Zarif Hussain, is a first year student at the Symbiosis Law School, Noida. As part of his course he is  doing an internship with Servants of the People’s Society that runs Balwadis for very young children from underserved communities across Delhi-NCR. Read on to find out how Zarif used StoryWeaver in his sessions with the children.

I was asked me to take interactive sessions with the children at Trilokpuri Balwadi and I currently conduct one-hour sessions everyday with the little kids on different topics like GK, math and health education. The children love to listen to the stories and they ask me bring a new story almost every day for them.

At first finding stories for them was a difficult so I asked my mom to help me out. She recommended Pratham Books’ Storyweaver platform where she translates stories to Surjapuri for children and uses them extensively in education centers in Kishanganj, Bihar.

I checked the StoryWeaver platform and found that it was simple and beautifully done with stories across reading levels in multiple languages. I downloaded stories from StoryWeaver and the first story I narrated was “Fat King, Thin Dog” in Hindi. During the session I realised that StoryWeaver was just what I needed. The children loved the story and did a drawing of the Mota Raja. One of the children Faizan recited the story back to the class. In fact, when I did a recap of the story after few days they all remembered the story so well.

The next story we did was “Bunty aur Babli” which was about washing hands with soap with an emphasis on personal hygiene. The children learnt to wash their hands before eating food and after using toilet.

The most impressive thing I found about the stories on StoryWeaver was that they all had large, colorful pictures. The easy-to-use interface made it simple to download stories. I prepared activities for each story I narrated and that helped me retain the interest of the young children in class. Listening to the stories is the most enjoyable part of their day!

The stories on StoryWeaver are a great tool for teaching children. Thank you for making my sessions interactive and fun-filled with the children!

If you are using StoryWeaver in your classroom, library or after-school centre and would like to share your story on our blog write to [email protected]

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I Read Arabic  is the first-ever online reading platform to advance Arabic literacy in schools within the region. An initiative from Little Thinking Minds, the platform is a child-centered, leveled and differentiated Arabic literacy program consisting of leveled e-books and associated mobile applications (IOS and Android) that can supplement traditional school-based learning at home or in the classroom. The Little Thinking Minds team heard of StoryWeaver at a USAID conference in October 2016.

"It was wonderful to learn about  the  work StoryWeaver was doing, and we knew that we were definitely going to be translating and using some of the books for our reading program portal." shared Rama Kayyali Jardaneh, Managing Partner at Little Thinking Minds. 

Little Thinking Minds' comprehensive digital library offer children over 300 popular books from renowned publishers. The stories are delivered in animated and cartoon flipbook format with ‘Read to me’ functions to develop listening skills, pronunciation and increase vocabulary.

  

"Children can record their voice and email it to their teachers to test fluency. Post-reading games and exercises have been added to evaluate comprehension skills. The site allows teachers and parents to monitor progress and make recommendations via a dashboard." shares Sarah Al-Ahmad.

The platform caters to young readers between the ages of 5-10. At present 40,000 students from 150 schools use the platform. Little Thinking Minds have translated stories to Arabic on StoryWeaver, so that more children can read and enjoy them! 

You can read the stories here.

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