Reading Carnival

Learning to read Hebrew takes a lot of practice. But many Hebrew school programs only happen once or twice a week. For students preparing for Bar or Bat Mitzvah that’s just not enough.

From interviews with educators we learned that phonetic practice is more important in reading skill building than reading comprehension is. These skilled teachers (and common sense) taught us that students will be more likely to practice if we can make it fun.

Knowing 11-13 year olds as we do, we leaned into their love of video games to design a set of colorful and engaging games to encourage them to practice reading at home. With original branding inspired by the near-universal fun of a carnival, Reading Carnival was born. The first game we designed was Galgal Mazal (Wheel of Luck) modeled after a slot machine. Students tapped to spin wheels displaying the three syllables of words found in prayer. Lights, sounds and encouraging messages would keep them playing until they had practiced reading each word aloud, after which they earned tokens to be redeemed for digital prizes. Student progress could be reported to their teacher too.

Galgal Mazal tested very positively with the students. The prototype, limited by the tools, would benefit from sounds or voice recognition in future iterations. More consideration should be given to the reporting of progress to teachers. Other games would need to be designed and developed, but overall this seemed a successful method to engage students to practice reading at home.

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