a necessary condition for reading mastery

of the alphabet principle will later activate the attentional resources for reading

comprehension, which is the central purpose of reading.

In the first booklet we learn the first sound Aa and the children learn how the sound is

obtained when it is below each letter in the Hebrew alphabet. In addition, the students

also learn in this section the structure of the Hebrew language, syntactic awareness. In the

initial stage the students are able to identify global words like I, mine and thus begin to

understand the syntactic awareness of the sentence structure, the structure of the passage

link words and the like.

In the first stage there is a reference to phonological awareness. Students are asked to

match the image to the opening sound of the word for example banana the opening sound

is Ba. Simultaneously with the stage of letter recognition, sound recognition,

phonological and syntactic awareness, great emphasis is placed on phonetic

representation.

The writing system represents the reading through graphic signs and therefore the goal is

for the student to know how to match the graphic sign to the components of the spoken

language. In the program it can be seen that there are many activities in the development

of writing for its various levels.

The practice in the workbooks is done in a spiral. In each booklet you can see the reference

to all components of the language but each time the work is of a higher degree of

difficulty.

In addition to all of the above, there is also a reference to cultivating morphological

awareness, many single-sex males and word families. These are important components in

the development of reading and the development of the student's independent writing later

on.

The program has a reference to semantics, vocabulary. It is assumed that students think

through vocabulary so that if we expand each student's personal knowledge and

vocabulary, their thinking ability will develop better later on.

The ability to think and vocabulary also develops through listening and speaking, in order

to develop a literate student. Therefore, the program has many tasks to experience in

conversation and discussion in a textual and non-textual context, the goal is to develop a

skill of listening and discourse.

The program focuses on developing higher-order thinking. The knowledge absorbed

through the senses and the existing knowledge in memory are reorganized through

various thought processes as they create new information. The program has experience in

building arguments, comparing, dealing with disagreements, drawing conclusions and

asking questions.

The program addresses Jewish tradition and Jewish values. In the booklet on holidays,

students get to know each holiday in its time, the customs of the holiday, the meaning of

the holiday, the symbols and the songs.

In addition, the program incorporates various literary works with the aim of constructing

a social worldview and engaging students in a model for a moral and proper pattern of

behavior.

At the end of the process of learning to read (in the last two booklets) there is an emphasis

on the fluency of reading and the transition from print to handwriting. As stated in the

Hebrew language, there are two types of writing. The typeface appears for the first time

in Jewish writings, in the Torah, in books and more.

The daily use of writing is done in the handwriting which is a round handwriting and

written more quickly. Therefore, it is important to teach the children the handwriting as

well, so that they will use it later.

The manuscript is studied at the discretion of the teacher. Sometimes the teacher teaches

him at the beginning of the letter acquisition when he introduces it to the students and

they start using it in writing. It is sometimes learned at the end of the reading process.

In content that relates to work on reading fluency, fluency is of great importance. The

reading develops from year to year and so does the flow until it stabilizes. The automatic

model in reading means that a quick retrieval of words indicates that word recognition is

done at an automatic level and then it allows the child to pay attention, to reading

comprehension. A student engaged in deciphering the letters will not relate to the written

content.

For this phase there is a teacher guide where the teacher needs to measure using a clock,

the reading time and the quality of the reading. There is no reading without understanding.

Besod Haotiot's program has a website where the booklets are displayed. There are short

videos to get acquainted with the letters and movements.

2.2 The Magic Key (in Hebrew Maftech Hkesem)

The Magic Key by R. Ben-Ari and N. Levine (2013), and published by MTH, Educational

Technology Center in 2013, is intended for teaching reading, writing, listening and

speaking in Hebrew. It is based on the curriculum of the Ministry of Education.

The goals of the program are to impart the basic reading and writing skills to all first

graders, in a unique, easy and simple way and through an encounter with texts in different

genres.

In the program it is of great importance to cultivate the literal discourse spoken as an

integral part of the teaching of the alphabetic principle and to strengthen the fluency of

reading.

According to this method, students acquire reading in three moves:

 Move 1 - In Booklet 1 you learn one vowels and some of the consonants (letters).

 Move 2 - In Booklet 2 you learn one more vowels and the rest of the consonants.

 Move 3 - In Booklet 3 you learn all the other vowels in combination with all the

consonants.

The acquisition of the letters and punctuation is done in a gradual way, by analysis and

by synthesis of words and expressions. The method adapts to the developmental abilities

of the students in that it does not burden the memory, and at the same time it allows the

students to make generalizations that make it easier to acquire the decipherment.

The "Magic Key" program also begins in kindergartens because although there is

intensive work in kindergartens, the program assumes that there will be populations of

children who developmentally will not acquire all the skills required to acquire reading

and writing such as: immigrant children, people with disabilities and learning disabilities.

These children will be required at the beginning of the process of acquiring reading and

writing to master the basic skills of the buds of literacy. They will therefore need for a

longer period of time during the acquisition itself, vocabulary enrichment, cultivation of

listening and speaking abilities, cultivation of alphabetical skills and adaptation of

materials and means to their level. Teachers will need to be given tools to mediate

learning through a pool of printed, computerized, or television activities that exist in the

Magic Key program.

The Magic Key reading method, combines principles of several literate approaches. The

method applies principles of the phonetic approach such as establishing phonological

awareness and knowing the names of the letters, direct and explicit instruction of the

alphabetic code and cultivation.

Remembrance skills of the orthographic pattern of the word. The approach also

incorporates principles of holistic approaches, such as multiple exposure to types of

natural, relevant and authentic texts from the world of children while developing spoken

and written language.

Development of reading comprehension and vocabulary - Decoding instruction is done

in a varied practice, which emphasizes the development of reading comprehension and

vocabulary. After acquiring the alphabetic code, teachers direct students to use the

vocabulary learned, generalizations, screenings, and stories for self-expression.

Teachers point to linguistic phenomena such as families of words, derivation of words

and patterns, in order to raise awareness among students of the language and its structure.

In this way, thinking about language in general and words in particular develops.

Language games are also used, which create situations of learning while amusing words.

Pragmatics - from the few words form (already in the early stages) natural connections,

real and communicative and meaningful: phrases, sentences and passages. Conjunctions

And words (such as: the, of, yes / no) are given globally, and they make it possible to

create complete and natural sentences. There is no use of high and uncommon vocabulary

in children's language. The use of natural and familiar language makes it easier for

students to acquire reading.

Morphological and syntactic knowledge - recognition of morphological phenomena at the

level of the single word. In Hebrew there are distinctions between male and female,

singular and plural, and their verb form. There are many activities in the program that

deal with this area for example: the students have to paste the shape of the female under

the picture of the girl and the shape of the male under the picture of the son.

Syntactic knowledge (the order of the words in the sentence and the connection between

them) - all of these contribute to the understanding of the reader by relying on the context.

For example, when readers learn to recognize the suffix in a word they knew to notice

that the form belongs to the plural of female so they may also read the verb in female

without errors and relatively quickly because they are aware of the connection between

body and sex. Readers who are unaware of this meaning may decipher the subject and

verb sound by sound. In the program there are activities that develop the morphological

and syntactic awareness. The teaching of the grammatical pattern is done only when it

promotes the teaching of reading comprehension. There is no practice of the grammatical

pattern to its name. That is, the practice of matching between male and female will be

done only if it fits the context.

Development of listening and speaking - the program deals with a focused acquisition of

decoding along with cultivating literacy skills in the four modes of language: speaking,

listening, reading and writing. The teachers read aloud authentic texts of various kinds to

the students, including quality works by the best Hebrew writers and poets such as Fanya

Bergstein, E. Hillel Chaim Nachman Bialik and more. Giving exposure to the iron-clad

assets of Hebrew literature, came with the intention of enriching their cultural world, their

language and providing them with tools for later reading literature, as independent

readers.

In addition, the program has pieces of information intended for reading aloud, developing

listening comprehension, developing the spoken language and cultivating awareness of

the differences between the written language and the oral language. These texts are

embedded in each booklet and most are accompanied by activities for students. Teachers

are also asked to encourage spoken and written discourse for self-expression on the

contents of texts. Students can listen to other texts on the website.

An accompanying guide was written for each student booklet. To make it easier for

teachers. Each page has notes and instructions explaining how to work in the booklet,

plus suggestions for additional activities and at the end of each guide there are tests and

pages for mapping the class.

2.2.1. Classroom accessories

The letters AB - At the end of Booklet 1 are hard pages with the letters AB and the

punctuation marks. Students will be able to cut them out and practice the combinations

learned.

The teacher also has about 30 large cards with all the letters of the letter AB, all the

punctuation marks learned and cards drawn for each letter (drawing and word in the

opening letter).

The teacher receives a collection of stickers with illustration stickers of magic (magic is

a character of a girl inside the booklet). The teacher can give the student a sticker as

positive feedback on progress or as she sees fit.

At the beginning of the study, each sound has an illustration of a character that

accompanies it. For example: The letter T has an illustration of a daughter named Tamar.

2.2.2. Website

The program's website (https://ofek.cet.ac.il/ab/lashon/kesem/) has a section for students.

The section has games to strengthen the beginning of reading. In addition, there are

reinforcement activities on the site for students who have difficulty, who need additional

exercises.

In addition, there is also computerized teacher training on the site for the implementation

of the program and a forum for teachers to discuss various issues and to exchange

information and a glossary related to reading instruction.

The site also has a section for parents where there are suggestions for cultivating the

literate discourse at home as well as suggestions for joint activities of parents with their

children, which support the course of teaching reading.

Discussion and Conclusion

Taking into account the theories reviewed in the previous sections in relation to the

definition of literacy, how the brain learns, and the evolution of methods for teaching

reading and writing, a methodological approach to the teaching and learning of Hebrew

as a mother tongue is proposed where these theories converge and form the characteristics

of the proposed approach are as follows, namely:

1. Eclectic approach:

a. Mix methodology.

b. Phases: global-analytical-synthetic.

2. Brain friendly:

a. Multisensory resources.

b. Visual stimulation.

c. Auditory stimulation.

d. Physical stimulation.

e. Literary resources: poems, songs, stories.

f. Emotional stimulation: games, literature, songs.

g. Games.

3. Develop 3 levels:

a. Word-level work: i.e. phonics, spelling and vocabulary.

b. Sentence-level work: i.e. grammar and punctuation.

c. Text-level work: i.e. comprehension and composition.

4. Activities related to the student development about:

a. Phonological and phonemic awareness.

b. Alphabetic principle and phonics.

c. Vocabulary.

d. Fluency.

e. Text comprehension.

f. Handwriting.

The above characteristics can be used as a checklist when choosing or designing a method

for the teaching of Hebrew, and can be useful as well as for evaluating methods that are

already implemented in order to review what kind of lacks could be found, and with the

purpose to improve the teaching of the Hebrew language.

In the case of the methods analyzed available on the market for learning the Hebrew

language: In the secret of the letters (in Hebrew Besod Haotiot) and The magic key (in

Hebrew Maftech Hkesem), we may say that both methods meet the characteristics

described in the table above. Both methods can be considered mixed, since they combine

the approach to the language from the level of letters and from the level of the word, the

sentence and the texts; although both start with the smallest units of the language: the

letters and their sounds, which coincides with synthetic methods, and once the pupils are

introduced to the Hebrew alphabet, they are familiarized with literary and non-literary

texts, which coincides with analytical methods. This leads to the conclusion that both

methods can be considered mixed methods.

In conclusion, we may say that teachers who teach reading and writing must have an in-

depth knowledge of the theoretical bases underlying the different methodologies for

teaching reading and writing and they should know how the brain learns to read and write,

in order to adapt their teaching practice to the reality of the classroom, the characteristics

of the language they teach and the positive aspects of the different methods.

Provided that teachers are aware of the different methods of teaching reading and writing,

they will be able to select the best books available on the market, and they will also be

able to develop their own method, building their own teaching resources and developing

their own teaching strategies.

In relation to the prospect of this theoretical review and analysis of the different methods

reviewed, it would be advisable in future research to develop and implement a set of

activities related to different ways of stimulating students on different levels of the

language to be learned: visual, auditory, physical, emotional in order to investigate the

best way of teaching the Hebrew language.

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García

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