Communities Rising Comes to Pratham Books
Posted by Remya Padmadas on March 06, 2018Zeba Imtiaz is an Assistant Editor at Pratham Books. She writes about Betsy McCoy's recent visit to the Pratham Books office in Bangalore, where she spoke about Community Rising's reading programme and how they encourage reading in children.
We all need inspiration every now and then – especially during busy year ends, when targets are to be met, deadlines to be chased, reflections to be written.
Thankfully, the Pratham Books team got a BIG dose of this inspiration thanks to Betsy McCoy. Betsy is the President of Communities Rising, a not-for-profit established in 2009 that has done some incredible work with children from the villages of Villupuram, Tamil Nadu. Communities Rising aims to spread the joy of reading to all children, through partnerships with school teachers, and by opening after school centres. They directly impact 2000 children, and train teachers to multiply their impact. Along with this, they run specially designed programmes and classes to help students bridge gaps in learning, bring art to children, and encourage social and emotional learning through sharing circles.
Betsy and her team recently visited us at our Bangalore office, armed with baskets of wonderful books and colourful buttons, to share their learnings, and show us what they’ve been up to.
They make the best of often-under-resourced situations with detailed plans and schedules. The Communities Rising team uses a variety of methods and techniques to help early readers gain confidence and find excitement in learning to read. Some of these include -
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Always providing the children with choices in their reading material, to encourage the growth of independence and personal taste.
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Regular listening to reading and reading to self and others, to increase confidence and interest in reading.
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Regularly playing games with the children like letter bingo and scavenger hunts so that the children can have fun while they learn.
They also shared with us their experiences from working with Pratham Books. Bilingual level 1 books are greatly enjoyed by children, as are our colourful illustrations. They mentioned that they would love to explore more level 1 and 2 books as well.
It was a session filled with learnings – especially around the value of choice in books for children and the many little things one can do to instil a reading culture in a classroom. Our team also gained a lot of perspectives on what books are most liked by children and why and it definitely will enrich and impact our process of creating picture books.
Thank you Betsy for the great morning of discussion around children’s books.
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World Book & Copyright Day 2020: Celebrating the wonders of open licensing and collaboration with a very special new book
Posted by Pallavi Kamath on April 23, 2020World Book & Copyright Day is an international initiative to promote the enjoyment of books and reading. By championing books and copyright, UNESCO stands up for creativity, diversity and equal access to knowledge.1
Aparna Kapur, Editor at Pratham Books, writes about the making of ‘The Novel Coronavirus: We Can Stay Safe’ - made possible through an amazing collaborative effort.
‘The Novel Coronavirus: We Can Stay Safe’ is a book aimed to help children better understand what they can do to stay safe during this pandemic. The book isn't just special because it was created in ten days, or because it's available in five languages. What makes this book remarkable is that it involves thirteen of India's best children's book writers and illustrators, and characters from seven of Pratham Books' most popular books - all released under the CC BY 4.0 license, and free to read on StoryWeaver.
Above everything else, artists define themselves by their work. Their words, their pictures, their design -- these are closest to their hearts. So when creators agree to release their work under Creative Commons, it is their way of showing their trust in the publisher, and a commitment to a common goal. In our case, that goal is 'to see a book in every child's hand'.
For the last 15 years, Pratham Books has been working towards this goal by publishing affordable openly licensed picture books, and making them available for free on StoryWeaver - ensuring they can be accessed and enjoyed by children all over the world, some of whom may not otherwise have had access to books. This has helped us create a sense of community with our creators. Which is why when we asked them to be a part of this project, nearly everyone responded within minutes, telling us that they would be happy to.
In the current state of things, when everyone needs to stay indoors as much as possible, the value of digital content is hard to ignore. The internet is helping all of us stay connected to each other, but also to things that give us joy and comfort. By openly licensing content, we aren't just removing the locks from our doors, we are throwing the door wide open and welcoming everyone in.
The book is already available in five languages. And with the CC BY 4.0 license, and the community-based StoryWeaver platform, people all over the world will be able to translate it, or use the images to make their own posters or books, or download a PDF and share it with people.
Multilingual. Generous. Collaborative. Worldwide.
When open licensing is done right, it can do wonders.
Read, download, translate ‘The Novel Coronavirus: We Can Stay Safe’ on StoryWeaver here.
A big thank you to the wonderful team of creators and experts who made this possible.
The book is written and illustrated by Bijal Vachharajani, Deepa Balsavar, Jayesh Sivan, Lavanya Naidu, Maegan Dobson Sippy, Meera Ganapathy, Nimmy Chako, Priya Kuriyan, Rajiv Eipe, Renuka Rajiv, Sanjana Kapur, Sheena Deviah and Sunaina Coelho. Thank you to Anirban Mahapatra, Dr N S Prashanth, Shambhavi Naik and Dr Tanya Seshadri for their help with fact-checking.
Read Aloud Stories!
Posted by Remya Padmadas on March 04, 2016- readingrockets.com
Reading is also a fantasic opportunity to spend quality, one on one time with a child. Plus, books can be the starting point for some great conversations with children too.
It's never too early to start reading to your child, and at StoryWeaver you'll find hundreds of stories for children at different reading levels. Also the stories are in multiple languages so your child can read (or be read to) a story in her mother tongue, a language she is trying to learn or just a language she is already proficient in.
Our 'Growing Up' series are fun, colourful, read-aloud books which are perfect for children who are just beginnging to read, and are also lovely to share with toddlers. Little ones will identify with the young protagonists of these stories as they go about their daily routine creating, climbing, carrying things and even confronting their fears. The books are written by Mini Shrinivasan and illustrated by different artists who imbue each story with a unique charm. Best of all? They're all available in multiple languages!
I Am Not Afraid Mini Shrinivasan and Rayika Sen
We've all been afraid of the dark, and some of us still are! In this story, a young girl steps out of the house at night and confronts her fears with aplomb!
I Can Climb! / मैं चढ़ सकता हूँ! Mini Shrinivasan and Deval Maniar
Who hasn't met an adventuruous toddler who can climb up things but doesn't quite know how to get down? In 'I Can Climb' we meet a young man with just that very problem. What happens to him? Read this bilingual English-Hindi book to find out!
ನಾನು ಏನೇನೋ ವಸ್ತುಗಳನ್ನು ಮಾಡಬಲ್ಲೆ! Mini Shrinivasan and Tanvee Nabar
Little hands love to keep busy - drawing, writing and making things! Keep some paper and colour pencils handy for when you've finished reading this book! (Available in English, as 'I Can Make Things!')
I Can Help! / मी मदत करते! Mini Shrinivasan and Aman Randhawa
Little children love to help out around the house. Why not read this book with a child, and then give them some simple, fun chores to help with? Watch their faces light up and chest puff up with pride as they do.
We hope you enjoy reading these books to and with the children in your life! For some great tips on how to raise a reader, here's something from Reading Rockets!