About Us
OUR STORY
קריאה – Kriah – A Critical Foundation
Kriah is an essential foundation of a person’s entire life! It is the key to being able to daven. It is the key to being able to learn Torah. It is the key to being able to find satisfaction and feeling a close connection to Torah and yiras shamayim, which are results of being able to learn well.
Poor Kriah skills can hinder a child throughout his entire lifetime. As early as preschool, important Kriah foundations are already being placed.
In every classroom there are several students who are behind in their Kriah skills and struggling to keep up?
B’siyatta dishmaya, there is a proven approach that addresses every student and enables all children to master Kriah!
This is where Toras Picho comes into the picture!
Yes! Help is here!
Toras Picho was founded with the goal of providing Kriah teachers and Kriah tutors with a systematic teaching approach that will enable all children to master and love Kriah.
Toras Picho provides a thorough Kriah curriculum made easy with yearly, weekly, and daily objectives and clear instructions. This program offers practice textbooks and workbooks which include sheets that are based on the Toras Picho approach. Additionally, Toras Picho provides training to guide and support the teachers and tutors on how to correctly use the Toras Picho approach.
Climbing the Ladder!
Toras Picho teaches children to read one skill at a time. The Toras Picho approach is suited for the minds of young children so that at any given point they are not faced with the unnecessary challenge of graduating from an easy level to a hard level, but they are steadily going from an easy level to an easy level. This strategy ensures that the child always finds learning easy and never loses his love for reading. Example of measured levels: First, students learn a Nekudah. Then, students learn to read that Nekudah with one letter. Then, they read that Nekudah with many different letters. The child’s grasp of Kriah is built layer by layer, and every level is the foundation for the next level.
One Rung at a Time
The same way learning is based on building one solid layer of understanding upon the other one, helping a child learn is done in a similar fashion. At first, the Rebbe / Morah provides guidance and assistance level by level, until it is clear that the children can read the pages on their own. Then the Rebbe/ Morah allows the children to advance to the next levels. (This is similar to teaching a child how to walk. At first the parent will hold both hands of the child, then only one, etc.)
Preparing the Grounds
One of the essential elements of the Toras Picho approach is to provide the children with the necessary preparation for each level of Kriah, prior to teaching that level. This includes, visually, auditorily, and behavior preparations in addition to Chazoros that creates fluency of previous skills which are required to master the newly learned skills. By doing that Rebbeim and Moros ensure greater changes for more children to grasp the kriah skill when teaching happens.
Courses
The Toras Picho Courses program offers three separate courses for classroom teachers, private tutors and/or teacher’s coaches. Courses are available separately for men and women. Additionally, Toras Picho offers a selection of Kriah books, as well as products and materials that complete any Kriah teacher’s briefcase of tricks and training. Thus, enabling the teacher to do his Shlichus Bishleimus, carry out his valuable task of teaching Yiddishe Neshamos Kriah with completion!
R’ Dovid Yosef Unger
In 1995, R’ Unger learned with a group of boys who were struggling with learning. After a while he noticed that most of them only had difficulty when it came to reading, and this is what blocked them from learning. As a result, he began to research ways to help these boys who had not mastered Kriah when they were young and consequently were so discouraged now, after failing so many times in their past.
R’ Unger embarked on his mission. He visited many classrooms and observed many expert Kriah teachers. His goal? How you teach a child to read! From each classroom or teacher, he learned different techniques, methods and strategies. R’ Ungar invested his entire focus, energy, and effort to pinpoint the answer to his question, “What made the successful Kriah teachers succeed. He gleaned much valuable information and little by little he began to construct a clear plan that approached teaching Kriah in a systematic and failproof manner.
This is the edifice that he built: Toras Picho Kriah Approach!
R' Aron Lampin
R’ Lampin began his successful Kriah career in 2008 as a private tutor for children who needed extra help with Kriah. He used R’ Unger’s Kriah approach and was amazed to see astounding results.
Eventually, he was chosen to be the Menahel of the elementary division in a Chinuch institution in Monsey where he began to see the tremendous need for a clear and systemized approach to learning Kriah. He felt that a Kriah system needed to be created; one that would be easy to adapt, easy to use and applicable to all Chinuch institutions. Additionally, the system would make it easier for Talmidim and Talmidos to successfully master Kriah and it would ensure that no child falls out of the system. With this goal in mind, R’ Lampin worked on streamlining the Kriah process. He began to present these Kriah courses to many Mosdos HaTorah. From this small start and built on the philosophy of R’ Dovid Unger Shlit”a, a national success was built, The Machon Toras Picho!