O_01507

Multi-Sensory Techniques for

Teaching and Reviewing Alef
Bais and Nekudos
By Rabbi Chaim Roberts

Grade Level: Early Childhood, 1
st
Grade, Special Ed

Description:
A large selection of multi-sensory techniques for teaching and reviewing Alef -
Bais and Nekudos in the preschool or Special Ed classroom. Available with a
concise lesson plan as a non-editable PDF, or without the lesson plan as an
editable Word document.

Goals/Objectives:
Students will gain accuracy and fluency in recognizing letters and reading words
when taught using these multi-sensory techniques.

Instructions:
1. Principal, or Pre-School Advisor, should give out these sheets to teachers
who teach Hebrew reading.
2. Explain that the sheets contain a wealth of information that will help all
children learn to read. Encourage implementation of the ideas listed.

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A SeIectIon Of Ideas When TeachIng "

Golng over the wlth thelr flngers

Colour the ln
See the ln many dlfferent slzes; blg, small, medlum, thlck, thln, tall
Flashcards: sort them ln order/plck out certaln . Work towards
lnstant recognltlon.
Bulld the out of Knex/Cllcs/brlcks.
Form lt wlth play dough.
Make the out of pretzels etc and eat lt!
Draw lt ln the alr, they can do lt ln very small and then ln very blg.
Flnger lt ln sand or water.
Wrlte lt on a stlcker and put lt on the boys t-shlrt.
Stlck them onto cars/tralns and ask the boy to read the .
Colour ln the new ln a dlfferent colour to the others.
Clrcle only the new on a worksheet.
The boy should hold a cut-out .
Joln all the new together to form a plcture
Instead of 'Colour by number you can have 'Colour by .
Blow up balloons and put the lnslde or wrlte the on lt.
Lotto games/palrs (match each letter wlth the e.g. wlth ).
Use plpe cleaners to shape the .
Use stenclls to draw the .
Assoclate the belng learned wlth the name of a / ln your
(e.g. - , - )
Have the " prlnted ln a complete clrcle on a page (preferably on a
blgglsh square paper) wlth an arrow on a spllt pln ln the mlddle of the
clrcle and polnt to the you want them to say aloud. (When they are
learnlng you can have more than one arrow ln the centre and
they can have dlfferent at the top of each arrow).


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A SeIectIon of Ideas for ConsoIIdatIng the " {once most or aII of the
have been Iearnt)

1. Chlld should arrange " cards/blocks/magnetlc letters ln a ralnbow
shape ln the correct order on the table ln front of hlm. (It ls certalnly
preferable to use actual letters to lnclude tactlle skllls.)
2. Polnt to and say all the letters/a selectlon of them/a serles of the letters
ln the ralnbow. The chlld polnts and/or touches and says them hlmself,
hopefully wlthout ald from hls teacher.
3. The chlld closes hls eyes and ls asked to polnt to an early " letter e.g.
to test whether he has any ldea of lts place at the beglnnlng of the " or
whether he ls confused and thlnks the ' ls at the end. If he polnts near to
the correct place, he has some ldea. Thls exerclse can only be done lf the
letters are ln thelr correct posltlons.
4. The chlld closes hls eyes and some letters are taken away. The chlld
then opens hls eyes and determlnes whlch letters have dlsappeared.
5. Tell hlm a serles of three letters and ask hlm to plck them out e.g. , ,
- Teacher says , , and then the chIId repeats them and ls asked to
remove them ln the same sequence e.g. flrst he removes , then , then
and shows them to the teacher.
6. The teacher wrltes three letters on a paper or card and shows them to
the chlld. The teacher takes the card away and ln sllence the chlld removes
the letters from the " ln front of hlm ln the same order that was on the
card.
7. When the chlld packs away the blocks/cards/magnetlc letters thls can
be done ln sequences of letters as lnstructed e.g. every thlrd letter untll all
are packed away.



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Note: These ldeas were noted from a lecture serles on dyslexla. Speclal
needs technlques are also valuable when applled to malnstream chlldren.
When used sparlngly wlth able chlldren you save resources, tlme and
boredom. When used wlth the less able these technlques help to keep
them ln the malnstream. It ls apparent that when used judlclously these
technlques stlmulate and malntaln lnterest.


Some Ideas for InternaIIzIng the " wIth the

1. PoIntIng
When preparlng texts for readlng, one should put the / belng
learned on the top of the page. When the chlld reads he should polnt to the
vowel at the top of the page before saylng the letter or word. Example:










Another ldea: Put a poster on the wall or wear a hat wlth the /
belng learned.











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2. FInger Puppets
Have flnger puppets - one for each . (They can be made from paper
or materlal wlth the plcture of the attached.) The puppet can be used
ln dlfferent ways e.g. put on the polntlng flnger for readlng the card or
page, or just held up by teacher or when the vowel ls belng read /
learned.

3. Post Boxes
When readlng and playlng wlth cards and / or blocks e.g. \ \ each
card or block can be posted lnto the post box after uslng lt. (For the
colour codlng the post box or flnger puppets to the lt
matches makes lt even easler.)

4. MatchIng
l) Matchlng words or letters wlth llke vowels. The chlld ls shown 4 - 6
wlth varled and he should clrcle or show the that match.
For example, and the wlll take out the as they have the same
.
ll) The ls glven two wlth and he has to shout "Match!" or
"No Match!"
lll) , glven and hell say "Match!", and hell say "No Match!"
lv) , glven and hell say "No Match!", and hell say
"Match!"
v) For the who needs an even blgger breakdown than others, glve
hlm a number of (only) and he should sort them out. After that he
should put them (group by group) under and sound them.
vl) Once that ls easy then one can mlx the and put them lnto a
sequence e.g. | then they can be put under letters and sounded.
As wlth most of these ldeas wlth matchlng there ls no llmlt to ldeas and
dlfferent games to do wlth .

5. DomInoes
The matches the cards. For the beglnners the cards should just have
an or but for the more advanced the cards should have an


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and a - they can match up just the even though the
may be dlfferent; eventually they can match up the and the
together.
BegInners: More advanced:
Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3






The above game can be played by and but can also be played by
the amongst themselves - however, lt should only be played under
supervlslon.

6. RhymIng J TrackIng
Show the a serles or llne(s) of letters and ask hlm to enclrcle /
underllne / slash all the letters that have the sound correspondlng to the
(or and ) at the top of the page. Example:





The above can be slmpllfled to just e.g.



or can be made a llttle more dlfflcult and the has to plck out from a
couple of llnes words wlth a only or wlth a certaln comblnatlon only -
e.g. etc

7. Odd One Out
In order to consolldate the flner detalls of the or for the



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glve the chlld a group of wlth one or two dlfferent . The
chlld should then clrcle / slash the odd one out or pull out the odd card.

\ \ \ - and hell pull out the , \ \ \ - and hell pull out the

8. The Correct Word
Glven the wlde knowledge of words that even smaller chlldren have,
show the chlld two verslons of a word and ask the chlld to show and read
the correct one e.g. - or - .

9. The Correct LabeI
Draw a plcture of an object wlth lts name wrltten correctly and
lncorrectly. Ask the to polnt to / pull out / clrcle the correct one.







10. MatchIng PIcture & Sound {PeImanIsm)
There should be two sets of cards; one of plctures and the other wlth
names of the plctures. The object of thls exerclse ls for the to match
plcture and word.
lf a plcks out a plcture card wlth a plcture of a and then plcks
out a card wlth the word wrltten on lt and reads the word correctly he
can keep the set. If elther of the above condltlons are not met then he
returns both cards back to thelr respectlve plles.

11. SpIIt Page SpIraI FIIp Books
In modern day educatlon catalogues one can obtaln spllt page books. Thls
enables the to create many dlfferent comblnatlons. For example
on top and on the bottom or and on the top half and word
endlngs / closed syllables on the bottom half.