Hands on reading/learning activities for children

Have you wondered, the things that were so important in our lives some years back, do not exist anymore and we are so engrossed in our lives, that we do not even miss them nor spare a thought about them? Can you name few such things? For a moment close your eyes and go down the memory lane and try to dig deeper into neurons of your brain and recall such things?

Case 1. Remember the Nokia phones? We all were obsessed with them some years back. The black and white ones, the later the colour ones, the touch screen ones, Sony Ericson phones which were a rage and the indication of your richness had to be the "Blackberry" phones. In 2023 these are not even being manufactured. They have literally shut the companies or sold them. This sort of change happened in the span of 10-15 years. Yes, just within a decade it got wiped out from the market. Can you think of just 2 reasons why this happened?

Case 2. There is man called Amitabh Bachchan who is around 80 years old, who has been an actor for the past 50+ years and needs no introduction. He is still relevant today, working in movies that have social impact, one of the most respected people in the country. Now, there are several other contemporaries of Shri Amitabh Bachchan like Dharmendra, Jeetendra, Shatrugan Sinha to name a few. Are they doing same number of movies? Are they still relevant like this legend? Do they have same impact on the society like him? Talent? yes, they might be equally or more talented than him, but the work? the relevance? almost zero compared to the icon.

Now you may be wondering why am I asking such irrelevant questions that holds no association to the title of this blog? If I tell you that there is a strong connection of these stories to the topic we are discussing today, would you believe me?

Case 2. There is a famous saying in English "Change is the only thing that is constant." Also, Charles Darwin in his theory of human evolution famously stated "Survival of the fittest" which literally transforms into

"Organisms best adjusted to their environment are the most successful in surviving."

So, this above-mentioned human species, (Shri Amitabh Bachchan) adapted to the necessary changes around him. Tried to be one with the changing fast paced world. Kept his ego aside and despite being a massive, larger than life star, he decided to be a learner. He moved away from the center and made space for others to shine too. Why? Because he had the hunger to learn, to keep growing not only by age, but by his mindset too. Accepting change is always hard. But what if it all works out for the best? What if the change was something that was needed but you did not notice it coming? The biggest success mantra in life is accept the changes around us and adapt them in order to be successful.

Case 1 : The exact opposite of our case 2. The companies did not try to stay relevant. They could not cope with the fast-changing world and technology around them. They did not live up to the changing market standards. Point is true in many other sectors and home-grown startup companies as well.

Finally coming to the point of this blog, today as parents or educators we cannot stick to our age-old methods of teaching and learning to our children. Our methods must be more advanced, interesting and must not feel like a task to our children. What do I mean by advancement? How do we involve children in learning, that would never seem like studying, more like playing and having fun. Do you remember how did you first start to read sentences? Yes? No? cannot recall? No worries, you can relive your moments with your child.

In this blog post we will cover the basic structure of introducing reading (English, OfCourse). Encourage reading early on. Given below is the step-by-step process to introduce reading to your child. Here are a few "new age" adoptive methods of teaching and learning for our kids.

Step 1. Make a chart of sight words.

The charts can be made depending upon the age group of your child. If your child has just started to learn three letter words, two letter words and then sight word, this is the best way to start. What are sight words? The words that the child recognizes when she sees it. The child will not apply pressure to learn these words. Like this, that, they, the, now, were etc.

Hang the chart around the area in which your child spends most of her time. Without drawing too much attention of your child, help your child to randomly look at the chart and try to recognize the words return on it.

Sight words on the chart can be written depending on the age group of the child. For example if your child is around 4-5 years old, then two or three letter words can be introduced to him/her. This list is shared below.

The above images are just an example of how you can create different charts for your younger ones.

Step 2 : Story telling.

The one thing I cannot stop stressing on, is the importance of stories in children's life. Story telling has been part and parcel of our culture for over a hundred years now, it is still relevant, only the mediums and forms have changed. We have certain stories that were told to us by our grandparents, which they heard from their grandparents and now pass them on to our children. They not only meant to entertain the younger ones, but also do a lot more than we can think of. Story telling is the best way to get your child to communicate and develop speech faster (sharing it with a personal experience). It empowers them with the wings of imagination and creativity. Imagination and creativity have no boundaries. Enable your children with that experience. On this blog you will find an article that I have posted regarding the importance of story telling to our children.

Step 3: Play way method of learning.

This is by far, according to the research the best way to help children teach children in their early childhood days. To understand this better, let us analyze an example.

Imagine a child, playing near the place where bucket of hot water is placed. You keep instructing the child not to touch the bucket since they may burn their hands. Now the child, being a curious species swiftly moves ahead without your knowledge and touches the bucket filled with hot water. Immediately you hear a loud cry of the child in pain. After having this "experience" the child will always remember the word "hot surface". It has "learnt/understood" the meaning with an "experience". Hence it is called "experiential learning" or "learning through play way method."

Importance of experiential learning

1. It connects the practical world and theory world and makes learning easy for the young minds.

2. Children learn to apply their learnings in their everyday life, which makes them confident.

3. Motivates them to analyze and evaluate at a very young age.

4. Something learnt via an experience makes a deep impact on their minds and they it retains it for the longest time.

I will cover more on experiential learning in my upcoming blogs! I hope you enjoyed reading this article, please your comments below and kind the this blog to everyone who you think needs to know more about this.

Easy learning space by Pooja

easy learning space by Pooja

easy learning space by Pooja