How does one interpret the annual ASER results, where Grade V children can't read a Grade II textbook in their local language? Is it because of poor teaching in schools or is there something to the vernacular we are missing?
Babies learn to speak by being spoken to—no structured instruction is required to give language to children. Reading on the other hand, is not an evolutionary skill. Exposure to print is helpful, but it doesn’t automatically result in children learning to read. In other words, reading needs to be taught.
Reading is closely linked with speaking and listening.
However, the lesser known fact is that reading is closely linked with speaking and listening. Most linguists agree that orality is the foundation on which literacy skills are built—‘orality’ being a combination of verbal communication (speaking, listening) and non-verbal communication (via art, gesture, play). If children don’t learn to communicate well in early childhood, odds are they will struggle to read in school.
This explains why many Indian children (especially from low-income households) grapple with reading or comprehending English—a language that is absent in their homes (for which they have no orality). However, how does one interpret the annual ASER results, where Grade V children are unable to read a Grade II textbook in a local language they can speak and understand? Is this entirely because of poor teaching in schools, or is there something to the vernacular that we are missing?
Indian languages versus English
Much of the work on literacy is based on empirical studies of alphabetic writing systems—such as English.2 The assumption is that findings from English language learning would apply to how the brain learns languages in general. It turns out, this might not be true. Linguistics researchers argue that different parts of the brain get excited when one looks at different languages. This is because languages come with diverse visual representations, and also vary in their conceptual structure.
For instance, authors of the Literacy Research in Indian Languages (LiRIL) study discuss how Indian languages differ from English in many ways. While English alphabets can have different phonetic sounds—depending on the word they are in (the famous ‘put’ vs ‘but’)—Indian languages have ‘a one-to-one correspondence between letter and sound.’
Another difference lies in the subtlety between different letters in Indian languages, such as the aspirated and the non-aspirated versions of a sound. Take for example the sound ‘guh’ for gaana (song) versus the sound ‘gh’ for ghee in Hindi. In English, the word ‘ghee’ might be pronounced as ‘gee’—without the emphasis on the ‘h’ sound—because it does not have the same aspirated sounds as in Hindi.
Indian scripts are also visually represented differently from English. “The visuo-spatial arrangement of syllables in the script is very complex. The swarachinhas/maatras can be placed above, below, to the left, or to the right of the letter.” 3 Furthermore, consonants are often presented in combinations with one another (in half-forms) which is absent in English.
combining two consonants in hindi
These differences show that Indian scripts are qualitatively different from English. Given the particularity of Indian languages, it is clear that more research is required on how children acquire reading in these languages, and how quickly they can be expected to master it. The ASER Early Years (2019) survey reports that only 16 percent of Grade I students can read their grade level textbook—and of those, a majority are 7-8 year olds with the younger children in the class lagging behind.
It is useful to note that the survey found that older children did better on all tasks compared with younger children in the same grade, and taking cognisance of developmental nuances is also important when designing curriculum. However, the Draft National Education Policy (2019) does the opposite by suggesting that all children be required to read and write in three different scripts by Grade III. This suggestion is preposterous, and unmoored from the science of reading, or the Indian context.
Indian language speakers might be underserved by the school curriculum
While much has been written about poor teaching in governments schools, the role of curriculum in mediating teaching needs to be examined as well. To start with, the curriculum development process is a centralised one, driven by committees that are staffed without adequate representation from marginalised social groups. As a result, one often finds a more sanskritised rendition of the local language being presented in textbooks.
gate from NCERT Grade I Hindi textbook
The image above is from Chapter 1 of the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) Grade I Hindi textbook. Here, gate is labelled ‘phatak’, whereas, ironically, most Hindi speaking six year olds would call out ‘gate’. One might ask why this is a problem—if children know gate, can’t they easily learn that a gate in Hindi is called ‘phatak’?
To Be Continue Part-2
You must be logged in to post a comment.