Making the Most of Summer
Merkaz L’Chinuch HaTorah Intensive Programs to Prepare Mechanchim and Talmidim for the Coming Year

Summer vacation provides a rare opportunity
to fine-tune skills, repair breaches and acquire
new techniques, enabling both talmidim and
educators to start the new z’man not only rested,
but better equipped to meet challenges in the classroom,
from either side of the desk.
With this in mind, Merkaz L’Chinuch HaTorah offers
special summer programs, in Lakewood, Brooklyn,
and the Catskills, and for children and bochurim
to improve learning skills, from kriah through
Gemara, without falling behind or missing out
on the sugya. And, under the auspices of The Rav
Yehoshua Ben Gamla Educational Network
Training Institute, rebbeim and teachers can acquire
new techniques for reaching their talmidim
and talmidos at all levels.
Summer Workshops:
Kriah, Gemara and The
Three Tier Methodology
Merkaz techniques, suited to mainstream classrooms
as well as to one-on-one learning, will be taught to
experienced rebbeim and teachers at the Intensive
Workshops to be offered in Lakewood and Brooklyn
this summer.
Workshops with tracks for men and women will include:
“A Comprehensive Method for Laying a Proper Foundation
in Kriah and Lashon HaKodesh.” Participants describe the
courses as “comprehensive, clear” and “user-friendly.”
One experienced remediator commented, “Not only in
did I learn such a variety of methods and techniques —
what is more important, here we were taught how to
determine which method will work for which student!”
A second workshop is, “Powerful Strategies to Ensure the
Success of Every Child in the Mainstream Classroom: The
Three Tier Methodology.” It addresses the challenge
faced by all experienced mechanchim and tutors: How
do you build a student’s skills while enabling full
participation in his mainstream class? The Three Tier
Methodology, developed over decades of experience
with both mainstream and resource room
students, resolves this paradox. By combining
a skills program with a unique, textbased
mastery program, students can incorporate their newly
learned skills into their regular curriculum,
with great success. It is effective with
curriculums ranging from beginning Chumash to advanced Gemara and meforshim In another workshop, “The Rav Simcha Wasserman Method for Building Gemara Skills,” rebbeim will learn an original, text-based method  which enables weaker students to build skills and achieve mastery, and advanced talmidim to develop a  high level of independent textual competency.

Merkaz L’Chinuch HaTorah is recommended by
esteemed roshei yeshiva, including Rav Shmuel
Kamenetsky, shlita, and by many principals and rebbeim.
The director, Rabbi Reuven Elkins, is a founding
member of Torah Umesorah’s Torah Special Educators’
Network, and the author of Unconventional Wisdom:
Torah Perspectives on the Child Who Has Difficulty Learning.
He gives in-service courses in yeshivas and schools
throughout the country, and Masters’ level courses in all areas of literacy and second- language dyslexia.

Beyond Kriah

When Merkaz L’Chinuch HaTorah opened The Kriah
Clinic in the mid-1980s, it focused primarily on young
children who had trouble mastering the basics of
Hebrew reading or Chumash and Rashi. Over the years,
the Merkaz expanded to meet the needs of a broader
population.
There were boys who were recommended as bright,
who could ask intelligent questions on the Gemara, yet
in the classroom were tongue-tied and helpless with a
new text. The age range expanded — from six year olds
who couldn’t blend, to sixth graders who couldn’t keep
up, to mesivta boys who couldn’t read the Gemara, to bais
medrash bochurim and adults who dreamed of learning to
read properly, to follow an advanced shiur, and even to
learn independently.
The Gemara Skills Program uses a variety of original
techniques developed under the guidance of Rav Simcha
Wasserman, zt”l, while drawing upon such strategies as
Orton-Gillingham, and Lindamood-Bell, and others.
First, a comprehensive Limudei Kodesh Profile is
performed for each talmid, followed by an in-depth
consultation with his parents. The focus of every
individualized program is to systematically build
advanced textual and comprehension skills. This
innovative approach has proven highly effective with
talmidim of all ages, including dyslexics, and those
with ADD or ADHD. Remediation and evaluation are
supervised by Rabbi Elkins, the director.
Reading a Rashba
A menahel recently exclaimed: “My talmid didn’t improve
100% — he improved 300%! He’s an entirely different
person, self-confident, a part of things as he never was
before.”
And a bais medrash bochur confided, “I can’t describe
how happy I am. The other night, I read and understood
a Rashba by myself. All my life I dreamed of this.”

For further information:
(718) 421-0431 ex.2
merkazlechinuch@thejnet.com