A fifth-grade classroom doesn’t stop because one student missed most of fourth grade.
The math lesson moves forward. The class starts the next perek in Chumash. Hebrew reading gets faster, English assignments get longer, and yesterday’s skill becomes the foundation for today’s lesson. A teacher can review, differentiate and give extra attention, but she still has an entire classroom waiting.
For a child who has fallen significantly behind, that can be a difficult place to sit every morning.
And sometimes the reason has very little to do with her ability.
A child growing up with serious instability at home may have missed weeks or months of school. Even when she was physically sitting at her desk, concentrating on a vocabulary test may not have been particularly high on her mind. Homework requires a place to work, someone making sure it gets done and enough predictability at home to know where your schoolbag will be tomorrow morning (things most of us barely think about).
Eventually, those missed days become missed material. Missed material becomes academic gaps. And by the time adults recognize how far behind a student has fallen, telling her to “work harder” isn’t much of an educational plan.
Falling Behind Can Happen Quietly
Academic gaps aren’t always obvious.
A student may be bright enough to compensate for a while. She listens to what everyone else is doing, picks up clues and manages to complete enough of the work to get by. Then the material becomes harder.
Suddenly, math assumes she understands concepts she never mastered. Reading assignments require skills that are still shaky. A new teacher assumes last year’s material is old news.
It isn’t old news to her.
In Jewish Day School, There Can Be Two Sets of Gaps
Jewish education adds another layer.
A student in a Jewish day school isn’t studying only math, science and English. Her day also includes limudei kodesh, and those subjects build on earlier skills too.
If a girl hasn’t developed strong Hebrew reading skills, later learning becomes harder. If she missed foundational material in Chumash, Navi or halacha, the class may be moving forward while she is still trying to figure out what everyone else seems to know already.
And children notice.
They notice who reads smoothly. They notice who finishes first. They certainly notice when the teacher needs to explain something to them separately.
So helping a child catch up has to be handled with some seichel. The goal isn’t simply to push more worksheets across the table.
First, Find the Actual Gaps
“She’s behind” isn’t specific enough to be useful.
Behind where? By how much? In which subjects? Is the problem missing knowledge, weak foundational skills, inconsistent attendance, or some combination of them?
A child may be doing reasonably well in one subject and struggling badly in another. She may read English at grade level but need intensive support with Hebrew. Another student may understand the material perfectly when someone works with her individually but get lost during classroom instruction.
Good intervention starts by figuring that out.
Catching Up Takes Time
There is also a temptation to fix everything immediately. Very often the response of a teacher or a parent will be to gloss over the issue and just try and push the child who is struggling into the box where “they are supposed to be at this stage”.
Understandable. Adults see a seventh grader performing at a fifth-grade level and naturally want to close that gap as quickly as possible.
But piling hours of additional schoolwork onto a child who already finds school difficult can backfire. Catch-up work has to be targeted enough to address what she missed while realistic enough that she can continue functioning in her current classroom.
Progress may look small at first. A concept finally clicks. A reading passage doesn’t take quite as long. She raises her hand instead of hoping the teacher won’t call on her.
Those things count.
Why One-on-One Tutoring Can Matter
A classroom teacher has limits. Even an excellent one.
She can adjust assignments and spend extra time with a student, but she cannot turn a 25-student classroom into a private lesson every afternoon. A child with substantial gaps may need exactly that kind of attention.
One-on-one tutoring allows an educator to slow down where necessary and move quickly through material the child already knows. There is also nowhere to hide. If she doesn’t understand fractions, the tutor knows. If she is guessing at Hebrew words rather than reading them, that becomes apparent pretty quickly.
And there is another advantage: questions are easier to ask when 24 classmates aren’t listening.
The School Cannot Do This Alone
For a child with significant educational gaps, communication between the adults around her matters enormously.
Her teacher sees what happens during class. A tutor sees where foundational skills are missing. The adults caring for her see homework, frustration and what happens after the school day ends.
Someone has to connect those dots.
That becomes particularly important when a child’s educational history has been disrupted. Changing schools, inconsistent attendance or difficulties at home can leave teachers with an incomplete picture of what she has learned and what she hasn’t.
The child shouldn’t have to coordinate the adults herself. She’s got enough homework.
How Lev LaLev Approaches the Challenge
For the girls at Lev LaLev, education cannot be handled with a single standard plan.
Many arrive after difficult home situations affected their schooling. Some weren’t able to attend consistently. Others were technically in school but had difficulty focusing because of what was happening outside the classroom.
So Lev LaLev begins with the individual girl.
Girls receive a full Jewish and secular education in one of 14 local schools, with placement based on each girl’s needs and preferences. Rather than expecting every girl to fit one educational model, Lev LaLev works to find the setting that fits her.
That requires ongoing involvement.
A Full-Time Educational Director
Lev LaLev employs a full-time educational director who works hand-in-hand with each girl’s school.
Think about what that means in practice. There are teachers to speak with, progress to follow, concerns to catch and educational decisions to make throughout the year. If a girl begins struggling, someone needs to notice before one difficult unit turns into a semester of confusion.
For girls whose schooling has already been interrupted, that oversight is especially valuable.
Tutoring Doesn't End With the School Bell
When a girl needs additional academic help, Lev LaLev provides one-on-one tutoring. This makes a huge difference to the child because instead of being behind all the time in this setting the focus of the teacher is purely focused on making sure the child is understanding and absorbing all the content.
That might mean rebuilding skills she missed years earlier while simultaneously helping her keep up with this week’s assignments. It can mean extra attention in secular studies, limudei kodesh or another area where she needs support.
And this isn’t a six-week concern.
A girl who has accumulated years of educational gaps may need sustained tutoring over a long period. As she progresses into higher grades, the subjects change and the academic expectations increase. Support has to follow her needs rather than an arbitrary calendar.
What Else Helps a Child Catch Up in School?
At Lev Lalev we have noticed that besides tackling the educational sides of the child’s struggle, very often if a child is struggling emotionally, then giving them the help and emotional support they need will go a long way to fixing the issue. That is not to say that everything will be sorted overnight, but addressing the heartache inside goes a long way to helping them build a strong educational future.
Education Includes Finding What You're Good At
Not every child’s strongest moment happens during a test.
Lev LaLev’s girls also have opportunities for music, art, dance and drama, giving them places to develop talents that may never appear on a report card. On campus, they have access to a library, computer room, music room and auditorium.
For a girl who has spent much of her school experience feeling like the one who is behind, discovering an area where she excels can change the way she approaches learning.
Maybe it’s piano. Maybe it’s painting. Maybe she gets on stage and suddenly everybody discovers that the quiet kid has absolutely no problem performing in front of 200 people.
Kids have a way of surprising you.
Lev LaLev also provides a three-week summer camp, and educational support can continue beyond high school through higher-education scholarships and stipends.
Individualized Education Has a Real Cost
All of this requires people.
A full-time educational director has to be employed. Professional tutors have to be paid. School needs have to be addressed throughout the year. Extracurricular instructors, educational materials and facilities all carry costs.
And individualized help is, by definition, difficult to scale cheaply.
If one girl needs an hour with a tutor, another needs support in a different subject and a third needs someone coordinating closely with her school, you cannot solve the problem by buying one textbook for the group.
For Lev LaLev, these aren’t optional extras added after a girl’s basic needs have been covered. They are part of giving each girl the educational support she needs to move forward in school.
Your Tzedaka Can Put the Extra Help Within Reach
A donation to Lev LaLev helps fund the people and resources behind this work, including individualized tutoring, educational oversight, extracurricular opportunities and support for higher education.
There are easier expenses to photograph.
A tutor sitting beside a girl going over material she missed two years ago doesn’t necessarily produce the dramatic picture that makes the front of a fundraising brochure. But hour after hour, that is how academic gaps get smaller.
If you’re considering where to give tzedaka, you can help Lev LaLev continue providing this individualized educational support to girls who need it.
Donate to Lev LaLev and help cover the tutoring, educational guidance and extra academic support that don’t end when the school bell rings.
