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11 Nissan 5761 - April 4, 2001 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Home and Family
PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE
Why is My Hebrew Reading So Slow?

by R' Zvi Zobin

Part III

In parts I and II we explored the various differences between reading English and Hebrew. Hebrew is more concise, with each letter having vital significance, like in a chemical formula, so that an error in one letter can completely change the meaning. Hebrew words are complex in structure, with prefixes and suffixes. Vowels complicate the reading process and also contribute to changed meaning.

11. "New" words and abbreviations

When reading English, if the reader meets a word he has not seen before, one can assume the reader will not know its meaning.

Classical Hebrew is based on only a few hundred basic "roots" and words are developed from them through well defined conjugations. Therefore, when the efficient reader of Hebrew meets a "new" word, he will be able to take an intelligent guess as to its meaning. However, an inefficient reader will be baffled. Similarly, the efficient reader will usually recognize the word to which an abbreviation is referring, whereas an inefficient reader will not easily be able to recognize it.

English language books tend to use larger fonts and more graphics. Classic Torah works remain as they were (except for some improvement in clarity). Therefore, the gap between the proficiency of reading that a person needs for secular studies in English and the proficiency of reading that he needs for Talmudic studies in Hebrew is slowly widening.

Furthermore, one of the advantages which Hebrew has over the European languages is its logical structure: once the reader recognizes the root of a word, if he is familiar with the rules of interpreting the extra letters, he can work out at least its approximate meaning even if he has never seen that word before.

Then, once the reader understands what the text is talking about, he can often forecast approximately what the next words are going to be. Or, at least the reader can narrow down the choice to only a few possible words. Therefore, after the reader understands the context, reading-on largely comprises merely confirming what he has projected will come.

That is why many of the classical Talmudical texts are written in tiny, almost illegible print and employ extensive abbreviations. The experienced, informed reader usually does not need to look intensively at each word. He only needs to confirm his own projection of possible words. So, as long as he can see enough of each word to confirm his forecast, or to eliminate other possibilities, he will be able to understand the text, even though its print is small and unclear.

However, the inexperienced and/or uninformed reader cannot forecast what the next words are likely to be. Therefore, he is forced to analyze each and every part of each and every word.

Furthermore, since many words in Hebrew are based on the same few root words, one word can carry with it overtones of other words which come from the same root. Overtones of ideas and concepts can also come from similar-looking or -- sounding roots. The skillful writer will bear in mind the other ideas associated with a word when he selects it.

Therefore, if the reader has enough brain-power available to think about the words he is reading, he is able to read a text quicker and absorb more information from it than he can do in English. But if he is unable to think about what he is reading, the words will be harder to read and more difficult to interpret than in English.

This can be compared to the different types of computer languages. A language like BASIC is easy for the non-expert to use and understand, but lengthy and slow in use. A more sophisticated language like C is more difficult for the non- expert to understand, but operates faster and is much more powerful in use.

Expertise in reading is, therefore, more crucial to Hebrew than it is to English. The gap between the poor reader and the good reader is greater. And the poor reader's handicap will hinder his attaining even a superficial understanding of a text, especially if it requires analysis.

Because of the phonic nature of the English language, issues such as vision skills, multi-tasking, visual maturity and brain power availability are regarded as secondary and are usually ignored as being effectively irrelevant. However, the reader of Hebrew needs to pay greater attention to letter identification than does the reader of English. Hebrew letter and vowel discrimination is visually more challenging than that of English. Interpreting and processing Hebrew words requires more brain-power than does English. Furthermore, Hebrew texts are often presented in multi-column, multi-font formats which challenge the vision skills of the reader to a greater extent than does English.

Therefore, issues such as vision skills, multi-tasking, visual maturity and brain-power availabilty can be critical to the ability of the reader of Hebrew to efficiently read and understand Hebrew text. Furthermore, attempting to remediate without addressing these issues could lead to consistently lengthy programs and unsatisfactory results.

It must be stressed that the issue of vision skills does not refer only to the clarity of the reader's vision but also to many other skills which contribute to efficient data-input through the eyes. Therefore, a reader might have 20-20 vision skills and a clear bill of health from his ophthalmologist, yet still be suffering from crippling vision-skill deficiencies.

Experience with thousands of reading and learning deficient people has shown that many under-achievers suffer from significant deficiencies in critical vision skills and that remediation is much quicker and easier when these deficiencies are corrected.

Resources and activities which promote development of efficient vision in children have been listed in earlier "Preparing for the Future" articles. Anyone interested in receiving further information can contact the author at Panim Meirot 17, tel. 02-537-3340.

 

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