From which sefer does this come from?

Firstly, realize that without the capacity to control variables there’s no evidence to their claim. One would need to compare two groups (Traditional-KAU vs Phonic-KAU) with the same number of participants and the same instructors. The amount of explanation provided in both groups would need to be quantified, given that this factor can vary extensively depending on the design of the particular curriculum. To my knowledge such a study has yet to be performed.

Second, the KAU method of old is not our Gemara method of old. Just because we were thrown into the sugya without a skillset, which is an ongoing problem with all yeshivos, there’s no reason the Rebbeyim’s Kamatz Aleph system has to take the punishment. Our preschools are not necessarily the same entities as our defunct Yeshivas. With a bit of introspection we discover we are actually “projecting” our frustrations from one external entity to another. Transposing the problem further back is just stretching a truth into a more familiar context. We hear what we want to. The stories we told our brains may not necessarily be the accurate truth.

If we allow our selves to be open to reality, we could experience the realization of the real reason for claims that preschoolers can’t read. Consider: when was the last time the parent sat with their child to read together? Many children weren’t taught anything to begin with – being shipped off to a factory that supposedly teaches via rote sing-along CD’s is not the way learning occurs. If nobody bothered to TEACH Traditional-KAU, that doesn’t mean that T-KAU is flawed. Lets stop projecting. The fault is not the method.

Be a little more careful about what you write, it does say to teach the names of the letters!

It doesn’t mention in either of those curricula about saying Komatz-Alef-Au! just mentions Phonics.

So your point is there, just get your facts right.

The above raises an honest point. I’ll share what I think after having spoken extensively with the founders of the phonics curriculum and one of its leading Rabbonim.

I think that if it’s just preschool arts and crafts you would be correct that adding sounds are indeed simple and it doesn’t really matter. But if its already pre1a and ability is becoming a concern, I think it may be time to take the path of less resistance.

Although knowledge should never be withheld – as us gifted tend to tour our young the marvels of HaShem’s world – I’m certain that as an experienced teacher you’ve also come to learn that sometimes, pointing things out, even if not mistakes, can actually be pausing to their reel. The reason is that anyone can show and tell. Anyone can be quick to correct mistakes. But the gifted strive to enable an environment where the discovery process can unfold, by itself.

Traditional KAU does just that. By easy familiarization with the Alef Beis – and always with positive praise, there’s no need be 100 percent, by the way – we effectively prepare or set up the child for success in their upcoming stage and page. And so long as we don’t encounter stagnation. At that place, the child is enabled to discover the pattern on his own. S/he will there have the advantage of contrast, which phonic instruction lacks.

Obviously there’ll be some prodding, and at times where we do the explaining / learning for the child, but those interferences are minimal and only when absolutely necessary. But purely rote instruction, though it does work, is spoon feeding, is passive, is prolonged. Most importantly it’s taxing. Excessive memorization makes things hard.

Hatzlacha.

In the last line of this comment, the commenter writes “(obviously in line with our Mesorah- only after teaching the names)”.

Maybe he can explain why, based on the מאות לאות and לשון נפשי, it is so obvious that one needs to teach the names of the letters and Nekudos?!

In the מאות לאות curriculum, there is NOWHERE a mention of teaching the NAMES of the LETTERS and the NEKUDOS. It’s purely based on sounds. Nevertheless, the Rebbe gave his Berocha in writing to it. (same for לשון נפשי)

Based on your logic, quote “When the Rebbe received the completed book, the Rebbe responded, “תשואת חן תשואת חן” “, means it’s Kosher, and all should use it and follow its methods. We should all follow the methods of מאות לאות and לשון נפשי and NOT teach the names of the letters and the Nekudos?!

Obviously, even according to you, the Rebbe’s Brocha doesn’t apply a Haskoma and a Horah for all to learn from.

Therefore, we should not be פוסע על שתי סעיפים taking from these books what fits our narrative, discarding the rest; rather, these books shouldn’t be brought at all into the discussion of how we teach our children, period.

Just as someone who teaches and from speaking with other phonic melamdim I have learned that what they purposely wont tell you is how strainful and prolonged it is for the child to memorize all the sounds.

The sound solution sounds so perfect, yet in practice is very strenuous for a child, especially the challenged.

The KAU process involves 3 steps: recognizing letters by their name. 2) recognizing vowels by their name. 3) self discovery – the highest for of learning – that 1 vowel naturally manipulates each of the 22 letters sounds. Obviously not fully solidified, but another round of patach and then segol should switch the bulb on.

This is where the smart logicians chime in. They want to explain the process in depth and with sophisticated reasoning so that the youngster can analyze and conclude how the code system works. By doing so, they add a step after letter recognition, which involves a few months of rote memorizing sounds which are associated with the letters. A teacher of this system explained to me that the student is not allowed to proceed to vowels until they pass an exam in which 100% of letter sounds have been memorized. Next stage, names of vowels, followed by their sounds again. A lot of explaining is done at this stage, because the young mind has never had any samples from which he could discern the fine contrast between phonic and vowel – unlike the traditional student who has long turned to page 2 of the siddur. Now he has to memorize vowels, and worse – some proponents of this method rob the child of the ability to associate name-tags to these vowels. (names are important for storage and retrieval into and out of memory). Again, the student is prohibited from progressing to page 2 until the teacher, principal, administrator, and consultant are %100 certain that this student has rote memorized and supposedly “understood” the rhymes associated with the nameless symbols. By this time a year has gone by. Finally, they are introduced to page 2 of the siddur.

This phonics method while it may work has been excessively complicated, unnecessarily drawn out, and most importantly misses the opportunity for the highest form of learning – self discovery. The sheer inefficiency of phonics tells of the sheer classroom inexperience of its designers.

The only reasonable but half-true point of the phonics proponents are that we do find that for some children traditional efficiency has failed to switch on the bulb. However, what makes you blame the method, have you considered that perhaps the child has never practiced 1 on 1 because he was just singing along “Patach Bais Bah” in a class of 30+ kids? Of course our factories are producing a percentage of defected products. The problem is not the method.

Learning requires efficiency. KAU was always a simple 1-2-3 process, and by interfering with that process you rob the mind of leaning that stays.

Quotes from an article by Rabbi Moshe Schwartz, master educator in the kamatz alef uh method:

“It happens that sometimes students need to start over again on page 10 of the sefer when they were already reading, with difficulty, on page 50. One boy started close to the beginning of the sefer four times during tutoring time, and also in his homework – and now he is reading.”

“There are so many different Aleph-Beis seforim available today… For a child that takes longer to learn, it’s great for them to be able to go through 2 or 3 of these seforim until they can read really well.”

These are the children who are not intuitively understanding the phonics behind kamatz alef uh, as their peers do.
What happens when these children don’t have a Rebbi who closely tracks their kriah progress—who starts over with them multiple times or goes through several kriah books? What if they grow discouraged by having to start over again and again, always lagging behind their classmates?

What if these children could instead be taught explicitly the skills needed for blending letters and nekudos —and succeed the first time, without having to keep going back to the beginning? (Granted, a challenged reader will likely still progress more slowly than his peers—but without the same frustration of repeated failure and starting over.)

But even according to their opinion, I agree the teachers skills is also a factor to be considered.

The discussion is, what was the Mesorah in the past and what did our Rabbeim say etc. The Rabbonim’s position is surely based on good reasons, and NO ONE is interested in getting involved and saying differently. Nevertheless, knowing what the Mosorah is and what our Rabbein said, has great meaning and significance.and is something we all have right to know about and perhaps should know.

The reason for teaching letter & nekuda sounds in addition to kamatz alef uh is that many children do not naturally grasp the phonics involved unless it is made explicit.

Whether phonics was formally taught in previous generations is irrelevant. If it wasn’t, it’s because children instinctively understood it. Today, if a teacher sees that teaching sounds helps students succeed in kriah—and there is no instruction from the Rabbeim against it (in the many letters and sichos concerning how kriah should or should not be taught) —then the teacher is not only permitted but obligated to use this tool to help children succeed.

Full page letters of many respected rabonnim in our community and Chabad at large that fully support and encourage the teaching of the sounds of the letters and the nekudos.

As well as the text of the curriculum that has the rebbes blessing and signature, which clearly shows regarding teaching sounds of both the letters and nekudos.

If you truly want to know, happy to point you in the direction where you can find clear examples and answers.

Zalsphone@gmail.com

On the other hand, sources leaning to the opposite are in abundance, and most recently sources have circulated how Reb Chaim Brisk, the Chazon Ish, Reb Eliyouh Dessler and many others (also from Hungary) expressed clearly their opposition to using phonics.

This isn’t a Lubavitcher thing anymore, it has now been proven to be a very widely accepted Charidisher Mesorah, leaning all to one direction only.

maybe in hungary and poland it was different.

but not in Chabad.

Rabbi Osdoba Shlit”a senior Rov of the Ch Beis Din signed two letters stating he doesn’t agree to teaching sounds, it was solely Rabbi Braun Shlit”a from the CH Beis Din that signed he endorses teaching sounds.

This is very true, and can be proven from the Rebbe’s Brocha to Weinbaum for Lamdeini.

In his interview with JEM, Rabbi Weinbaum relates that the Rebbe told him not to put pictures of non-kosher animals in his Kriah book.

Well, if you open his book there are unfortunately pictures of non-kosher animals, and nevertheless, the Rebbe gave him a Brocha.

Would it be logical that Brocha was endorsing the fact that the book didn’t follow the Rebbe’s clear directive not to have non-Kosher animals, and that all children’s books should have non-kosher animals?!

As related in the JEM interview by Rabbi Weinbaum, the Rebbe didn’t even open the book before giving the Brocha.

Therefore, in no way can one say that the Brocha was of any sort of Haskoma.

Regarding Rabbi Altien’s article, it’s to note that it has been heavily disputed, and there is no probably no greater proof to this than the fact that the Rabbonim did NOT use his sources.

Other than this, I don’t think that anyone has yet claimed to have found a source to the usage of phonics. The discussion is solely about Mesorah whether phonics were used in the past to COMPLIMENT the regular reading of Osios and Nekudus by name.

The letter of Rabbonim relies on verbal answers to Rabbi Weinbaum and that the Reshet spoke to Mazkirus. Concluding that not teaching sounds is some new hoax.

But maybe based on this new information, which is in WRITING from Rabbi Chadokov, with clear testimony from him and Rabbis Majesky and SB Gordon.

Maybe the above statement would be reversed, as we see evidently that the idea of not teaching sounds existed already for decades and from Chashuve and respected Mechanchim.

Interesting if in fact this is referring to Lamdeini. Maybe the commenter didn’t hear that the author of Lamdeini publicly stated that the point of his curriculum was NOT to TEACH sound.

It’s here in this link https://anash.org/lamdeini-does-not-teach-kriah-with-phonetics/

The author of Lamdeini says this statement verbally many times to those who know him.

There was no Psak from Crown Heights Beis Din or any Rov on this matter. Just some Rabbonim expressed their opinion which is not Psak.

In fact, Rabbi Osdoba signed two letters stating he doesn’t agree to teaching sounds, and Rabbi Braun supported the notion of teaching sounds.

Igros Kodesh Vol. 1 page 188, the Rebbe explains the advantage of the Alef-Beis Chart as it has been printed by Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch (included in every Tehillas Hashem Siddur):
“We acknowledge the receipt of the Alef-Beis chart that you sent us. Amongst the differences between the Alef-Beis chart that was published by Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, versus the one you sent us, there is one fundamental difference, that the Nekudos (in our publication) are printed along with their names, Komatz, Patoch etc. Versus the other Alef Beis chart, which do not have the names, in which case, not only will the child never learn the true names of the Nekudos, but also, there is another problem, that the Nekudos will not be pronounced by themselves [as “Komatz” “Patach”], but rather, as if they are connected to letters [“Uh” “Ah”]. The extent and urgency of this matter, in regard to the child’s Chinuch Al Taharas HaKodesh, is self-understood.”.