Laying The Foundation For Learning Chumash Independently by Rabbi D. Freedman

This workshop addresses two major topics. First, research about the importance of a strong vocabulary, how to acquire it, and its application to limudei kodesh is presented. In addition, the importance of monitoring school-wide vocabulary achievements is explained and statistics about the underachievement of many of our schools in vocabulary acquisition is also reported. The workshop also describes a new diagnostic tool for Chumash vocabulary acquisition that is called The Chumash Vocabulary Test©. The second part of the workshop explains how to integrate the aforementioned ideas into a practical system that will enable a teacher to cover substantially more material with greater understanding during the school year and to empower students with a large Chumash vocabulary that consists of words, suffixes, and prefixes. The workshop describes how this system can be implemented in any classroom during regular Chumash instruction. Throughout the workshop, it is shown how this system will accommodate children with special needs who are mainstreamed into a regular classroom as well as how to modify and intensify this program for children in resource rooms and self-contained classrooms. Please note: There is intentionally no sound for the first 5 minutes of the video; the sound will start thereafter.

Rabbi Aichenbaum is great! After 30 years in Chinuch I couldn't have said it better! Rabbi Shaul Klein Brooklyn, New York

I am a second grade morah in Los Angeles. I have been teaching this way for the past 7 years and tell new parents at back to school night they're not going to believe what their child is going to be able to do .I am also a huge fan of flashcards. I have an explicit system which is color coded and the pesukim that go up are colored according to prefixes, suffixes, and shorashim. Each time I introduce a new prefix, suffix, etc... they make a flashcard of the same color and they also write the pesukim in a composition book and color code them too. I find the learning is further reinforced when they make the cards themselves and write the pesukim. It is a lot of work for the teacher, as I check all flashcards and pesukim and send home certain ones to study for quiz... but the results speak for themselves. I have trained some new teachers in this system and they are thrilled and their students are baruch Hashem succeeding! As the year progresses and they have built up a vocabulary (have weekly quizzes on the flashcards till chanukah) then I take away the colors and a little later we only write down the new difficult words as they can teich most of the posuk on their own- they are "teaching" me! It's an amazing system and if it's done correctly and systematically, the pace picks up and we accomplish the same two parshios required, while giving them the greatest gift- the ability to break down possukim on their own and learn Chumash based on application of skill and not the lowest level of rote memorization.

takes some time to start but be patient it is worth the wait a great presentation with worth while material