At Pratham Books, we love visiting schools, reading out our stories, and conversing with the children and teachers. It’s a great way to collect feedback, understand how our stories are perceived, and reconnect with our purpose. And so, a few weekends back, a sunny Saturday morning found us outside the colourful Sujana Convent School for a story reading session with Oracle. Oracle supports the development and creation of our STEM books.  The read aloud was organised with the help of Mantra4Change.

At this event, we decided to simply observe and left the story telling and activities to be carried out by the very enthusiastic Oracle volunteers who joined us.

We carried with us ‘A Butterfly Smile’ by Mathangi Subramanian for the 6th grade class, and ‘A Cloud of Trash’ by Karanjeet Kaur for the 5th grade class.

The 6th graders immediately found the colourful butterflies and bright faces in the story charming, and were soon listening intently to the volunteers. Keen ears and peeled eyes followed Kavya’s story as she recollects leaving her peaceful village for crowded and noisy Bangalore in search of water, deals with her peers, and struggles to confidently share her knowledge about butterflies. The Oracle volunteers had an interesting discussion with the kids about the kinds of butterflies they’ve seen and admired, and how to be brave in front of new friends. With the lovely colours, relatable experiences, and simple but interesting knowledge about butterflies, the story was an immediate hit with all the kids. By this time they were excited about the activity and raring to go. Armed with stationery and butterfly outlines, they had a fun time creating and naming their own paper butterfly parks.

At the same time, the 5th graders were entering Cheeko’s world, where her casual littering habits have created a monstrous cloud of trash that follows her around and acts as a major obstacle in all her relationships. At the end of the read aloud, the children were given stationery, and asked to come up with posters telling people not to litter. Whether it was Cheeko’s experience, or their own observations, they were all brimming with ideas and opinions, and words and drawings were flowing freely. There were some strong slogans expressing great disdain for this sort of thoughtless behaviour. It was a lovely experience being able to witness their discussions and hear the conviction in their beliefs.

We snapped many photographs of the kids work, and had a quick snack break, and before we knew it, it was time to pack up and leave.

We all took different things back with us from the story telling session, and left excited about visiting again.

To see more images from the workshop, click here.

We thank volunteers from Oracle Bangalore for their time and enthusiasm for this session.

Be the first to comment.

---

Khyati Datt from our Partnerships Team, reports on how Pratham Education Foundation in Mumbai is using a community-centric approach to drive change in a neighbourhood.  

It’s a bright and early morning at  Pratham Mumbai’s Bharat Nagar Centre. The centre incharge and trainers are gearing up for a long day of visiting nearby communities and interacting with children. We asked them, “What book do you and the children enjoy reading the most?”. After some excited discussions amongst themselves, the trainers happily informed us, “the one with the turtle”. We're still trying to figure out which turtle books it is!

Pratham Education Foundation is one of the country’s  largest non-governmental organizations, working on high-quality, low-cost, replicable interventions to address gaps in the education system. Pratham’s Mumbai chapter started work in 1994 with the aim to create a societal mission for achieving universal pre-primary & primary education in the city. Since inception, Pratham Mumbai has impacted the lives and learning of many children.  In just the year 2017-18, the chapter has managed to reach more than 42,000 children.

Taking the community along. Always.  

One of the organization’s centres in Mumbai is a Community Resource Centre in Bharat Nagar. The centre focuses on providing education support to the children and parents of 15-20 communities in the vicinity and additionally, provide children with access to reading material in the form of a library.

Reena More, Rachna Gurav and Sheetal Jagdhani work in the Bharat Nagar centre and have been working with Pratham for more than 11 years now. They, along with a few other trainers, are responsible for ensuring that all the interventions for the 15-20 communities run smoothly.  The trainers plan each day in the community well in advance, so that all the interventions run in a structured manner, even if they are not there to supervise the children. They believe that it’s very important to meet all the stakeholders in the communities regularly and therefore, visit two communities every day to interact with the parents and the children. These visits help the trainers keep the student and parent engagement alive and active!

 

Source: Children at Pratham Mumbai’s Community Resource Centre in Bharat Nagar.

Making children independent readers

The programmes at the centre are targeted towards children of all ages. Children from Grades 3 to 8 interact with the trainers on a weekly basis for support classes and for access to books to read. The trainers have ensured that the children learn independently and if required, with the support of their peers.  Sheetal shares that focus on reading is a very important objective for the trainers at the centre because “by reading stories or hearing stories, children are exposed to a wide range of words and it helps them to build their vocabulary, comprehension, listening and communication skills.”

The trainers have downloaded stories from StoryWeaver in Hindi, English, Marathi & Urdu and have put them on their laptops as per levels. The children sit in a group, around a laptop and read together. Each group has a leader who takes responsibility for ensuring that all the children in his/her group read and even helps them comprehend the story. The children are encouraged to engage further with the books through assignments and  activities and are also asked to give their feedback and share their opinion about the book they have read. Reena shares that even if the children are unable to come to the centre, they meet at a friend’s house and try and read books together. The trainers shared that two stories the children love reading are Kaakaasaurus and Gul in Space because while one makes them laugh, the other one makes them wonder about the world.

Source:  Children reading in a group at the Bharat Nagar Centre

The trainers interact with the parents of children as young as 3 years old and support them through workshops, so that the parents take responsibility for the learning of their children. Rachna says, “we encourage the parents to borrow books from the library and read books to their children in the mother tongue language.”

They also train the anganwadi workers so that the young children are learning something each day. The trainers are aware of the busy schedule of the parents, which is why they encourage the anganwadi workers to give the children simple, short assignments that the parents can help with.

All the trainers at the Bharat Nagar centre have been engaging with the children and the stakeholders in the community for a long time. Their experience over all these years has shown them that by encouraging children and parents to read, children become more curious and the parents become more involved and engaged in their child’s learning.

We love the parent engagement that Pratham centres actively drive. Here is to many happy hours of reading together!

comment (1)

---

This campaign is now closed

 

Children LOVE ‘spotting challenges’. Ask them to spot anything from a busy image and you can be sure they won’t quit. 3 crabs on a beach, 4 tyres in a workshop, 11 spoons in a kitchen... anything! Unfortunately, it’s hard to come by memorable spotting books which are affordable. So...

 

This Children’s Day (November 14), StoryWeaver is eager to create a fun spotting book for children and make it available for free. We think this will be special if it’s a collection of illustrations from artists around the world. And this, illustrators, is where we need your support. Just 1 illustration from you can make all the difference! 

 

The best entries from Spotathon will become part of a grand spotting book published by StoryWeaver, filled with illustrations from different artists. However, each entry that is submitted as part of Spotathon will be available on StoryWeaver as an individual activity book as well.

 

Here’s how you can participate in Spotathon!

 

• Draw something which has enough details so that a child can spot up to 15 objects in it. Think of a setting which can accommodate these details. A beach, rainforest, kitchen, classroom, market... the possibilities are endless! The objects to spot are up to you. 

• Before you start, imagine the child you’re setting the challenge for. Our readers are primarily children who haven’t had much access to books. We have 2 different categories which are linked to age and levels of difficulty. Remember, these are only guidelines.

 

a. 3-6 years (Level of Difficulty: Easy) – She has only recently started reading books. She’d enjoy spotting up to 8 objects. While she’s open to all kinds of settings, do remember that her vocabulary is limited. But her imagination definitely isn’t! As an example, here is an illustration by Soumya Menon of what would be ideal for her.

 

b. 7-10 years (Level of Difficulty: Medium) – As she’s expanding her vocabulary, she will be more comfortable with prediction and open to unfamiliar settings. She’d be able to spot up to 15 things. Even the way in which the objects are hidden can be more complex here. As an example, here is an illustration by Bindia Thapar of what would be ideal for her.

 

• As the spotting exercise also requires an answer key for reference, you will need to prepare it using the same drawing. All you have do it number the images accordingly. Here’s an example.

 

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION

 

Timelines

Spotathon begins on October 25 and ends on November 21.

 

Submission

 

 

• You will have to submit two illustrations: Main Illustration and Answer Key (examples above).

• You can submit your entry in any language that is available on StoryWeaver.

• You can submit more than one entry.

• Watch a short Video Tutorial on how to submit your entry on StoryWeaver.

 

Format

• Size of illustration (Main illustration & Answer Key): 11.17 inches (width) x 5.35 inches (height). This is the recommended size as it fits neatly into one of the templates on StoryWeaver.

• The illustrations should be high-res (150-300 dpi).

• Format: JPEG

• File size for each illustration: Between 2 to 4 MB; above 4 MB will slow down the upload process

 

Copyright and other guidelines:

• To participate in Spotathon, you must be over the age of 16.

• The illustrations you submit must be your original work. 

• By submitting your work, you are agreeing to a CC-BY 4.0 license being applied to it. To know more about this license, click here.

 

You can register for the campaign over here so that we know you're participating and can reach out for any updates. If you have any queries, feel free to drop us an email at [email protected]!

 

Be the first to comment.

---