Pratham Books Champion : Anchal Sondhi

Anchal Sondhi shared the following pictures of the storytelling sessions she conducted. She also wrote :

1) Rajkiya primary govt school, Dhroan khas village, Dehradun approximately 20 kids. "Paplu rakhshas" in hindi was read by me to the kids. they simply loved it and are asking me when I am coming next with the more stories for them.

2) NGO Assara trust program "WINGS" 5 story telling sessions held for various groups of young children. approx. 120 kids participated. 

The elephant story was a big hit with kids making the trunk gesture often and playing with their trunks. The kites story for real young ones was the ebst one and we had paper kite making session and they loved flying the kites.

Thank you Anchal for spreading the joy of reading!

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This International Literacy Day, Pratham Books has taken a 1000 steps towards a 'Reading India'

What started as a small step by Pratham Books to spread the joy of reading has become a movement. Last year Pratham Books initiated the One Day-One Story initiative on the occasion of International Literacy Day and we conducted over 250 storytelling sessions. This year we are delighted that over a 1000 sessions are happening across the length and breadth of the country.We will be sharing the stories of all our champions through our blog.

View more pictures from the International Literacy Day Celebrations.

This blog contains stories sent in by all our champions. Browse through the blog for more stories. You can also go through the tags on the right side of the blog to find stories happening in your own city.

Note : If any of you want to be a Pratham Books Champion and join us on our journey of getting 'a book in every child's hand', write to us at web(at)prathambooks(dot)org.

Pratham Books Champion : Divya Behl

This International Literacy Day, Pratham Books has taken a 1000 steps towards a 'Reading India'

What started as a small step by Pratham Books to spread the joy of reading has become a movement. Last year Pratham Books initiated the One Day-One Story initiative on the occasion of International Literacy Day and we conducted over 250 storytelling sessions. This year we are delighted that over a 1000 sessions are happening across the length and breadth of the country.We will be sharing the stories of all our champions through our blog.

One of the most difficult things that I have ever had to do is to convince my mother to conduct a story telling session for a group of children on Literacy Day.

Why mom? To see the magic of amalgamating languages. Pratham Books' Initiative to conduct story telling sessions on the occasion of International Literacy Day was the perfect opportunity to experiment with languages and see what happens when you place a Punjabi speaking mom in a group of children migrated from Bihar and expect them to have fun. It all happened as I expected it to be and it was beautiful. 

The rule was to use native languages, and make other people understand them as well. It was amazing 

to see how students were switching from their languages (they couldn’t name the languages but they 

belong to Eastern Indic Langauges or Bihari) to Hindi and the facilitator was doing the same, switching 

from Punjabi to Hindi. 

Followed by the story telling session, student chose a few of them to be Paplu and had to design a dress for the rakshas. They were given discarded cloth pieces, calendars, safety pins etc and the result was quite hilarious.

Thanks to the Samagra Foundation in Dehradun, to provide the perfect spot!

Thank you Divya Behl for spreading the joy of reading!

View more pictures from the International Literacy Day Celebrations.

This blog contains stories sent in by all our champions. Browse through the blog for more stories. You can also go through the tags on the right side of the blog to find stories happening in your own city.

Note : If any of you want to be a Pratham Books Champion and join us on our journey of getting 'a book in every child's hand', write to us at web(at)prathambooks(dot)org.

Pratham Books Champion : Aarohi Bal Sansar

For International Literacy Day (8th September), we had a dream - we wished that 100 people would volunteer to conduct storytelling sessions across the country. We ended up finding more than 250 champions to conduct storytelling sessions across the country. We will be sharing the stories of all our champions through our blog.

Pradeep from Aarohi Bal Sansar wrote to say ...

Briefly put, the reading session was conducted in classes 2 and 3 at Aarohi Bal Sansar ( Uttarakhand ), covering around 36 students, on 6th and 7th Sept.2012 ( 8th being a holiday). They also drew 'Rangoli' or 'Kolam' patterns on drawing sheets and with chalk on the floor.

We did follow up this exercise with an Aepan ( the local folk art of Kumaon) Festival at our school on the 14th of November, 2012.

Thank you Aarohi Bal Sansar for spreading the joy of reading!

View more pictures from the International Literacy Day Celebrations.

This blog contains stories sent in by all our champions. Browse through the blog for more stories. You can also go through the tags on the right side of the blog to find stories happening in your own city.

Note : If any of you want to be a Pratham Books Champion and join us on our journey of getting 'a book in every child's hand', write to us at web(at)prathambooks(dot)org.

Pratham Books Champion : Anchal Sondhi

For International Literacy Day (8th September), we had a dream - we wished that 100 people would volunteer to conduct storytelling sessions across the country. We ended up finding more than 250 champions to conduct storytelling sessions across the country. We will be sharing the stories of all our champions through our blog.

The session went off very very well and besides children and school teacher and myself too had a great time seeing the children's enthusiasm. 

In all the entire school strength of 25 children attended the session.

The children were so exited as soon as I entered the school and they all came to receive me.

We tied the banner on the window. Read aloud the story in Hindi to them page by page while holding the book towards them. Some children shared the English book to refer to pictures at the back. Asked them questions as to where is Tamil Nadu, when do we fly kites , what festivals we celebrate here, name some of the languages of India ....

The book is so self explanatory due to lovely kolams by Priya Kuriyan that when i handed over chart paper and crayons to children before I could mention they started drawing kolams and rangoli. For smaller children age 3 to 8 yrs I had to guide and 9 to 11 started making 3-4 kolams. Then we tied strings to their kolam drawings and hung some of them on the window. Some children got it tied and decided to take it home to show to their parents.

Since we had spent over one hour, the school teacher decided to let the children read the book for English language class on Monday. In the end when I asked them where do you think Susheela will draw her next kolam on they all responded in chorus "On chart PAPER of course"

And we ended on that note. (By the way one of the student's friend's name was Pratham so they all went shouting Pratham Pratham for their midday meal). 

Anjali and students of Rajkiya Prathamik Vidyalaya, Dhoran Kahs, Dehradun 248001 wishes to thank you Pratham Books.

Thank you Anchal for spreading the joy of reading!

View more pictures from the International Literacy Day Celebrations.

This blog contains stories sent in by all our champions. Browse through the blog for more stories. You can also go through the tags on the right side of the blog to find stories happening in your own city.

Note : If any of you want to be a Pratham Books Champion and join us on our journey of getting 'a book in every child's hand', write to us at web(at)prathambooks(dot)org.

Pratham Books Champions : Chirag School

For International Literacy Day (8th September), we had a dream - we wished that 100 people would volunteer to conduct storytelling sessions across the country. We ended up finding more than 250 champions to conduct storytelling sessions across the country. We will be sharing the stories of all our champions through our blog.

Tanvi Negi from Chirag sent us this story. The Chirag School was set up in 2006 to demonstrate that quality education for rural children can be provided at an affordable cost. The school envisions itself as a model on which educational endeavours in the region can be based. The structure of the day and approach to learning are child-centric. The developmental needs of a child are important criteria for planning the curriculum that focuses on health, play, art, rhythm, rhyme, movement, active participation in the group activities, home life, nature, festivals and music. Whilst it is a Hindi medium school, there is emphasis on teaching children Kumauni and English.

There are few sights more encouraging to the heart of an educationist than that of a child thoroughly enchanted by a book. When we first heard about Pratham Books Champs we absolutely adored the idea. What better way to celebrate ‘World Literacy Day’ than by reading books along with thousands of children across the country we thought. Chirag School, located in village Simayal in Nainital district- Uttarakhand, has a well stocked library where the books are carefully handpicked to entertain and educate. The school’s pedagogy revolves around narratives as we try and instill curiosity about the world in the children through stories and pictures. Our enthusiasm about PB Champs was dampened, however, when we realized that 8th September coincided with the second Saturday of the month, which is a designated holiday for the children. Nobody likes a revoked holiday, none more so than young children! Did we really want to brave the wrath of the little ones when they found out that they would have to wake up early and spend half of their day in classrooms when they could have been sleeping in late and playing in the sun? However, after much deliberation we decided to bite the bullet and keep the school open on Saturday. Susheela’s Kolam (the book that was selected this year) was a lovely account of a little girl who lives in Tamil Nadu and loves to draw Kolams. The story was beautifully illustrated with colourful pictures and even though the story was set far away from Kumaon we felt that the children would be able to relate to Susheela and through her learn something more about another part of the country.

On 8^th morning, children walked in brimming with excitement, eager to know why they were in school without their normal textbooks. We kicked off the programme with a music lesson where the children sang a slightly off key rendition of ‘The Lion Sings Tonight’ and some of them even managed to get impromptu guitar lessons. The assembly then broke up into smaller groups so that the children could listen to ‘Susheela’s Kolam’ in Hindi (for the younger children) and English (for the older children). The book served as a lead into further reading of stories from different parts of the country and the world. The children read folk tales from Kashmir, Turkey, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Uttarakhand and Gujarat to each other and learnt a little more about the world. However, the thing that was for us most remarkable and heartening was to see the older children encourage the younger ones to read better and speak up.

In Kumaon Rangoli, known as Aipan in this part of the country, is traditionally made outside homes on special occasions and festivals. Susheela’s story inspired the children at Chirag School to try their hand at making Kolams. The Kolams drawn on the last page (Pages 10 & 11) of the book depicts how these patterns can be made anytime, anywhere. All one needs are a few dots and a little imagination to come with intricate patterns. Next year we hope we can execute this event on a larger scale and incorporate more opportunities for exchange of ideas and foster creativity.  

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Thank you Tanvi and Chirag school for spreading the joy of reading!

View more pictures from the International Literacy Day Celebrations.

This blog contains stories sent in by all our champions. Browse through the blog for more stories. You can also go through the tags on the right side of the blog to find stories happening in your own city.

Note : If any of you want to be a Pratham Books Champion and join us on our journey of getting 'a book in every child's hand', write to us at web(at)prathambooks(dot)org.