How to Approach Early Literacy – Learnings from Past Experiences and Research

There is a buzz around early literacy and numeracy these days with a lot of effort around it. However, those emphasizing it have different perspectives and purposes. They might superficially have the same agenda. However, their purposes makes them emphasize different elements. This structures their programs and their contents accordingly.

In some ways, this is similar to the adult education efforts made earlier in our country as well, where the motivations arose from very different perspectives and concerns. On one side, the effort was to make neo-literate adults part of the system, to be able to reach them and inform and instruct them in the rules and regulations of the country. The focus was on the necessity to assimilate them into the mainstream and make them serve the system, as well as educate them about what the mainstream considered as good for them.

Other groups wanted to help adults become a part of the democratic polity. The goal was to contribute to the struggle for their rights and to make them a part of the discussions on the route that the country should take. People taking this approach to adult education wanted neo-literate adults to become aware of the richness of their culture, heritage, concerns and knowledge systems. A parallel goal was to help neo-literate adults develop the confidence to try and shape the country and its policies. In order to clarify the purpose of those who were struggling to achieve universal adult literacy, there were even different names that were formulated for these diversely focussed programs.

The differences in the intent and purposes of these programs were reflected in the structures created, the way teachers (facilitators, instructors, etc.) interacted with them, and the content/material and methods they used. Even the nomenclatures used were reflective of the varying intents. However, often there might have been be a big gap between the stated, and even believed, intent, and the intention that played out in real situations.

For some of these groups, the key belief was that teaching should challenge learners to examine power structures and patterns of inequality within the status quo. They spoke of conscientization and critical pedagogy. There were other groups who defined their task as giving adults the abilities to read and write and analyze. They did not have any goals to change the status quo through these efforts.

Many of these groups however believed that learners learn better through an idiom that is a part of their lives and through issues that affect them. So for these groups, there were pedagogical reasons suggesting that learners be involved in conversations about their lives and various related dimensions including the inequities they face. These groups developed materials that used words and small texts that were a part of people’s challenges and struggles. In that sense, the materials they prepared would have some common elements with the earlier group.

Another group comprised of people who felt that the key purpose was to rid the adults being educated of their superstitions and align them to the ‘mainstream’. Their materials were different in nature. They created material on new knowledge and government schemes. The goal was to enable neo-literate adults to be subsumed in the emerging economy.

There were pedagogic divides as well. These could cut across groups. These focussed around the way learning was conceptualized and how the implementers and designers of programs felt learners should be engaged with. For example, whether reading is learnt through alphabets or through words or texts. Should the texts be simple in script joining two and three letters only (and without matras, for example) or they should first be meaningful words irrespective of the supposed complexity in script.

Similarly, in numeracy, there were efforts that reflected a spectrum of pedagogical ideas. There were debates within the groups regarding the methods as well. All these debates and discussions revolved around the issues mentioned in this and the preceding paragraphs. The educators struggled with these questions. They also developed shared understandings that led to building common strategies for initiating interactions, models of orientation, production of materials, and for reaching the community and the adult learners, etc.

They shared platforms for advocacy and awareness as well and had uneasy collaborations on raising the issue of investment. There were groups who remained outside these attempts of coming together. The broad principles that arose from these attempts became a part of the culture of literacy even though the deeper, emergent questions did not.

The present literacy and numeracy efforts have to take benefit of the earlier work and the lessons learnt therein. The age and experience of the learners in the context of early literacy is much less. However, some of the principles like knowing the learners and using what is of interest to them and part of their pre-existing knowledge is essential.

The materials and the methods must involve, and be based on, children’s language and culture. It is good to use words that are part of their lives and are meaningful for them. Examples of these include their own names, and those of their families and friends. Apart from these, there are the games that they play, the plants and animals around them, the tasks they engage in, etc.

Pedagogic interactions must allow them to use their language and expressions and make them feel empowered to learn more. The ideas they learn and the capabilities they develop must make them feel positive about themselves and also be useful in their lives. This learning must give them capabilities and knowledge about what all they can aspire to.

There is increasing awareness of the challenges that children from diverse backgrounds face in coping with literacy. Their context is often not rich in terms of printed/written materials. Their languages are often different from those in which materials that start them on to reading are generally available.

Similarly, children know mathematical ideas and use them in their lives. However, what they come across in the teaching learning materials is completely alienated from what they already know. The language in which these are presented, does not allow children to engage with the ideas.

The importance of using children’s own languages, their culture and idiom in initial learning cannot be overstressed. The focus on children’s participation and contribution to the conversations in the classrooms has to be increased. This has been suggested by many international studies and the work of educators in India.

We also know now that a multilingual climate makes for better leaning. We should not be worried about language mixing – lexically or syntactically – as the learner would slowly acquire mature competence in both and benefit from the ideas available in the languages and experiences of the classroom. Having the use of her language not only helps her comprehend and express but also gives her self-respect and confidence.

There is an increasing emphasis on bringing in children’s lived experiences and culture, and those of the communities they come from, into classrooms and learning processes. This suggests the need to bring in parents into a more participative role in their children’s education. As Mahatma Gandhi and the Nai Talim movement pointed out, through education children must learn to respect their community. It must not alienate them from their own roots.

Children must feel themselves as useful and integrated members of the society they are from. They must respect all kinds of labour that is essential for society’s functioning. Education should not produce white collared alienated youth. Communities’ association with schools and children’s education is, therefore, critical for many reasons.

Groups working in foundational literacy must be aware of the importance of the participation and ownership of the community. The importance of their active interest in ensuring children’s learning, aside from just herding them to the school, is growing. Many organizations have initiated interactions between community groups other than the formal PTAs, panchayats etc. and the schools.

These interactions aim to build mutual respect and trust. These often share the common concerns about children’s learning. In some of these interventions, communities and schools jointly organize events as well in which children, teachers and parents all participate. Some of the activities have children connect to their parents in settings of doing things together that help in learning. Such interactions are essential to build mutual trust and understanding and develop a different understanding of childhood and learning. Our understanding related to how children learn, and of the notion of childhood itself, are constantly evolving. This evolution can only be efficient if the ineractions between communities and schools are rich and meaningful.

It is clear that there are lessons for the FLN efforts with regards to organizational structures, and pedagogical and content ideas from both the adult education experience, and the research and thinking about children’s learning within institutional structures.

This knowledge is more about what is not good and should not generally be done, and some general principles that can be extracted, rather than about the precise steps to be followed. The journey to meaningfully educate children universally is not a simple one. We would have to continue learning and evolving contextual strategies.