Kriah goals in Israeli chadarim

Posted: Wed, Jun 06 2012, 6:19 am Post subject: Kriah goals in Israeli chadarim

Can Israeli imamothers tell me what 4.5 year old boys attending Israeli chadarim are expected to know in terms of kriah? Are children this age ending their first or their second year of cheder?

Gold Member Joined: Jan 11 2011 Posts: 1164

From around 3-4 is gan - learning aleph-bais - just the letters.

4-5 is mechina - learning letter-vowel combinations, with them pretty much knowing how to read by this stage of the year.

5-6 is kitta aleph - it is assumed they know how to read at the beginning of the year and they start chumash.

The cut-off date is important. When I say 3 to start gan, that might be 3.5 or even 3.75 depending on the child and the cut-off date which varies from cheder to cheder. So a 4.5 year old might be in gan.

Also some chadarim have mechina aleph and mechina beis and kitta aleph is a year later.
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What Shalhevet said. But you can try to put your son in the class below his age, if he needs to catch up. Or get a private rebbe to catch him up, if he is just a little bit behind.

Gold Member Joined: Jan 11 2011 Posts: 1164

My son is 5 1/2 but he was held back a year so his class is 4 1/2. This is 2 classes before 1st grade. (In his cheder, this is called gan alef. Next year is gan bais, the year after that is kita alef.)

They have completed all the letters and nekudos by now and are reviewing all the sounds together. They spend a lot of time reviewing, both in the class and working with each student individually.
They have not yet started putting together actual words.

Diamond Member Joined: Feb 15 2007 Posts: 3232

Gold Member Joined: May 09 2006 Posts: 1651

my son's cheder:
The cut-off is nissan which means that in gan, you must turn four before nissan

3 1/2 - 4 1/2--learn all the aleph bais and all the nekudos
4 1/2 - 5 1/2-- mechina, join letters with vowels together until the end of the year you are reading very, very fluently.
kita aleph--expected to be able to read very quickly and fluently by the start of the year since they go very quickly in chumash and start learning breishis on the first day and finished the entire sefer breishis by the end of kita aleph (they also spend around 3 hours a day doing chumash)

in other chadarim, the cut off may be slightly different and in gan they may not learn all of the nekudos, but also before entering first grade they are expected to be able to read fluently and start chumash upon entering first grade (some chadarim may do some chumash in mechina at the end of the year)
the girls don't "learn" to read till first grade and many of them are almost 7 by then. the cut off for the girls is that you should be 6 by the time you start first grade (or by Teves of first grade), but the younger girls who are not yet 6 usually have a difficult time dealing with first grade because you are expected to be 7 really.

Diamond Member Joined: Feb 15 2007 Posts: 3232

You tell him that he's the only child in the class who doesn't know all the nekudos. You tell him that if he doesn't hurry up and learn all the nekudos he can't go to the next class. You let him know he's a failure because he still confuses shin and sin, and hasn't gotten past kamatz, pasach and tzeirei. There are lots of ways to pressure a kid.

I have not found pressure in the chadarim at this age. They make it fun. You can take extra help, or keep your son back another year, without pressure.

Diamond Member Joined: Feb 15 2007 Posts: 3232

Diamond Member Joined: Feb 15 2007 Posts: 3232

Diamond Member Joined: Feb 15 2007 Posts: 3232

He does have a concentration problem, but I can't keep him back a year. He has a brother a year younger starting cheder next year and it would be an absolute disaster to have them together. I couldn't do that to my older son.

Gold Member Joined: Jan 11 2011 Posts: 1164