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Who wants marks? Parents or Children? Do you know what children really want? Do flowers Fly?

 In our quest for Marks and Ranks, we are neglecting Fundamental aspects of Education.  As a result  We have students who score high in examinations  But  Score very low in reading skills, comprehension skills,  Average to below average expression skills  Not so good Mathematical and scientific literacy

We want to make a difference in the system of education through Shifting our focus from Marks to Real Understanding From Stressful education to enquiry based education Are u Ready for the Change????

India is said to have an examination system but not an education system... CNR Rao, Head, Scientific advisory council to PM How do our children learn

 There is a complete disconnect between education and Nature.  Pre-primary to class V – crucial for proper foundations.  Need of the hour is to go back to Fundamentals of Education. One of the fundamentals are Reading skills.

How important is Reading ?  Reading is regarded as the most important skill that a child must acquire in schooling years.  Children learn to read. Adults read to learn.  Reading is a skill – which means- it is not an inborn talent and must be taught, be put to practice over and over again.

Skill of Reading There are two main reasons for reading:  Reading for pleasure  Reading for Information There are several ways of reading:  Skimming, Scanning, Extensive reading, Intensive reading

Current scenario Have we ever discussed about importance of reading in school? Do we have any plan of action for promoting reading skills among students? Do students know about various methods of reading practices for varied purposes? What do you understand about Reading Literacy?

Reading to Comprehension Reading involves a variety of skills: Recognizing the script of language …. Understanding explicitly stated information…. Understanding information when not explicitly stated …. Understanding conceptual meaning …..understanding relations within the sentence … interpreting text by going outside it ……………………………………………………… …………………………….selective extraction of relevant information from the text…. Transcoding information to diagrammatic display.

SKILL OF SPEAKING Speaking is a muscular activity. People use speech organs to produce sounds. Learning to speak our own language, we learn certain specific muscle habits. Where sounds of a second language are different from those of our mother tongue we have to learn new muscle habits

Current scenario in India  More than 50% of 5 th class children in Rural India can not read even class 2 book – ASER report 2011 (Annual status of Education report by Pradham, NGO)  PISA 2009 report.  Report after report suggest that India stands at bottom of the list of Developing countries where quality of education is concerned.

PISA 2009 REPORT  PISA – program for international student Assessment. PISA seeks to measure how well the students have acquired knowledge and skills to function as a successful members of the society.  Conducts exam once in 3 years for OECD countries ( Organization for economic cooperation and Development – which includes all major developed countries)  First time students from two states from India have participated.  Conducts tests on Reading skills, maths and science skills of students of age 15 yrs to 15 yrs 3 months.

Where do we stand? Average overall reading skill score  OECD countries: 493  China- (Shanghai) :556  Tamilnadu: :337  Himachal Pradesh :317 Out of 78 countries participated, India stands at 77 th position in overall ranking only above Kyrgyzstan.

What is reading literacy An individual’s capacity to Understand Use Reflect on Engage with written text

Approach to Reading Development NCERT says print rich environment is necessary for language development. Their text books are not sufficient to develop language skills We need to introduce lot of other interesting books for children.

 What kind of books are there for children to develop reading and comprehension skills?  Learning a-z has scientifically designed books which are appropriate for their age, topics selected are native and includes multiple genre like fiction, non-fiction, poetry etc.  More importantly – introduce English as a ‘language’ and not as a subject.

Criteria for leveled books of Learning a-z  Word count  No. of different words  Ratio of different words to total words  No. of high frequency words  Ratio of high frequency words to total words  No. of low frequency words  Ratio of low frequency words to total words  Sentence strength  Sentence complexity  Predictability  Language pattern and Repetition  Print size, spacing, and No. of words per page  Illustration support  Concept load  Topic familiarity

Who are using Learning A-z  Nearly 50% of the school districts in USA and Canada use these resources.  Teachers from 155+ countries use these resources  Kendriya a Vidyalayas in India are launching from June 2012.

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