It was recently announced that a "situational picture" exam conducted by the Ministry of Education among all 4th graders revealed that a quarter of the 4th graders speak Hebrew, and about half of the Arabic speakers have difficulty understanding what is being read.
The sifs are shocked again, but as long as the Ministry of Education's policy on reading does not change, the situation will remain as it is, if not get worse.
"Reading comprehension" is not a separate skill that can be measured and hoped for.
The reading comprehension of Israeli children is poor, because too many students do not finish the reading process in the first grade, continue to roll without reading, accumulate frustrations and failures, and the system labels them with a multitude of labels.
Not knowing how to read is a real handicap - not only in the ability to succeed in long-term subjects, but also in math, chemistry and physics, and in all walks of life.
It must be said boldly that this situation is not a natural disaster.
The Ministry of Education repeatedly misses the opportunity to use proven methods for teaching reading, which leave no student behind.
In 1978 I came as an educational consultant to a middle school in the Hatikva neighborhood in Tel Aviv, and I was amazed to discover that a large part of the children could not read.
In my innocence, I contacted the authorities above me, and I was told that even if 50% leave the neighborhood when they read - that's fine.
"You learn them, we'll see you," they told me.
I contacted the three feeder schools of the division and started working with them using the caress method.
In 1982, I already won an education award for the reading achievements of the elementary schools in the Hatikva neighborhood. An evaluation report by the supervision in the Tel Aviv district found that 92% of the students reached the reading level expected of first graders.
Since then, the effectiveness of the methods for teaching reading have been tested twice more, and the Ministry of Education chose to ignore the data even then.
In 1990, a report was published on behalf of the Sold Institute, commissioned by the Ministry of Education, comparing the methods and examining the level of reading in Israel. The report found that stroking is the best method, because 20% of the students use it to reach fluent reading within three months, 57 % of them within five months, and the rest within seven months.
The Ministry of Education chose to ignore the findings.
In December 2000, a committee was appointed by the chairman of the Knesset's education committee and the director general of the Ministry of Education at the time, following a public debate on the question of teaching reading, again - after alarming data on student achievement was published.
The report published in 2001 found that Litif is "the program that most promotes students in acquiring reading skills."
At that time, the rate of students using this method was 31.7% of high school students. The Ministry of Education chose to ignore it even then.
A short time ago I taught my late husband's caregiver to read, a woman from Uzbekistan in her 30s, who had difficulty functioning without reading in the country where she lives and works. Everyone can and should learn to read. When they know how to read without errors, they will also understand what is being read Why does the Ministry of Education give up on some of the students?
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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