Why Explicit Phonological Awareness, Before Phonics, Matters for Hebrew Learners Who Are Non-Native Speakers
Dana Keil is a Hebrew Reading Coach at Scott Goldberg Consulting with deep expertise in special education and inclusion. Dana previously served as Director of Support Services and Lower School Director at Luria Academy of Brooklyn, earning the Ruderman Family Foundation prize for leadership in inclusion. In addition to her work at SGC, Dana is the Communal Director of Teaching and Learning at the Jewish Education Center of Cleveland and adjunct faculty at American Jewish University.
When very young children interact with their favorite stories, they embark on an exciting journey of early literacy. They naturally love to pick up books, enthusiastically flip through the pages, point out characters by name, and label the actions happening on each page. Through joyful repetition, like mimicking the sounds of a word or rhythmically naming colors, children rapidly build their vocabulary and develop print awareness. They begin to recognize that the world around them is filled with words, and they master physical skills like directionality, quickly learning to turn an upside-down book so that it is right-side-up.
It’s incredible to watch early literacy in action. These early childhood skills lay the foundations for reading readiness once children are school-aged. Indeed, many school programs build on a spoken language foundation and move quickly to letter-sound (phonics) work because most children already come to school with a robust vocabulary, familiarity with speech and sound patterns (phonology), innate usage of the rhythmic flow of the language (cadence), and grammar.
This is why the claim by Dr. Mark Seidenberg, a cognitive scientist with expertise in reading, language, and learning, in a recent blog on his website highlighted that teaching phonemes (units of sound) as isolated, artificial units without grounding in language can be counterproductive. That is, phonemic tasks must be meaningful and connected to the spoken language learners already have (or are explicitly building). These phonemic awareness lessons should not be reduced to meaningless “sound drills” divorced from letters, vocabulary, and semantics.
But what happens when a child in a Jewish school is learning to read Hebrew as a second language? As Diaspora Jews, almost every educational institution is expected to teach children to read in Hebrew, allowing them access to the texts of our ancestors, to say prayers at the Kotel, or to order off a menu in Tel-Aviv. These expectations create educational challenges, as students must learn to access new texts and navigate unfamiliar words without the built-in spoken-language advantages they rely on in their mother tongue.
When teaching Hebrew to children who did not acquire Hebrew as a first language, the order and focus of early literacy instruction matter. Non-native speakers do not start with the same linguistic foundation of their native peers. Students must first be exposed to the Hebrew language, specifically, with explicit vocabulary and oral language. This could be through explicit instruction in spoken Modern Hebrew or classical vocabulary and phrases from texts being read out loud. (The latter is an expression of oral language necessary for reading when the texts represent a non-spoken language, such as the Siddur.) In addition to this vocabulary and oral language instruction, second language Hebrew learners need explicit and systematic instruction in phonological awareness—the ability to manipulate and perceive units of language (e.g., words, syllables, phonemes). Seidenberg would say phonemic awareness should be in conjunction with letter instruction (e.g., phonics) but he assumes that students already have the aforementioned vocabulary and oral language of a native speaker, which is not the case for Diaspora students learning Hebrew. Accordingly, beginning with oral language and vocabulary along with explicit and systematic phonological awareness instruction is best for this population. Before phonics instruction with a focus on sound-symbol correspondence, language foundation is critical. This allows phonics instruction to build on familiar sounds from the language students have been explicitly exposed to, mimicking early native language learning.
This highlights the need for critical and creative reflection on the emerging research from the English language world in the Science of Reading. Professor David Share has continued to write and speak about the universal principles of literacy and the particular manifestation of certain principles in various languages, such as Hebrew. Following Science of Reading experts without considering the impact of the unique orthography (spelling system) of Hebrew, second language considerations, and Jewish educational context does not serve our students. Rather, it is necessary to turn to the broader research literature in each of these areas and to those with significant experience reading, synthesizing, and applying them to Jewish schools to advance the Hebrew reading of our second language learners.
While there are myriad examples of the linguistic differences between English and Hebrew, syllable structure is one key distinction. English closed syllables largely follow an onset-rime structure, such as in the word “cat,” for which the /c/ is the onset and /at/ is the rime. In contrast, Hebrew closed syllables follow a body-coda structure, such as in the word “דָג,” where the /da/ is the body and the /g/ is the coda. The implications for initial phonics work connecting sound to symbol, sounding out unfamiliar words, and decoding are significant. Other distinctions include the orthographic depth (the consistency of the relationship between letters and sounds) of Hebrew with vowels compared to English and Hebrew without vowels, syllabic stress during the decoding process, morphology, and more. All are enhanced by oral language and vocabulary exposure and phonological awareness instruction that takes these idiosyncrasies into account and precedes and then continues with phonics instruction.
Based on the research and practice, novice Hebrew learners need foundational oral building blocks. These include:
- High frequency Hebrew vocabulary based on the texts learners are expected to read. Students expected to read the Siddur and Humash should get explicit systematic instruction in their vocabularies (e.g., שֶׁמֶשׁ, יוֹם, לַיְלָה, בָּרוּךְְ). Students expected to read Modern Hebrew should get explicit systematic instruction in those vocabulary words (e.g., פַּרְפַּר, גַן, לוּחַ, יַלְדָּה).
- Multisensory experiences. There is no evidence that making letters out of clay or shaving cream (or similar activities) develop literacy skills, but sorting activities, rhythmic repetition, songs (including tefilot) with gestures, and picture and word matching reinforce and strengthen literacy skills, including comprehension. These activities contribute to the phonological system students will later map to print.
- Phonological awareness at the word level, syllable level, and phoneme level, with blending and segmentation activities for each. These oral blending and segmentation activities might look like the following without visuals (including letters) as noted above:
- Isolating the coda of “דָג” to /ג/ and the body to /דָ/
- Isolating the medial sound of “עִפָּרוֹן” to /פָּ/
- Blending the body /יוֹ/ to the coda /ם/ to get “יוֹם”
- Sound-symbol mapping: Once students can hear and manipulate sounds in familiar words, sound-symbol instruction becomes far more effective. They learn that the ג represents the final sound in דָג, that דָ forms a consonant-vowel unit, and that blending these parts produces a known word. Because they already understand the word, decoding leads directly to comprehension.
This reflects the Simple View of Reading: decoding and language comprehension work together. If oral language is weak, decoding alone will not produce understanding.
The sequencing issue is even more critical for students with dyslexia. Dyslexia is characterized by difficulty with accurate and fluent word recognition, typically rooted in weaknesses in phonological processing. While all students benefit from instruction that is explicit, systematic, cumulative, and carefully paced, this is acutely necessary for students with dyslexia. When learners are asked to map letters onto poorly formed or unfamiliar phonological representations, decoding becomes cognitively overwhelming.
For non-native Hebrew learners with dyslexia, two vulnerabilities intersect:
- Reduced phonological efficiency
- Limited familiarity with Hebrew oral language and vocabulary
If phonics is introduced before Hebrew phonological representations are stable, these students are likely to resort to rote memorization rather than decoding, undermining long-term fluency.
Explicit instruction in Hebrew phonological awareness, embedded in vocabulary-rich experiences, strengthens the underlying sound system. When phonics is introduced systematically afterward, students with dyslexia have clearer phonological anchors for mapping graphemes (orthographic units) to sounds. This reduces cognitive load and increases the likelihood of accurate, transferable decoding. While all learners benefit from structured literacy principles, students with dyslexia depend on them. For Hebrew instruction, that structure must include deliberate oral language, vocabulary, and phonological instruction, before letter introduction.
It is a common misconception that best practices in literacy instruction transfer seamlessly from one language to another, or that second-language learners should simply mirror the developmental path of native speakers. In reality, every language reflects both universal and particularistic principles. Instruction cannot simply be “plugged in” across languages—particularly when learners do not share the same depth of oral exposure as native speakers.
For non-native Hebrew learners, this distinction is not theoretical. English-based assumptions about onset-rime patterns, stress distribution, and morphological structure, do not automatically prepare students for Hebrew’s root-pattern system or syllabic organization. Nor do phonological skills developed in English fully transfer to a language with different sound patterns, morphological logic, and orthography. Before students are asked to map Hebrew letters to sounds, they must have stable, meaningful Hebrew sounds to map.
Dr. Seidenberg has persuasively argued that phonemic awareness instruction must be grounded in meaningful spoken language rather than treated as isolated sound manipulation. His work, however, focuses on native English speakers learning to read English, children who already possess a well-developed oral language system in the language of instruction. That premise cannot be assumed in second-language Hebrew classrooms. For these learners, the spoken-language foundation is not already in place; it must be deliberately built.
In this context, the sequencing question becomes clearer. The goal is to ensure that systematic sound-symbol instruction does not outpace oral language development. Explicit phonological and phonemic awareness, embedded within rich Hebrew vocabulary, rhythm, and morphology, should establish the groundwork. Phonics can then attach to internalized, meaningful representations, instead of abstract sound fragments.
Such alignment respects both the structure of Hebrew and the realities of second-language acquisition. It acknowledges that instructional models designed for native speakers cannot be automatically transferred to different linguistic contexts. Most importantly, it produces readers who do more than decode Hebrew text: it produces readers who understand and are motivated to use this skill in service of their Jewish identity and participation in Jewish communal, cultural, and religious life.
Scott Goldberg, PhD, is the Golda Koschitzky Chair in Jewish Education at YU’s Azrieli Graduate School and Principal at SGC, a boutique consulting firm providing Jewish schools and organizations strategic guidance and leadership support world-wide. Dr. Goldberg is the author of MaDYK, the only second language Hebrew universal screening assessment used in Jewish day schools and yeshivot to assess and monitor Hebrew literacy development. He is also the author of Even Kriah, the first evidence-based second language Hebrew reading program grounded in the Science of Reading as it uniquely manifests in Hebrew, including approaches for Tiers 1, 2, and 3.
Dana Keil is a Hebrew Reading Coach at Scott Goldberg Consulting with deep expertise in special education and inclusion. Dana previously served as Director of Support Services and Lower School Director at Luria Academy of Brooklyn, earning the Ruderman Family Foundation prize for leadership in inclusion. In addition to her work at SGC, Dana is the Communal Director of Teaching and Learning at the Jewish Education Center of Cleveland and adjunct faculty at American Jewish University.
From The Editor: Spring 2026
By the time I entered the elementary school I attended, it had been around for nearly 50 years and was already in decline. Despite the challenges, there were two things which left a lasting impression. The Jewish studies, which occupied the first half of the day, were all conducted in Hebrew, Ivrit beIvrit; some of the teachers were dedicated, die-hard Hebraists who provided me with a very solid foundation. The Hebrew that I learned gave me access to Israeli songs popularized after the Six Day War and to classic Jewish texts—the siddur, Humash, and even to Gemara (yes, Aramaic and Hebrew are closely connected). The language enabled me to act as a translator when my father’s cousin came to visit from Israel, and even enabled me, years later, to attend a regular Israeli yeshiva—in Hebrew.
Aside from the Hebrew language, the school was suffused with Israeli culture.
Hebrew, Achievement, and Educational Leadership: The Process of Building Depth and Durability
בבתי ספר יהודיים בתפוצות, הוראת עברית נעה זה שנים בין שני קטבים: מחד, שפה של זהות, רגש וחיבור לעם ולמדינה; מאידך, מקצוע הנאבק על מקומו מול תחומי דעת הנתפסים כ”ליבתיים” ובעלי יוקרה אקדמית. כמנהל מחלקה לעברית וכמורה בבית ספר יהודי־ציוני, מצאתי את עצמי שואל לא פעם: האם תפקידי הוא להגיב לציפיות משתנות של תלמידים, הורים והקשר פוליטי, או שמא להציב חזון חינוכי ברור—גם במחיר של חיכוך, עומס ואתגר מערכתי. מתוך התבוננות בזהותי כמחנך עברי־ציוני ובחיבור לערכים שעליהם גדלתי, בחרתי לראות בעברית לא רק כלי זהותי אלא תחום דעת מלא: שפה חיה, תרבות עשירה, וספרות ושירה הראויות להילמד ללא התנצלות ובסטנדרטים אקדמיים ברורים.
When Hebrew Became a Lifeline: Teaching Language, Culture, and Identity After October 7
A few days after October 7, I received an email from the parent of one of my students. The message itself was simple: a link to a video of the prayer for the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, set to music. But it was the words, written by the student, that stayed with me:
I’m sure you’ll like this video because you are Israeli. It’s a good song, very encouraging. I hope Hashem will watch over all our soldiers and bring them home safely so there will be peace.
This was not an assignment. No one had asked her to do this. It was an instinctive act of connection—a student using Hebrew, prayer, and music to reach out to her teacher and to Israel. In that moment, it became clear to me that Hebrew in my classroom had changed. It was no longer only a subject to be mastered; it had become a lifeline.
Successful Shelihim
Jewish Educational Leadership: What do you see as the real value of shelihim?
Bini Krauss: Ivrit beIvrit has long been a central pillar of what we believe in. I know that there are fewer schools doing that today than there were twenty years ago, for sure, but it’s still something that’s very important to us. So the first thing is that if we want to do it properly, it’s probably good to have people who speak Ivrit as their native language. It’s not the only way to do it, but I believe that it is certainly the best way. Many years ago, I taught at the Yeshivah of Flatbush. I was not a native Hebrew speaker, but I think that I was pretty good. Nonetheless, it is much better for students to interact regularly with those for whom Hebrew is native.
From Exposure to Expression: A Schoolwide Model for Increasing Hebrew Production through Joyful Culturally Rich Pedagogy
Despite significant growth across nearly all curricular areas in recent decades, Hebrew language instruction remains a persistent challenge in many Jewish day schools. While schools throughout the diaspora have sought to address this issue by employing shelihim from Israel, this model has raised ongoing concerns, including a lack of continuity due to frequent staff turnover, uneven pedagogical training, differing cultural assumptions about teaching and learning, and questions of quality control. At the Moriah School (Englewood, NJ), these long-standing concerns converged with a broader question that many school communities face: How could it be that a child could spend twelve years in a Jewish day school and still struggle to speak Hebrew?
This urgent question became the catalyst for our recent initiative. The school’s leadership felt that the moment had arrived for a bold, systemic rethink. Student outcomes in many subjects were improving, yet progress in Hebrew remained stagnant.
Teaching Hebrew in a Changing World
אולי נתחיל בשאלה פשוטה מאוד. למה זה חשוב שיהודי בתפוצות ילמד עברית, ואיך זה משפיע על חייו?
אני חושב שהיא באמת שאלה מאוד מורכבת, מכיוון שאחד מהאתגרים הגדולים שיש היום בתפוצות הוא להתמודד עם השאלה “למה עברית?”. אני חושב שלכולם די ברור למה צריך לעסוק בתכנים יהודיים—בחלק מבתי הספר קוראים לזה מקצועות הקודש, בחלק מבתי הספר מגדירים את זה אחרת—אבל לכולם מאוד ברור שבית ספר יהודי צריך שתהיה לו זיקה ליהדות. אך מבחינת העברית יש היום הרבה מאוד סימני שאלה גדולים. ה”אני מאמין” שלי, והוא שלי בלבד, זה שאנחנו מלמדים עברית משתי סיבות. אלף, מתוך זה שהעברית היא חלק מהעולם היהודי. אי אפשר לנתק את העברית מכל ההיסטוריה היהודית. העברית היא הערך הבסיסי ביותר של היהדות.
Hebrew as an Identity Anchor in Diaspora Supplementary Schools: A Response to a Secular-Israeli-Jewish community
הוראת עברית כעוגן זהותי בחינוך המשלים בתפוצות: מענה לצורך הקהילה הישראלית-חילונית
מאת: אליאנה גורדון, נירית פריקורן וטל זילברשטיין פז
תקציר
מאמר זה מציג מודל פרקטי ליצירת תחושת שייכות וטיפוח זהות ישראלית-יהודית רב-שכבתית בקרב ילדים להורים ישראלים החיים בתפוצות, בדגש על קהילתיות ועל יחס ליהדות כתרבות חיה ומתפתחת. המאמר מתמקד באופן שבו בית ספר לעברית משלים יוצא מגבולות המוסד הלימודי וממסגרת השיעור הפרונטלי והופך לעוגן קהילתי, תרבותי, וחיוני עבור הקהילה המקומית כולה.
From Immersion to Deliberation: A Model for Hebrew Identity Education
In recent years, we have found ourselves returning to a question that feels both old and new: If early Zionist thinkers believed that reviving Hebrew could reshape Jewish life, how might they have imagined teaching it in communities far from the land where it would be revived? We are not historians of Zionist pedagogy, and we do not pretend to reconstruct their educational blueprints. But reading figures such as Ze’ev Jabotinsky alongside other early twentieth-century voices forces us to pause and plan intentionally. For them, Hebrew was never meant to function merely as a school subject. It was imagined as atmosphere, as music, as discipline, as shared inheritance. It was something that would seep into consciousness and form character.
Ze’ev Jabotinsky, founder of the Revisionist Zionist movement and the Betar youth organization, is often remembered for his political writings and sharp polemics. Yet woven throughout his speeches and essays is a sustained concern with formation.
Language Defines Identity: A Literary Unit on Multilingualism and Multiculturalism
אירועי השבעה באוקטובר ומה שאירע בעקבותיהם היו שבר שהשפעתו עדיין מהדהדת בכול. לא רק שערעור תחושת הביטחון, האמון, והאמונה שלי עצמי הקשו עליי לעמוד בכיתה וללמד ״כרגיל״, גם תלמידיי בצפון קליפורניה הרחוקה והבטוחה חשו שמשהו נסדק. בימים הראשונים שלאחר הטבח, תלמידים אמרו לי שלראשונה בחייהם הם נחשפים לגילויי אנטישמיות וחוששים לביטחונם האישי, או לעסק בעל הנראות היהודית מאוד של משפחתם. הדהימה אותי העובדה שגם בתיכון היהודי הקטן שבו אני מלמדת (180 תלמידים), תלמידים, אנשי סגל ומשפחותיהם הכירו אישית חטופים, ניצולים, לוחמים וחללים.
בשנת הלימודים 2024-2025, תכננתי ללמד את ההקבצה המתקדמת שלנו (כיתות ט׳-יב) קורס בספרות עברית. היחידה שעמה החלטתי לפתוח את השנה עוסקת ברב-לשוניות ורב-תרבותיות, נושא שמעסיק אותי בחיי האישיים והמקצועיים כאחד.
What Would Jabotinsky Expect from a Hebrew Program Today?
In recent years, we have found ourselves returning to a question that feels both old and new: If early Zionist thinkers believed that reviving Hebrew could reshape Jewish life, how might they have imagined teaching it in communities far from the land where it would be revived? We are not historians of Zionist pedagogy, and we do not pretend to reconstruct their educational blueprints. But reading figures such as Ze’ev Jabotinsky alongside other early twentieth-century voices forces us to pause and plan intentionally. For them, Hebrew was never meant to function merely as a school subject. It was imagined as atmosphere, as music, as discipline, as shared inheritance. It was something that would seep into consciousness and form character.
Ze’ev Jabotinsky, founder of the Revisionist Zionist movement and the Betar youth organization, is often remembered for his political writings and sharp polemics. Yet woven throughout his speeches and essays is a sustained concern with formation.
Resilience in Jewish Education Begins With Hebrew
כמעט שמונה עשורים מהווים בתי הספר “המלך דויד” (King David) ביוהנסבורג רשת של בתי ספר יהודיים, הפועלת תחת חסות ועד החינוך היהודי בדרום אפריקה. הרשת כוללת ארבעה קמפוסים ומציעה חינוך מגיל גן ועד תיכון, במסגרת משותפת לבנים ולבנות, ובה לומדים כיום כ־2700 תלמידים ומלמדים כ־385 מורים. בתי הספר פועלים ברוח אורתודוקסית-מסורתית, תוך פתיחות וקבלת תלמידים ממשפחות יהודיות מגוונות. לצד חינוך כללי ברמה גבוהה, מושם דגש משמעותי על לימודי עברית ולימודי יהדות, כחלק מתפיסה חינוכית הרואה בשפה, במסורת ובקשר למדינת ישראל מרכיבים מרכזיים בזהותם של התלמידים. במסגרת קהילה יהודית מגובשת ובעלת ציפיות ברורות, בתי הספר שואפים לחנך תלמידים בעלי זהות יהודית וציונית, תחושת שייכות, ואחריות כלפי הקהילה והחברה.
כאשר התחלתי להוביל את תחום העברית בבית הספר, הבנתי שהשאלה איננה כמה שעות עברית נלמדות (למרות שאף זו שאלה חשובה), אלא איזה מעמד יש לעברית בתרבות הבית ספרית.
Shinshinim in Schools: An Insider View
The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Jewish Educational Leadership: Many of our readers are familiar with what a shinshin is, but not all. Can you tell us briefly?
Shira Rafalovitz: Sure. Shinshin is short for shenat sherut, a year of service. It is a year of volunteer work that some Israelis do before they start the army. Most people do their sherut in Israel, volunteering in lots of different places, but some of us choose to go overseas to work in schools or Jewish communities where we think that we can help build bridges between Jewish communities around the world and Israel. I got placed in Detroit, where I did most of my work at Frankel Jewish Academy, the high school. I also did some teaching in a Sunday school with younger kids and with a synagogue.
Preparing Shelihim for Transformative Educational Leadership
Ben Porat Yosef (BPY) is an Early Childhood-8th grade Modern Orthodox yeshiva day school (Paramus, NJ). The school was founded 25 years ago, initially as a Sephardic educational institution, and shortly thereafter shifting to our current model as a dual-curriculum Sephardic and Ashkenazic school, where students who hail from either heritage and tradition are welcomed and celebrated. Moreover, the educational program trains our students in the laws, customs, and culture of the varied Sephardic and Ashkenazic traditions.
The other core element of our mission is to develop in our students a love for Am Yisrael, Eretz Yisrael, and Medinat Yisrael. This is executed in a variety of ways, and two central components are our Hebrew Immersion model and our shelihim program.
Many Diaspora day schools aspire to effectively teach Judaic Studies in Ivrit, for both philosophical and educational reasons. However, there are several significant challenges that have likely contributed to less-than-ideal implementation in the broader field.
Cafe Ivrit: Hebrew Conversation & Connection for Supplemental School Students
In supplemental school settings, there is so much for our students to learn in so little time. With a focus on learning Jewish traditions and preparing for Benei Mitzvah services, students often interact with Hebrew as an ancient language used in prayer and the Torah. It can be challenging for educators to allocate additional preparation and class time for students to experience Hebrew as a modern, spoken language.
Congregation Beth Elohim (Acton, Massachusetts) is an independent synagogue of about 200 families. We strive to foster a warm, welcoming, and inclusive environment that fulfills the ever-changing needs of our Jewish community. Our supplemental Religious School includes students from kindergarten through 10th Grade. We seek to create a learning environment that is warm and engaging, and to create a love of learning and a strong Jewish connection that will stay with our students throughout their lives.
Critical Conceptual Tools with Practical Application for Strengthening Hebrew Language Instruction and Learning
Over the past several years, I’ve found myself in the same conversation again and again with teachers, department chairs, and school leaders who care deeply about Hebrew but feel stuck. Not stuck because of a lack of passion, and not even because of a lack of resources, but because of something harder to name: a lack of shared clarity.
The questions come in different forms: What is the role of Hebrew in Jewish day schools today? Why teach Hebrew? Why learn Hebrew? What is Hebrew meant to accomplish? What should a graduate of a Jewish day school know and be able to do in Hebrew? Who is an effective Hebrew educator? What does effective Hebrew language teaching and learning actually look like?
At first, these questions may sound abstract. However, strong frameworks can help shape very real decisions: how time is used, how teaching is approached, which curricula are chosen, and how educators are supported.
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