As you prepare for the new school year, remember that our blended-learning, book-and-digital, Hebrew series, Kol Yisrael: Prayers of Our People, is now complete. With the recent release of Kol Yisrael 3 you can now teach four years of Hebrew—Primer through Prayer Literacy—with the same fully-integrated, digital-plus-book approach that has been tried and tested in hundreds of schools since we launched the first volume four years ago. Give your Hebrew students the advantages of blended learning right now!
Set Students up—Today—for Hebrew Success
Alef Bet Quest, our multi-media primer, teaches decoding and prepares students for any level one Hebrew program. The three levels of Kol Yisrael: The Prayers of Our People combine 29 prayers and blessings with modern cultural vocabulary for a rich and comprehensive Hebrew learning experience, preparing students to become b’nai mitzvah and participate fully in their Jewish community. All these materials feature online games and practice sessions that entice students to spend more time on task, the key to improving skills and helping them succeed. Built-in assessment tools let students see how they are doing right away, and let you monitor how much they are practicing and how they are progressing. This direct feedback is key to determining how much time to spend on new material vs. review, allowing you to make the most of your important and limited class time.
As one educator wrote to us: “I love that the kids use the software at home. I love that the teachers can check their work. It’s fun for the kids.” (Dr. Itzik Eshel, Education Director, Temple Emanuel, Kensington, MD)
Alef Bet Quest and Kol Yisrael are effective because they go beyond fun. Based on the most recent language acquisition research, they use proven strategies to focus attention and time-on-task in the highest-impact areas, where learners have the most difficulty and where they can enjoy the most rapid progress. You can learn more about this research and the pedagogic underpinnings of this series by reading the article “Alef Bet Quest: Research into Hebrew Reading” by the author of Alef Bet Quest, Dina Maiben, RJE. (You will need Adobe Reader to see this article; it is available as a free download from Get.Adobe.com/reader).
There’s multi-media Hebrew learning in the works for younger students, too. In January we will release Ready, Set, GO Alef Bet, a blended digital-plus-book pre-primer with direct access to online activities and assessment. Soon your second graders—and even their parents—will be able to learn the Hebrew letters interactively using all-new graphics, games, and playful exercises.
Do you want to know more about how these blended-learning Hebrew materials can work in your school? Email us at customersupport@behrmanhouse.com and we’ll be in touch right away. Be sure to include your name and contact infomration!
Sneak a Peek at New Learning Technology That’s Coming SOON
This is also the perfect time to give you a preview of news we’ll be announcing officially this fall. In January we will be launching the Behrman House Online Learning Center. This website and online resource center will allow you to create flexible learning communities that are unconstrained by geography or time. Using the Online Learning Center, you will be able to:
- Organize students, teachers, even parents and reach out to them by email and online
- Set up and manage classes your students and teachers can access from anywhere, at anytime
- Enroll students in Alef Bet Quest and Kol Yisrael directly, and track their activity and progress
- Discover a wide variety of multi-media Judaic resources.
- Get ideas for planning dynamic lessons.
- Find photos and videos to enliven class discussions
- Help teachers collaborate on lesson plan development
- Nurture class discussions that go beyond the classroom walls
- Encourage group projects
- Assign and assess Hebrew practice
The Behrman House Online Learning Center will be introduced to a growing number of test-site schools this fall as we refine and develop its features. It will be widely available in early 2012 to give you plenty of time to evaluate it for adoption in your own school next year. We’ll have a lot more to tell you about it in the coming months.
Invitations to apply to become an Online Learning Center beta-test school will be going out soon. If you’d like to be on the list, just click here to email us and let us know. Be sure to include your name and contact information in the email!
And, as we complete construction of the Online Learning Center, you will be able to give your classes one-click access to all the online components of our comprehensive five-year, blended-learning Hebrew program, and track every student’s progress automatically.
So stay tuned for updates about our developing online resources, our newest Hebrew materials, and the increasingly rich set of multi-media resources we are making available to teach Israel, values, holidays and prophets using the technology your students find so compelling. We’ll also be reminding you and your families about the mobile apps we have released that let you get Jewish learning on the go.
In our next article, we will be bringing you stories of educators who are choosing and using Alef Bet Quest and Kol Yisrael. You’ll find out why they selected these materials, how they use them, and what students, teachers, and parents have been reporting back about their learning experiences. In the meantime, we invite you to visit www.behrmanhouse.com, where we have created a section designed especially for Educators, and an area devoted specifically to Hebrew in your school, and where you’ll find loads of links you can send directly to students and families.
Hebrew practice available online 