Regarding Rashi Script, a comment and some suggestions:
While I think that learning Rashi script is important I think it is over-emphasized at young ages. Especially in light of the amazing advances in printing that we’ve seen in the past 25 years. So many works are now available without Rashi script that it seems that we are clinging to something that is not that helpful. Bearing in mind how many of our students have reading issues, dyslexia, dysgraphia,… learning another font is really a challenge.
Notwithstanding the above I do teach it. A simple solution I have been using with fourth graders is to print all texts that I hand out in Rashi script. So they get Mishnayot, halakhot, etc… in Rashi script. I have also been handing out texts in other scripts as well - Stam, Keter Aram Tzovah, etc.... I want my students to understand that it is ‘merely’ a font and that there is nothing intrinsically important about it.
I hope others expand the thinking of their students as well. Here is a site with many fonts. [
opensiddur.org] Be mindful or your OS, the copyrights, and installation instructions.
Kol tuv,
Mordechai Rackover
