The “Otiyot Medabrot” reading method is adapted to the phonetic approach to reading endorsed by the Ministry of Education. The method is based on three important principles:

The method begins by teaching the language’s briefest sounds – the phonemes, comprised of consonants and vowels. Later, we move on to teaching combinations of phonemes and short words.

Our method teaches children to pronounce, write and read every new sound that is learned. A child who forgets a certain sound is surprised to find out that writing the symbol is a reminder of the forgotten sound. This works because the hand’s movement during writing is recorded in memory, and thus assists recall of the sound. we believe that our different types of memory are interconnected, so that each one supports the others.

With our method, every sound (consonant or vowel) is coupled with a special formation of the body parts used for speech (tongue, teeth, use of the throat and the vocal cords). When a child forgets the sound of a consonant or a vowel, he or she will recall the shape of the mouth that was learned before. Therefore, proper articulation of the speech apparatus will help the child produce the desired sound.

To allow children who are non-Hebrew speakers to learn the building blocks of the Hebrew reading and writing system, I have used pictures that represent universal words, such as “zebra”, “balloon”, etc. At the bottom of each page the phonetic pronunciation of each word in Hebrew is given (broken into syllables). We have also included a number of pictures representing basic vocabulary words in Hebrew, in order to begin exposing the child to the spoken language itself.