With story books in Hindi and English as reading resources, the CBSE, in partnership with Pratham Books' StoryWeaver and CentralSquare Foundation, has launched a two-year reading literacy mission for school children as part of NEP-2020 stated in its circular in 2021, "Stories and reading are an important part of a child’s growth and development. Reading literacy is not only a foundation for achievement in other subject areas within the educational system but also a prerequisite for successful participation in most areas of adult life."
For this, children's literature of the two partnering organizations is going to be used 'to build a culture of reading across the country' by the affiliated schools for grades I to X along with "Reading Challenge" competitions for grades VI to X. It is being speculated that the two-year programme will be 'enhancing their (learners') vocabulary, deriving connections between stories and their own lives, and exposing them to new ideas.' That's what is being claimed.
"Unless reading across all the disciplines to link learning to enhancement of verbal intelligence becomes the part of the classroom processes, mere reading sessions through story books do not get transferred to reading and speaking skills across the curriculum. There are evidences to prove that speaking and reading of the language of various school subjects makes children to attain reading competence with comprehension. The verbal intelligence based 'reading education' across the entire curriculum enables the child to read and speak language books, mathematics books and other books related to various subjects. It has been seen that the short-term projects with external help create euphoria but never results into a reading habit formation on the part of the teachers and children both. Only the institutional-led reforms with the stake of all the functionaries succeed," stated Jaipur based educator and researcher who has been batting for the pedagogy of multiple intelligence proposed Howard Gardner.
Watch video for 'speaking and reading for multiple intelligence' done at MNSS Rai
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