Language

For the child, the Language Area is not so much a new phenomena, but rather an area for expansion and enrichment of the language he has already acquired. If the child is allowed to explore and discover his native language, he will learn to read and write much in the same manner he learned to walk and talk. The aim of the Language Area is not only to provide the child with the ability to read and write, but it is even more important that the Language Area provides for the child the keys to his past, present and future. The Language Area is not separated from the other areas in the Bayit, as it might be in a traditional school room. Instead, language is attached to every area and used each day to expand upon what has already been absorbed, to isolate specific concepts, and to make sequential discoveries possible for the child.

Language is not taught to the child by the teacher. Instead it is formed by the child through his own efforts in which he carries out a predictable sequence of interactions with his external environment. Work that is motivated from within will allow the child to create his language in a pattern that is beyond culture. The daily language activities that the Morah and child engage in can be applied, modified or adapted to any language in existence. In the Bayit, both English and Hebrew will be experienced by the child.

The Language Area follows two organizing principles:

1. The first is that the spoken part of language is the single most important aspect of language development in the child from Birth to 6 years. The ability to speak is formed only during this time. While it is possible for the 2nd Plane child (6-12 years) to learn to read and write around 7 or 8 years of age, the development of spoken language can only occur during the first 6 years of life. The language activities of the Bayit are significant for individual language development as well as social development throughout life.
2. The second is that spoken language builds the foundational work that leads to literacy. What is seen on the shelves are activities related to the symbolic reading and writing which make up literacy. This inability to “see” the activites of spoken language often creates a problem for many parents because they mistakenly believe that the Bayit has a Language Area for literacy rather than a Language Area for spoken language. Activites in spoken language provide the necessary support that will naturally lead to literacy.

Language Development in the Bayit

Language skills are not just something the child uses; they are something that he must create himself. It is important to realize that in all areas of language, experience precedes the actual use of language and that spoken language is the foundation for all written language. Anything the child experiences on the written level must first be introduced on the spoken level. Often it is the adult who is the “language material” and this is part of our connection and relationship to each child. Therefore, on a daily basis both Hebrew and English will be experienced by the children on a spoken language level so that their literacy in both will be supported.

There is no limit to the number of words that can be acquired by the child in both English and Hebrew. Upon his entrance to the Bayit, the child has an intense interest in refinement of articulation, therefore the Morah assists the child to enunciate words and produce sounds, acquire a keen grasp of syntax and develop a foundation to understand the different rules that both the English and Hebrew languages follow. Additionally, the child will experience spoken language as communication. The urge that many children, as well as adults, have to speak to everyone in the room is a part of the creation of language. In the Bayit, this urge can either be immediately thwarted, or supported and channeled into a constructive pursuit through the modeling of Grace and Courtesy lessons that teach children, in both the home as well as synagogue settings, about when to speak, how to speak, the volume of speech that is appropriate, etc.

Every activity in the Bayit has significance for language development: both adults and children can have constructive conversations with one another, be the subject of a true story, recite poetry, hear about the Parsha or simply sing songs. The child becomes aware that by using certain sounds he is communicating with others and is himself worth listening to. Through language exercises in the Bayit, the Morah is guiding the child so that he will become a person capable of engaging in meaningful and effective communication, recognizes himself as someone worthy of respectful and effective communication and feels empathy for those around him.This is the core of what the Language Area of the Bayit provides: the physical, mental, and spiritual development of the child. It is much more than simply teaching language.

Literacy: Learning to Write and then Read

Literacy must be a part of the child’s culture if he is to be literate. If the child does not absorb literacy as a part of his culture then he will not read or write. Therefore, something needs to develop in the child before successful writing can take place: the knowledge of the auditory distinction of which specific sounds are needed, as well as the correct order placement of each sound, so that words can eventually be written. Once the child has the capacity to hear individual sounds and then imagine writing those sounds, it is then that the hand can be used to create the graphic symbol outside of the child. Until that process is actually achieved, there is only a thought in the mind. This applies to literacy in both English as well as Hebrew.

In order to take the internal thought and make it an external graphic symbol, the child needs to know the sounds of each of the graphic symbols found in both English and Hebrew before he will be able to reproduce graphic symbols in the same order as was heard. The Language Area takes the different capacities and separates them into individual lines of preparation. Both of these lines are allowed to develop parallel to one another until each line naturally merges:

1. There is one line for the mind that thinks of the words needed to communicate internal ideas. Before the child has hand control, he is able to "write" in both English and Hebrew using an alphabet made of movable letters. He can experience the words as an auditory event, create them, and then take them apart and reform them over and over. At this point, the child does not yet have the integrated skill of reading, but he can communicate ideas with others through a form of written language.
2. There is another separate line for the hand that physically creates graphic symbols to represent words in written form. From the time the child entered the Bayit at age 3, he has worked to gain control of his hand through many of his daily activites. The mind of the child moves faster than the hand, therefore the capacity to write waits for the refinement of the hand to catch up to the mind. The preparation of the hand takes longer than the preparation of the mind, so this presents challenges for the child to become a writer. If the hand doesn’t become refined, it will affect the child’s ability to write as an adult. The the issue of the refinement of the hand is addressed through numerous indirect areas of preparation:
• Practical Life Area: All of the exercises in this area support fine motor skills, manual dexterity and hand eye coordination which begin the preparation of the hand for writing.
• Sensorial Area: Cylinder Blocks and the Geometry Cabinet involve the use of the thumb, index finger and middle finger to grip materials to prepare the hand to hold a writing instrument. The Geometry Cabinet also supports firmness of touch and gives the hand the ability to apply sufficient pressure with a writing instrument while teaching the hand and arm to move in directions that create letters. Tracing Geometry Cabinet insets and working with the matching Geometric Cards are key elements in the child developing his visual discrimination abilities so that he will become a successful reader. Touch Boards and Rough and Smooth Boards allow the child to have lightness of touch so that his hand can be supported in the smooth movement required when moving a writing instrument across a surface.
• Language Area: Sandpaper Letters educate the hand and arm to the specific graphic symbols used in the child's culture. They provide for neuromuscular coordination and practice to help the child to learn how to control his ability to write. Work with chalk, pencil and then pen provide the hand with the opportunity to write.

Why Cursive?

In the Bayit, children will become a part of the "cultural agreement" of communication: when one has an instrument in the hand to communicate, what is produced is in cursive. But when one picks up a book or other material to read an idea that is communicated, it is printed. This supports the child’s adaptation to his culture. This will apply to both English and Hebrew language work. The word cursive means running, as in the words run together. Cursive was developed as handwriting because it is faster and more efficient as well as practical, graceful and esthetically pleasing to the eye.

Additionally, cursive is a developmental match for the child because one sees in the drawings of children natural movements of scribbling during the first few years. These drawings always involve curves, loops, circular movements and full arm movements when using the drawing instruments. This is universal and not culturally biased. Cursive writing, not print, most matches this style of drawing. The movements of the hand are also a strong focus for the 3-6 year old child, so it makes sense that he should acquire his ability to communicate in cursive when it can be done with little effort.

Authorship

Once all the preparations of spoken language and the hand are in place, the child has the possibility for authorship and to convey his thoughts through writing. It is important to understand that when a child can hear a word and represent that through letters, it does not mean the child is an author or that he is actually "writing". An author is someone who puts his own thoughts into words. When one puts the thoughts of others into writing, it is considered dictation and is a good practice for handwriting. The goal of the Bayit is authorship; the child achieves a level of independence so that he may express his own thoughts and ideas found within.

Reading: The Discovery of a Mystery

Reading is both a mechanical and an interpretive process. As a mechanical process, one must see symbols, assign sounds to each, and then analyze what was seen. As an interpretive process, the sounds must be synthesized back into combination and then the "reader" recognizes something meaningful in the synthesis. Reading is a complex event because the reader does not know what the words say since they are the idea’s of someone else that have been written down. Reading, which is more complex and involves a higher mental process than does writing, will spontaneously begin in the Bayit after the child begins to write his own ideas.

The child is introduced to the process of reading through two lines of preparation:

1. The Eye: It must distinguish symbols in order to analyze them. This is supported through indirect preparation in the Practical Life Area where exercises offer opportunities for the eye to track movements of the hand. Hand/Eye coordination assists the eye in its perceptions and its ability to track movement. The eye must move and track so that it can make a sensible order appear out of the graphic symbols it experiences in both English and Hebrew.
   
   In the Sensorial Area, work with the Geometry Cabinet supports visual discrimination. It is the eyes ability to discern and discriminate shape that is essential to the skill of reading. The refinement of discrimination of shape is developed in the eye by the Geometric Cabinet and the corresponding Geometric Cards because they offer a progression that supports the eye to discern the progressive differences in geometric shapes. Since letters are made up of geometric lines and curves, then the eye that can discern the difference in an oval and a circle is the same eye that can discern the difference between the letter "d" and the letter "t".
   
   There are also specific exercises in the Language Area that support reading, such as the Connection Lesson with the Sandpaper Letters and work with the Phonetic Object Box.
   
   
2. The Mind: Never give more to the mind than is given to the hand. Since entering the Bayit, the child has been preparing to read through his daily experience with spoken language. The 3-6 year-old child reads to discover what he already knows, so everything the child will read must be prepared in the mind first through spoken language.
   
   The Movable Alphabet brings awareness of words and symbols to the mind of the child. It supports the child so that he might see the order of written symbols, recognize that the world is full of words, and then assign meaning to those words.

There is a progression for learning to read which the child will follow that replicates how the child learned to speak:

• Individual words first.
• Combinations of words as phrases to show the relationship between and among words.
• Relationships among phrases so that they combine to make a complete thought known as a sentence.

Total Reading

All of this preparation leads to Total Reading. The purpose of total reading is that the child is more than just a decoder. The child should have total comprehension and understanding of what he read. He should have the ability to interpret the emotional context of what he read, and the ability to discern an individual style of self found in the written thoughts of others. The Bayit offers preparations that support the child so that he may become a Total Reader in both English and Hebrew.

Independence: The Goal of the Language Area

The goal of the Language Area is not to teach reading, writing, grammar or syntax. Instead, the Morah's goal is to give a gift to the child: intellectual independence. The essential component to building the individual child in the 2nd plane of development is the child’s ability to gain knowledge through reading on his own. The 6-12 year old child is dependent upon the adults in his environment if he cannot read and understand the ideas of others, but literacy allows this child to independently find answers to his questions by going to a book and discovering the information on his own. At the end of the 1st plane, the stage is being set for the 6-12 year old child to independently gain knowledge about his world.