Lots has happened in Standard 1 this year, despite this being only my second post for this academic year. As I mentioned in my earlier post, at the beginning of the academic year we were given a choice of languages - Hindi or Kannada that could be pursued till Std 4. I was ecstatic and took on Hindi, because I can handle the language much better.
And then the classes started. One of the first things I realized after the first quarter is that how good the teacher is also matters a lot. The homework was pretty regular... and after a while I realized a bit too regular. We finished the entire alphabet string (वर्णमाला ) in 2 weeks flat. 5 letters a day as homework. I let Anoushka do it unsupervised and was initially happy that she was finishing her homework so well. Its just that I had a nagging feeling that something was not right.
So one day I sat down with her and asked her to write down the alphabets. Orally she was perfect. When it came to writing, I realized that she was approaching it from the creative writing point of view - literally creative writing. She would construct a letter like she was drawing a flower. It struck me then, that she was referring to it all as drawing - "I will draw अ and then ए ". I realized at this point that while the teacher seemed to have progressed to two letter words, my daughter was clueless as to what the difference between ब and भ was.
When we did meet the teacher and very subtly discussed this issue, she brushed it off with a simple - "oh the portion is vast and there are so many children, the parents will need to help too". I found that a little strange since they are doing just alphabets, matras, two and three letter words this year and nothing more. 9 months to get through it gradually, especially the basics seemed good enough to me. So I decided to take on the challenge myself.
Anoushka has always responded well to worksheets and colorful forms of study and I built up her entire syllabus this way. We started from scratch. I managed to transform the thought that Hindi is about writing and not drawing. We worked on the correct structure of writing the alphabet and then the sounds. It took close to a month to get the base perfect, but we got there. She knows the वर्णमाला better than I do know (I still need to refer to the textbooks). Another thing I made it point to do was explain the meanings of each word. I believe that once you understand the meaning, its easier to recall the word and place it in a sentence. My idea is to get her to think in Hindi as well.
I turned to my best friend Google and found several sites that had some great worksheets. Have compiled a set here that you may find useful. All at this link.
What I also realized along the way is that Anoushka's textbook was frankly the best guide around. It was organized well - started with pronunciation, the correct way of writing the alphabet in the form of dotted lines and then a progression to words with that letter. It beat the teacher's strange way of just writing on the board and expecting children to copy it down and learn. What cheesed me off even more is that for the recent term exam, the children's notebooks were taken away for correction 2 days before the exam, when there was a holiday in between that could have been well utilized. All words for dictation were in the notebook.
I know ICSE is tough, and the portion for first standard is not as simple as it looks. But what I have realized is that with just the daily homework and a thorough run through of the text book during the regular school week, a few question papers just before an exam are all I need for Anoushka.
Oh yes! When Anoushka managed to get an A+ in Hindi despite having answered orals and written tests right after a blazing fever, the teacher advised us to expose her to more Hindi serials and movies so that she gets the hang of how the language is spoken. We do that and watch Hindi films on occasion and now that her basics are in order, she does seem to follow a bit. But what is definitely needed is constant practice. How do you mothers handle language?
Love the worksheets! In my case, Gy manages most of it on her own. I help with dictation every week, read through the poems with her when the textbook comes home and also have a few storybooks in Hindi. Most times, she reads by herself and finds it easy. But they don't have formal exams yet, just formative assessments for now. She's in grade 2, by the way.
ReplyDeleteHey Shailaja... Anoushka has tests that are given marks which are then converted into grades. Once she has her basics done, she carries on by herself. I just applied the same formula of worksheets, games and textbooks that I used when she was starting out formally with English in Junior 1. I love worksheets too.. they help understand whether the kids really understand what they have learnt in school or are just doing things by rote. Plus they never get bored with it!
ReplyDeleteYou hit the nail on the head Ruth, creative writing or drawing it was at home too until I helped out a bit. And even at a later stage I found that D could put the letters together and read pretty decently but she didn't actually understand about 80% of what she was reading. Now in 3rd std, I'm still not happy about sentence construction and so on, and wondering whether to change her 2nd language in 5th when I have an option to :(. She's in CBSE, not ICSE though but the challenges seem similar in this aspect.
ReplyDeletegood link that, ojas started hindi this year. though he seems to be progressing well, let me check this with him
ReplyDeleteWow! so much around...I still keep thinking my baby is too small but he is already 3 and we are trying to get him into a big school next year....I will have to seek you guys for help as we cross the bridges...I can only think of how I learnt to write and read Tamil Apart from practicing it was those gokulams and ambulimamas which helped me read and understand...I am waiting to see how language learning will happen with kutti "r". Which school does she go to?
ReplyDeleteSwathika... always around to help if you ever need it. Anoushka goes to Sacred Hearts on Residency Road
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