1st grade\kitah alef

The emphasis in 1st grade  is on mastering basic skills in literacy and numeracy.

 

Generally, schools don't like to label "learning disabilities" in first grade because the rate of learning can be so variable at this age. In general, the rule of thumb is that all kids can read Hebrew by Hannukah, but if your child is young for his or her grade and/or bilingual, these could be mitigating circumstances.

Overall, early intervention is crucial, so s/he can continue to feel good about him/herself and  learning abilties.

 

It is important to determine whether the difficulty is due to a developmental issue or to a learning disability in order to know if the child might benefit from remedial teaching or an alternative framework.

 

Testing at this age involves structured and unstructured play, reasoning tasks, graphomotoric tasks, and number sense. Comprehensive didactic testing in reading examines phonemic and morphological awareness (the sounds and segments that are the building blocks of words), visual and verbal memory, decoding abilities, and reading comprehension.  The child's scores are compared to national norms for similarly aged children in order to determine if the child's abilities are within the range of what is considered to be typical.

 

Interviews with the teacher and a structured observation in the child's class are highly recommended in order to consider a complete picture of the child in his or her natural environment.

 

At this age, behavior tells an important story:  A child who behaves poorly often lacks self-regulation skills. A child behaves well when his or her environment is supportive. Children want to succeed in school, and the children who misbehave or who are unhappy at school are usually communicating their distress through their behaviors.