Kriah – Hebrew reading – is not like riding a bike. It is not so easy to just hop on the “kriah bike” after summer vacation and regain the balance and control that were previously there. Rather, a very common outcome of a kriah-free summer is choppy and inaccurate kriah come September. What can parents do to help keep their child’s kriah skills honed and ready to take off when the new school year begins?

As you have probably suspected, there is no magical new method. Rather, the answer is the tried and true technique of consistent practice. A few minutes of practice a day can make a considerable difference in the retention of the kriah skills learned during the previous school year. To be effective, though, parents should keep two things in mind:

A young child singing himself to sleep at night to the letters of the alef bais is nachas to parents’ ears. A first- or second-grade child who is struggling to learn the letters and nekudos is a source of concern and worry. Why is it that some children find it more difficult to become fluent in kriah (Hebrew reading) than others?

Actually, the development of reading (and kriah) skills is a well-researched and understood topic. A simple understanding of the wondrous brain that Hashem created sheds tremendous light on the kriah process. Basically, beginning readers process written text with the frontal lobe of their brain. The frontal lobe is slow, analytical, and requires conscious effort. That is why beginning readers will often whisper what they are reading quietly to themselves before saying it out loud. As kriah skills are mastered, kriah processing moves to the occipital lobe in the rear of the brain. The occipital lobe processes written text instantly without conscious thought. This shift is what produces kriah fluency.