Level grading

Reading, writing and comprehension (referred to as RWC later) in both Hindi and English were selected as markers. To gauge reading ability, students were asked to read certain sentences from story books. Writing ability was judged both by making students write sentences on their own as well as by copying sentences from story books. Comprehension ability was decided using a simple shapes book and by taking examples from surrounding nature.

Deepak

 

We were in two group of 4 interns. I arrived Devrajkhal Intermediate College on time (9:40). A short meeting with the principal there with two if us. Then the principal there introduced us to the students of classes 6-8.

I was assigned class 6 by our group Manager(Akanchha) for level grading.There were 9 Students in class 6 . Out of which 6 were levelled for bigginers and 3 to movers.The leveling was done on the basis of reading, writing and comprehending the basic books(Chammak and Find half circle). Children were easily able to find the half circle (except 1). Students were fluent in hindi reading and comprehending but very poor in English. They were unable to spell some basic words like Umbrella, Grandmother,House etc.(Spellings of things drawn in the book ‘find half circle’).

Students were very interested in looking at the pictures in the book.

 

After the level grading we have a short meeting in which we made complete list of students in different levels

 

 

Khushi

 

AIM- comprehending the abilities of the kids in terms of reading , writing, comprehending and imagination , so as to sort them in different level groups.

PROCESS – I was given to handle and examine std 7. They had in total 9 students out of which only 7 were present. So, i divided them in two group . One group was given a sheet of paper to create anything they like. While , I took the other group with me . i started with one individual in a separate place so as not to intimidate them ,while giving others too , a sheet of paper. The examination started with one liners , hindi – chutki and English – a story about water, and gradually went to some simple story books for hindi – aise jiv jinhe bhula nahi jaa sakta , English

• the adventures of Rusty. I tried examining them on their reading skills, comprehension and reading skills ( writing what they comprehending ). The whole process took us approximately 2 hours.

 

• We then decided to have approximately 50 mins for each std-( 9:40 – 10:25am for 6th

, 10:25 – 11:15 am for 7th , 11:15 _ 12: 10 pm for std 8th ), 2 interns involved in each slots while the other to engage the other classes in certain activities.

• The 50 min slot was decided to consist of –

1. 25 min reading session
2. 20 min related activity
3. 10 min social awareness

 

I got two groups to deal with – beginners of std 7 ( 5 students ) and movers of std 8 ( 4 students).

Sorting

 

Class	Beginners	Movers	Flyers
6th	6	3	–
7th	5	4	–
8th	5	4	1

 

Note From The Project Manager

Recognizing the fact that different cognition levels existed across classes we decided to not tach the tree classes tpgether as envisaged before. We divided our time into three slots. Each slot had a duration of one hour.

Slot 1 – Reading Session Slot 2- Antivity Session

Slot 3- Games related to the books introduced in the reading session

 

 

 

Day 2, 23rd December

 

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Starting with class 6 beginners, They were interested in Hindi poetry so I introduced them ‘Baccho ki subhadra’ . They were interested in looking at the pictures. We did chapter 1 of that book and read all the topics inside.

Then we have a short activity on drawing. They draw the mountains and other things nearby which was not completed at that time. I taught them about sharing things and understand others.

 

 

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`1st slot – activity period for std 7 and 8

 

1. Word splash game for 15 min – children were arranged in a circle . One had to speak out any word and point to any child child in the group to say another word which starts with the ending letter of his/her word. This process continued in the same

 

2. Played Kabaddi for 10 min to observe more of their behavior and their ties with other students .
3. Story Making Game – all children were made to sit in a circle. One student had to make a sentence about a story and it continued in the same way throughout the circle , thus making a complete story at the end

–          2nd slot – session with 7th std. Beginners

 

1. Had a small introductory round dealing with the importance of
2. Started with the reading session from hindi book – aise jiv jinhe hum bhul nhi sakte . it comprised working on tgheir reading capabilities , writing practice and comprehensive skills, lsting for 25
3. ACTIVITY – made to write English words of 3, 4, 5 letters. It helped wuth their vocabulary. Story making from pictures in the same story we were reading from the text. It was aimed to show them how pictures and story can turn to various conclusions.

• 3rd slot – 8th movers

 

1. It was the first personal meeting with them , so , had a small introductory session with them . there we even talked about the importance of
2. The book chosen for them was Vikram And Betal in hindi. So started with a video on the concept and pattern of the whole story. Then proceeded with the text in the same manner as before.
3. ACTIVITY – Same as the 7th std
4. Sharing and respect session proceeded in the same manner . The only difference was that they had passed the sharing

 

OBSERVATION – Std . 8 students were quite reserved , be it boy or girl.while std 7 were quite open .

 

 

 

Day 3, 24th December

 

Started with class 6 beginners with a virtual visit to zoo through book ’chidiya ghar ki sair’. Told them that it’s another reason to read book and we can visit and know about anything without going there. Each student wrote 3-4 lines from each page and concluded full story beautifully. Students there were unable to spell basic words so I checked and taught random words found in the book and from pictures. A short video on sharing and understanding was shown to the kids.

 

Class 7 movers started with ‘The story about water’. Three out of 4 students were able to form distorted sentence from the pictures in the book. None of them were able to make a perfect sentence. Other one student was given to write three sentences about her school. None of her sentence were correct. She even don’t know the spelling of ‘Devrajkhal’ I corrected their sentences and corrected the words. And told some of the rules of forming sentences. Then the video on sharing was shown to them.

–          1st slot – activity for std. 7 and 8

1. Different uses of an object game- students were given an object( like stone, flower, brick,wood,pen ) and they had to write the various uses of that object they can think about.This was aimed at improving their creativity and
2. Adjective game- talked about the meaning of adjective and asked them to name them if any they know. They were made to write the adjective in hindi, English and make sentences from it in
3. Direction Game – made a circle of students. I stood at the centre pointing out to a student and directing them to do a job. The process then included activity of siiting when directed to stand and vice

 

2nd slot – reading session with std 7 beginners

1. Continued with the same story and completed chapter 1 of aise jiv jinhe hum bhul nhi sakte. They were given homework to change the ending of the
2. ACTIVITY – students had to find the specified difficult hindi word from the story we just read following which they had to write the word and its meaning with the usage in a sentence related with the story. It ensured if they followed the text or not. My observation tells that this made them more interested in the
3. Screening of 2 min video on the topic of sharing and respect, followed by 2-3 min interaction with the kids on the

 

–          3rd slot – reading session with std 8 movers.

1. Started with the fir st story from vikram Baital and completed it (leaving out the answer given by vikram at the end for them to speculate and write and bring the next )
2. ACTIVITY – same as std
3. Screening of the video on sharing followed by an interaction on the OBSERVATION – Std 8 boys opened up quite a much but not the girls

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Day 4 , 25th December

 

 

The day started with shower of questions (General Knowledge type) from the students They asked some important dates and facts to us. We told them about Christmas and Santa.We played secret Santa🎅. in which we prepared some chits with students name, and the students have to pick a chit and bring something for that particular person.

Students along with interns made greeting card with a Christmas painting and inside a letter to Santa. We had a small moment of dance then we distributed some chocolates.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 5, 26th December

 

Students of class 6 and 7 (all) read their half read stories in ‘chutki’, ‘aise jeev jinhe hm bhul nhi skte’. Then I started with a comics type story in a ‘Chakmak book’ It was about a boy who saw dog at his uncle’s home and then gains knowledge about dogs from Library and then convinces his parents to bring a pet dog to his home. The story gives knowledge

 

 

In next 45 minutes we played calculation race and word game. And other students were given to write things with left hand by shubha di.

1st slot – activity time for std. 7 and 8

1. Mathematics Race – divided then children into random groups . we had a race which could only start after kids solving the given maths

 

2. Skip Maths Game – made a queue and each student had to say numbers skipping either 2,3,4 digits. The level was increased when they had to do backward counting with skipping

2nd slot – reading session with 8 th std flyer

1. Continued reading do bailo ki katha. Homework was given to speculate and write the further story.

Word Game was played at the end, in which we can make new words by using one alphabet at a time with alternate chances.

3rd slot – reading session of std 8 beginners and movers

1. Started with checking their homework and their perception on the story related to vikram baital.
2. Started with the next chapter in the book vikram

 

OBSERVATION – girls of std. 8 were now opening . the word game interested them too much , they seemed to have played an unique game. Also, when asked if interested to read English next, only a few were comfortable .

 

 

 

Day 6, 27th December

 

I started with an article in the chakmak book ‘prithwi kab bani thi’, we studied it all. half of the students (girls) went for hygiene session with Rekha ma’am. meanwhile we(boys of class 6) talk about ‘Good Touch and Bad Touch’ then they watch a video on same. Meanwhile Girls of class 6 were taught about good touch and Bad touch then they watched the video. Due to short of time I taught about Good touch and Bad touch to class 7 just after an introduction to that article in chakmak about when was the earth created. And then they watched the video.

 

 

 

 

 

After that A small session of yoga with Rekha ma’am. She also accompanied me while teaching Children.

1st slot – activity for std 7 and 8

 

1. Name, Place, Thing, Animal
2. Word scramble game- on animals for std . 7 and on adjectives for std. 8
3. Session on hygiene attended by all girls by Rekha Mam , yoga 2nd slot – activity for std 6 and 8-
4. Name , place , thing, animal
5. Word scramble game – std 8 continued while std 6 were also given scramble on
6. Postcard writing session – they had to write a letter related to the story they have recently been taught. They could either address it as themselves to any character or as character

to another character , etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3rd slot – session with std 8

• Discussion on good and bad touch – talking about its difference , the private body parts and the process of act in such situations and the people we can share the experience
• Screening of the video KOMAL on good and bad touch followed by interaction on the

 

OBSERVATION – children were quite surprised to know about good and bad touch but none accepted having such bad experience

Day 7,28th December

 

1. Creative writing competition – continuing with the starting line – jungle me ek neela janwar rehta tha. Kyuki woh ajeeb dikhta tha , isiliye usse koi dosti nhi karta tha., they had to mahe an original story with a suitable title and

Observation – we observed how their writing and imaginative capabilities have positively changed.

2. Painting competition – they had to make something creative , painting or something else depicting best , the story they just
3. Kon banega crayonpati – it was a quiz relating to general questions about world and india, mathematics and the story they had read in the past 5 days so as to check if the story is still stuck with them .
4. Title giving farewell session – the farewell was to give a positive title to each child based on their greatest abilities. The children were very enthusiastic about it and cheered for others too. This was aimed to leave them with a positive and good image of themselves which would keep them enough motivated to not leave things just till
5. Meeting with teachers and the Principal of the school- we were getting their observations and feedbacks on our working mechanism and

Chaubtakhal Detailed Report

Initial notes

The winter internship program for the school in Chaubattakhal comprised of 4 interns managing a group of 42 children in 6th to 8th standards. As with any other set of children, the normal distribution is the best representation of the children’s abilities, which was decided after level grading.However, for the sake of simplicity, bar chart is used to depict data below.

1.       Day 0 – December 21,2017

This was the first day of interaction with the students. As nothing was taught and this was more of an ice breaking session, it’s labelled as Day 0. Children were asked whether they liked stories. Response was mild, which can be attributed to shy nature of kids interacting with new people for the first time.

 

Observation:

Students in Devrajkhal school appeared quiet and unresponsive. Students in Chaubattakhal school appeared more inclined towards talking to each other. 4 interns were allocated to each school.

 

 

Day 1, 22rd December

 

 

 

The level grading day. School attendance registers were used to list. 42 students were listed. With 2 students absent, 2 interns were allocated to grade students in 4 levels. Efforts were made by 1 intern to keep all students engaged when they were not being graded.This was done using field activities and drawings. Remaining 1 intern was responsible for overall conduct of the session.

 

Level grading method:

Reading, writing and comprehension (referred to as RWC later) in both Hindi and English were selected as markers. To gauge reading ability, students were asked to read certain sentences from story books. Writing ability was judged both by making students write sentences on their own as well as by copying sentences from story books.

Comprehension ability was decided using a simple shapes book and by taking examples from surrounding nature.

 

 

 

Observation:

 

Children warmed up to the interns as the interaction time increased. Children were seen to be eager to take part in level grading as they wished to partake in the field activities thereafter.

 

Way of conduct of field activities (by Sheetal) on this day is appreciated as it meant handling a large group of children (35-38 at any instance).

 

Output of level grading

 

 

Names of the levels are more indicative than absolute. L0 indicates students with least understanding and relatively worst reaction to stimulus. L5 indicates advanced level of understanding and best response to stimulus.

L3 and L4 lie in between these 2 extremes. L4 consists of students with relatively better RWC in Hindi. L3 students displayed any one or maximum two RWC capabilities.

(Inputs by Sheetal) While two interns were involved in level grading of the kids, (on the basis of Reading, Writing and Comprehension abilities in both Hindi and English),two of us engaged the other kids. Since only 2 kids were graded at a particular instance,we had around 38 kids and performed ice breaking activities.

 

SHOOT : Similar to Splash, the kids stood in a circle and I was in the center. I would shoot a kid and the two kids adjacent to the target had to sit shouting a word with the same initial as their name.

SKIP COUNTING : Counting skipping one and eventually two numbers.

 

EAT/DRINK OR THROW : Kids had to very quickly make gestures of eating /drinking if the thing told is eatable else act like throwing it away. Say for Eg bread is to eaten and stone is to be thrown.

ALPHABET / WORD GAME : Kids were divided in three groups. Like the Atlas/Antakshari , each group had to name a place, animal or thing (in English) starting by the last alphabet of the word said by the former team.

KNOW UTTARAKHAND : Children were seated in three teams, each team was asked to share few special things about Uttarakhand.

 

Towards the end, the kids were asked to tell about how the house system (red, blue, green, yellow) works in the school, after whom they have been named, which is leading etc

When asked to perform something, a girl told a story followed by two girls who sang a song.

 

Kids were excited for field activities and liked to stay outdoors. They participated actively.

 

 

 

Note From The Project Manager

 

After the level grading it was felt that the students of different classes could be taught with each other. The cognition levels of children were found to be similarvacross classes and hence there were four groups made namely Level 0, Level 3, Level 4 and Level 5.

Day 2, 23th December

 

For L5, the motive was to introduce English/Hindi text which is of relatively higher level than others. The Temple Tiger and Man Eaters of Kumaon was chosen as the reference book.

Children found it relatable too because of the big cat habitat in the surrounding areas of kids’ habitat.Day started with showing a 10-minute National Geographic documentary on big cats. However, the English commentary bored them after 6 minutes and I decided to discontinue it. Asked them to list big cats where they made some elementary mistakes. Introduced Jim Corbett and made them read first few sentences from the book.

Observations

 

Children were seen having difficulty reading relatively difficult English words such as superstition, knoll, exemplified etc. While focusing on these words, I helped them write correct spelling and each one of the 3 students gradually made sentences from those words. During this, it occurred to me that I can introduce HOMOPHONES to them and the children liked the idea. They started making homophones (similar sounding words with different spelling/meanings/both) starting with tail;tale. This led to homework where I asked them to think of 2 more pairs of homophones for Day 3 discussion.

 

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The day started with discussing the homework where the children exceeded expectations by writing 12-15 homophone pairs compared to 2 that were asked.

The story of Temple Tiger was narrated in Hindi and the 2 students were asked to write the story they heard. They chose to write in Hindi. Next, they translated the Hindi writing in English where it was observed that English sentence construction was an issue. Sentences were corrected and the day ended with rope skipping as an entertainment activity. However, learning was incorporated into this activity by asking students to count the number of times they had skipped the rope and subtracting the number from 100. This had to be done orally and quickly.

Books used — Chhutak, Natak book, A world of trees, chakmak, Aise jeev jinhe bhulaya nhi ja sakta.

 

 

Group of 16 students (one student was absent). Started by introducing Kitaab, our plan for the coming week followed by an activity.

WEAVING TALE: The kids did not create a very logical and progressive story. It was very basic and after repeatedly telling them, there was slight progression noticed. The weaved tale was a small tale with a happy ending .

The story was then written down by the children and were collected.

INTRODUCTION OF THE BOOK : VIKRAM BETAL –   Introduced the book Vikram Betal with a 5 min video of the same. The kids enjoyed the video, could understand it fairly well.. Post the discussion of the video, we read the first story that Betal tells Vikram.The kids were given chances to read aloud and asked them to narrate what they understood. I read and explained the things that were unclear.

We could complete half of the story.

 

 

 

 

Day3, 24th December

 

 

 

The day started with a review of sentences written on Day3. Today’s focus was on writing correct English sentences. Parts of speech were introduced to students. They knew the definition of noun (memorized) but could not apply it. Effort was made to help them in application.New parts of speech such as adjective and adverb were introduced. The concept of adverb proved to be abstract for them and they were seen struggling with pointing out adverbs in the sen

GIVE A TITLE : Asked the kids to give a title to their story.

 

After hearing all titles, I asked if they could try writing the same story in English. Few were reluctant, however, all the students tried to write. Sentence construction in English was a major problem.

 

We then continued the story of Vikram Betal in the same way as the previous day. The end i.e moral/ the question asked by Betal wasn’t read and the kids were told to think for an answer.

 

ACTIVITY, SHARING : Randomly, unevenly distributed 40 chits of paper among the 13 students present and asked them to create some sort of balance and left them without answering any further questions.

On returning it was found the kids had taken 3 chits each and the one remaining chit was tore into 13 very small parts so that everyone could get one.

The kids had good logical ability and also understood the message of sharing.

 

Post the activity, children started telling what Vikram might have answered.

 

 

 

 

Day 4, 25th December

 

Children enthusiastically chose to come to interact with Kitaab interns despite the Christmas holiday. Further parts of speech were introduced to them and concepts of helping verbs was introduced. At the end of the day, children could identify noun, pronoun, verbs, adjectives and adverbs in a complex English sentence. However, this was not perfect and they will need daily practice to understand these concepts.

After this, Christmas day activities took over and children wrote confessions and sang Christmas carols as a team. The confessions were checked and morals were discussed with the students of all levels.Then whole levels gathered & we asked them about the Christmas day & why we are celebrating it. Then we enjoyed this day with students, we sang Christmas song & also danced on this song

(Two kids from the other school had come to attend this session because they had heard about it from their friends)

Children were excited and enthusiastically wished Merry Christmas. Explained what confession meant followed by CHRISTMAS CONFESSIONS :Distributed chits of paper and asked the kids to confess something writing their name. Jumbled the chits and redistributed it among the group. Each kid then read aloud the confession on the chit they had and the name of the person who had written it.

The confessions were cute and were mostly for friends at school.

 

PICTURE STORY : The kids made a drawing depicting a story.

 

After this, students of all the levels were assembled together and we sang aloud Christmas carols.

 

 

 

 

Day 5,26th December

 

Got 2 new students without level grading because they were absent from level grading day. So I did their grading. One was come to my level & second one went to level 0. To improve their writing skill, I told them to write a story & read it within the group. Then students wanted to read Natak book , so we read book with acting. Then gave them a puzzle based on English words & they did very well in puzzle. After that students played shoot game. In this game one student has to tell one word & then he has to shoot someone & then this new student has to tell a word. If he will tell then the game will be on but if he won’t then he would be elemenated.Four students played very well & long time. Then our next activity was ‘racing with math’. In this activity,they have to run ,then solve the math question & have to come at the starting point with their solution. Thee did very well. At the remaining few minutes students learnt ‘hand paper crafting’ by their extra activities teacher.

 

 

Day 6, 27th December

 

 

 

Introduced them a puzzle based in the names of the animals & told them to solve it . They did well except finding one difficult word. And also randomly they found somewhere in the puzzle the word ‘GST’. Then described about GST a little bit. After that divided the whe level 3 within two groups & played word game. In this game one team has to give a word to their opponent team & opponent team has to tell the meaning of that word . If they will unable to give answer,then will loose their one point. Then have to discuss about sharing,so distributed colours to them randomly & told them to share it equally & they did it perfectly. At the last of this activity told them the importance of sharing & also we discussed about good & bad manners.

Then at the last have to discuss with them about good touch & bad touch as decided by our team. As this is a sensitive issue,so started with some general social issues & tried to link it with my purpose & then told them about this topic a little bit because have to just give them a basic idea & main thing them with the help of a video.

 

 

 

Day 7, 28th December

 

As it was our last day,so we managed a meeting with teachers. The purpose of this meeting was that to inform them that where we think , teachers have to work on the students. Also we wanted feedback from them,in that way we will work on that weak area & make more effective our club.

After meeting,our competition started. First competition was ‘Creative story writing’ & we just gave them few starting sentences of the story & then they had to make their own story & finally when I read their stories, they were awesome. Their thinking abilities were very good. Then our next competition was drawing competition. Really they made pretty well drawing. One was mind blowing. After that quiz competition.

Then we showed them the video on good and bad touch & discussed about it with them. At the end we distributed prizes to winners. And also gave pencils who didn’t win any competition to encourage them. That was our last activity with the students & too emotional moment. Again we met to the teachers & thanks for their overwhelming support.

 

 

Session on Respect and Sharing

The interns at both schools had a session on respect and sharing with the children. The interns had a discussion on the same followed by a small video.

Session on Good Touch and Bad Touch

Understanding the sensitivity of the issue the interns were breidef about how to deal with the issue and how to introduce it ti kids. The idea was to strike a balance between being subtle and not beating around the bush at the same time. The interns at both schools had a 30 minute dicusssion with the kids which was followed by a video. This was done in small groups so that the kids don’t feel hesitant and shy.

 

 

Visit By Mr Dimri

Mr. Pradeep Dimri visited both the schools at chaubtakhal and Devrajkahl and assessed the reading levelmof kids. He also encouraged them to always strive for the good things in life.

Career Counseling Session

We conducted career counseling session in two schools which were in vicinity. The response we received was lukewarm. Our interns encouraged the students to ask questions and think about their lives ahead

 

 

 

 

 

 

Project Findings

 

 

 

This time in Chaubtakhal the plan was to have an intensive readership program . The interns dedicated almost 30-35 minutes to reading sessions Children were sorted into three groups beginners movers and flyers in Devrajkhal and were sorted into four different levels in Chaubtakhal namely Level O, Level 3 , Level 4 and Level 5 on the basis of their reading writing and comprehension in Hindi and English. The decision to sort students into groups using books of varying difficulty levels turned out to be very fruitful as we were able to narrow down problem areas during reading be it difficult words or enunciation errors.

 

The children actively took interest in the activities that the interns conducted. The storytelling sessions were quite a hit. The interns would end the story of the day on a cliff hanger and then ask the students to predict the end. The responses they received were positive.

 

The children were also asked to make a separate notebook for their drawings, stories, summaries anything that they did during the course of this 7 day readership program.

 

Libraries

There is no library in both the schools. The children were very keen on reading books but they have no place to go to. Library development program could be envisaged as during the interaction principals of both schools were more than willing.

Inquisitiveness

 

Students are hesitant in asking questions and mock other classmates if they happen to ask anyghing. Students have a lot of caliber and are very sharp minded but need a little more motivation. Emphasis is required on reading and concept building

Confidence

All the interns have noticed that the children laugh at their peers when the latter has been asked something or when someone raises a question. They must be made to understand that mocking others is wrong and that there is nothing wrong in asking questions or making mistakes

Visual mode Of communication

All the interns had observed that the students seemed to understand better and grasp what was being said more easily when any visual mode of communication was used. So the teachers could try and incorporate more videos, short movies, etc based on what is being taught in the classroom in order to make learning more fun and easier for the students.

 

Overall the response that we received from the teachers and the students was very warm and cooperative and we would like to thank Mr Sudhir Sundiyal and Mr Jaypraksh and the rest of the staff for their kind hospitality and guidance throughout the tenure of this internship.