Program FAQ

• Morning Meeting and Tefillah: Students begin each day with tefillah (prayer) and morning meeting, a time for teachers and students to gather to build community and to build social emotional skills. 
• Reading: Students spend 80 minutes each day in small, homogenous reading groups developing their decoding, spelling and comprehension skills. 
• Math: Students attend daily homogeneous math classes for 45 minutes per day. 
• Judaic Studies: There are Judaic studies classes 4-5 times/week depending on the grade where students learn Torah, Jewish traditions, Jewish history and study about Israel.
• Hebrew: Students learn to decode Hebrew and acquire basic vocabulary so that over time they will be able to read Jewish texts such as the siddur (prayer book) and Chumash (Torah text).
• Social Studies: Students are in social studies and writing classes several times a week in their homeroom classes. 
• Writing: During writing, students learn specific strategies to write coherent sentences, paragraphs and multi-paragraph essays.
• Science, Art, Music: Students are in specials with their homeroom classes once a week.
• Recess and PE: There is daily recess rotating on the roof and in the gym as well as PE two times per week, weather permitting. At times, classes may spend longer recess periods in Central Park.
• Friday Oneg: At our weekly Oneg, students and faculty gather to welcome Shabbat, learn about the weekly parasha (Torah portion), and reflect on the week.

Services: Students have opportunities for related services such as language therapy, occupational therapy, and social skills that allow them to address their needs without missing any of their other classes.

Students have a personalized schedule tailored to their needs, interests, and strengths. Students attend academic classes with their grade-level peers and have opportunities to interact with other grades during tefillah, electives, lunch/recess, Hachana LeShabbat and special programs.

• Tefillah and Advisory: All students begin each day with tefillah (prayer) and later in the morning come together again for Advisory, a time for daily check-ins, relationship-building, fostering a sense of belonging and community, and developing organizational and student skills. 
• Language Arts, Writing and History: Students have Language Arts for 80 minutes each day within homogeneous groups to target specific academic skills. Writing classes are held four times weekly. In 8th grade, students take Humanities (a combination of history and writing).
• Math: Math is taught in 40-minute double periods, grouped by skill level.
• Science: Students attend Science classes three times a week
• Skills / Seminar: There is a weekly topical skills or seminar class that changes focus each year. In 6th grade, students are in skills classes. Some of our students are in classes focused on social-emotional learning, some are in classes dedicated to supporting their language needs, and other students are in decoding skills class. In 7th grade, students are in seminar, divided into the same groups as their 6th grade counter-parts. In 8th grade, seminar is devoted to Israel education.
• Hebrew: Hebrew classes start at twice a week in 6th grade, increasing to four times a week by 8th grade.
• Electives: Students choose two elective classes per week from options in Art, Technology, Judaic Studies (including 8th grade Talmud), and Physical Education, with the opportunity to change electives mid-year.
• Hachana LeShabbat: The purpose of this Friday period is to get us into a mindset as we transition from school to Shabbat. On chesed Hachana LeShabbat Fridays, our students complete mitzvot-activities that make a difference in people’s lives and on committee days, our students work together to make middle school-wide changes and enhancements. Chesed choices include: reading buddies, sandwich making, and letter writing. Committee choices include: Jewish Holidays & Programming, Ombudsman, Student Events, Tzedakah, The Shefa Scoop (School Newspaper), Chorus
• Language support is embedded in many classes, ensuring students benefit fully from the academic program without missing instructional time. Individual or group language therapy sessions are scheduled as needed, based on each student's requirements.

The Science of Reading (SOR) is a complex and comprehensive body of research that encompasses five decades of scientific knowledge derived from thousands of studies around the world. This research investigates how proficient reading and writing develop in the brain, why some individuals have difficulty, and what instructional approaches are most effective. While the SOR is not a single program or technique, the research indicates that all students benefit from explicit and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, background knowledge and writing to improve academic outcomes.

Explicit instruction, an evidence based practice, is an unambiguous and direct approach to teaching that has been proven through decades of research involving thousands of students to improve the educational outcomes of all students. It is particularly effective for students with learning disabilities. 

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Teachers at Shefa use explicit instruction to guide students through a set of carefully scaffolded steps that make clear to the learner the goals of the lesson and the steps necessary to achieve success. Consistent opportunities to actively engage in the learning, receive feedback on their learning, and practice new skills are hallmarks of explicit instruction. Students who receive explicit instruction have consistently been shown to achieve greater academic success than those who receive more alternate forms of instruction.