Written by Anat Goodman
IVRIT MISAVIV LAOLAM (Hebrew around the world) – is an early childhood Ivrit B’Ivrit Hebrew curriculum. IML is specifically designed to teach Hebrew online and/or in the classroom to very young non-native speakers through digital games and interactive activities appropriate to the developmental stage of the children.
Since COVID 19 many schools’ biggest challenge is teaching young kids online. Kindergarten and Kita Alef age children cannot cope with more than 15 min on a ZOOM meeting and these are mainly used for social and other important purposes leaving Hebrew, JS as last priority. Some schools have closed their kindergarten departments and teachers were sent home till F2F is available again.
The importance of having ready-made, interactive material ready for young children to access at any time is not specific to COVID19 – students may need extra support, or work at different paces, can’t attend school or have different needs. There are endless reasons why this is now an urgent necessity.
About 15 years ago, the Jewish Agency published the program CHALAV U’DVASH- Hebrew for Kindergarten Children.” When the Department of Education at JAFI closed the program passed to the World Zionist Organization (Eliner Library).
CHALAV U’DVASH is an Ivrit B’Ivrit Hebrew curriculum for early childhood used by hundreds of schools worldwide. CHALAV U’DVASH is the only early childhood Hebrew curriculum suited for children from age 3 and is being used by more than 1000 educational frameworks around the world. Thousands of children grew up on the program, learned Hebrew with its help and enjoyed a unique program tailored to their needs. Every year, preschool teachers are trained to teach Hebrew as an additional language, using the program. The frameworks that use the program belong to all streams of Judaism and formal and informal education.
The program was a groundbreaking innovation at the time of writing. It strengthened the recognition of educators and parents of children up to the age of 7, that knowing the Hebrew language has a positive effect on the connection to the State of Israel, on the sense of unity and belonging to the Jewish people, on consumption of original Israeli culture and on contact with Israelis.
Early childhood is the perfect time to start learning Hebrew. This is the right time for the children to love the language through games, to provide them with basic knowledge that will form the infrastructure for further Hebrew studies in the future, and to share the Hebrew experience with the family. Fun and quality learning experience contributes to the desire to continue learning Hebrew in every possible setting.
The curriculum is a child centric methodology used in Ivrit B’Ivrit and is based on teachers’ needs, culture, children, etc..
We are very proud to have given the opportunity by the Ministry of Diaspora in Israel to redesign, update and re brand the CHALAV U’DVASH Ivrit B’Ivrit Hebrew curriculum for two main purposes:
- Make it suitable for online Hebrew learning
- Update the successful curriculum to 2021