When I say the word ‘game’, what image comes to mind?

Is it a video game, complete with players in headsets blasting away at imaginary enemies?

Or do you go more old-school and imagine a rousing game of cricket or football?

What was previously strictly in the ‘fun’ category is now slowly entering the educational sector, with more and more schools globally adopting educational games into their curriculum. Serving as an aid and prop, these educational games explain concepts simple and complicated, reinforce learning, and give the teachers some much needed spare time while in the classroom.

We believe schools in India can benefit from this trend of using educational games as teaching aids too…here’s why:

Fact #1: If You Can’t Beat Them, Find A Way To Productively Join Them

There’s no way to escape ‘screen time’ or the time a person spends in front of the screen (which is 6 hours per day, on an average). Devices have infiltrated every aspect of our lives, and shows no signs of stopping. Introducing educational games will have dual benefits—your students are turning screen time into learning time, and this also serves to increase their digital literacy. Additionally, students will be better equipped for learning when their private lives are filled with similar media.

Fact #2: ‘Funning’ Up The Learning Process

Whether it is adding some new life to your classroom, or just trying to keep the students engaged, educational games can come to your rescue. Long experience has taught us that beginner learners acquire faster when taught through play. Adding an educational game to your existing aids mixes that fresh element of fun to the learning process.

Liked this image? Check out more on our Instagram and Facebook pages.

Fact #3: Fail ‘Safely’

These kinds of educational games rarely have any punishment for incorrect answers, at least not the traditional kind. The are mostly programmed to give out positive feedback even if learners are making mistakes. This feature ultimately boosts students’ confidence by having them ‘fail’ safely. Also, a “Whoops, try again!”, sounds so nice when it is coming from a cuddly little animated character, doesn’t it?

Fact #4: The Reward System Gets An Upgrade

Straying away from the traditional means of rewarding students, educational games give out bonus points, unlock new levels, and more, for well-performing students. This added motivation can enhance stimulation and engagement like little else can.

Fact #5: There Is Safety In This Game

It’s an educational game whose target audience is not allowed to cross the street by themselves; they cannot afford even a whisper that their game is an unsafe environment for kids. Most such games undertake very stringent measures to guarantee a safe and controlled playing space for users. Of course, we recommend taking the game(s) for a test drive before introducing them in your classrooms.

Psst, Square Panda offers a completely safe and ad-free environment for kids as they learn the English language.

Fact #6: Supercharged Learning

Educational games for kids are often an all-in-one kind of buffet, reinforcing many of the essential skills taught in the classroom, like social and emotional skills, fine and gross motor development, and more. Information taken in here is not static and one-dimensional, but constantly changing and interactive.

Fact #7: Instant Feedback

Learners get feedback on correct or incorrect words instantly. Teachers, too, get their students’ progress relayed to them as their charges are playing.

Fact #8: Learning To Learn

Children need to know learning is more than just rote memorization of facts and concepts. With educational games, they have an increased chance to fall in love with learning. These games show children a different way to learn, challenging their brain constantly, using different ways to train them in the subject, increasing their all-round development and problem-solving skills.

Fact #9: What Gap?

Research shows children from upper income households often produce better results than children from lower income households. Schools can do their part to reduce the gap by incorporating an educational game into the curriculum. Each child gets equal playing time, constant repetition and subsequent reinforcement of essential concepts.

Like anything else, there are challenges to using educational games in the classroom—teachers have to know the game before they can teach students to learn with it, there might not be sufficient resources to get this technology into the school, and integrating the game with the existing lessons. Square Panda anticipated this problem and provides teacher resources, along with a lesson plan suggestions, to ensure smooth implementation of its educational games in teaching. You can also browse through our game page, which gives you a glimpse into our amazing array of learning games for toddlers and kids aged 2-8.

So are you ‘game’ to try this new teaching assistant? Share your views with us! Which kind of learning game would you prefer in your classroom?

– Sanjana Shukla, Content Writer, Square Panda India

Isn’t it funny how a wrinkled, pink organ that weighs only about 1.3 gms (approximately 2% of your body weight) is the deciding factor in almost every activity you perform?

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Guiding most of your behaviour, this complex organ is the nexus of all learning, meaning we spend a lot of time trying to shape this organ to perform optimally.

Beginning at inception itself, the brain is given high priority, and is nourished with a constant diet of ‘brainfood’, educational stimulation, and an enriching environment.

Then begins formal education, specially designed to mould young minds into the future. You, the educators, give everything you have to sculpt accomplished and fully functioning adult minds from the current juvenile brains you have been entrusted with.

Unfortunately, you cannot know which tactic is working, and which one is failing dreadfully. You cannot possibly measure the effect your teaching has on an impressionable young learner.

Square Panda is very aware that educators all over face the same issue, and so, conducted our own research (see our core team here) and referenced data from experts in the same field. We created a curriculum that is based on those findings, and came up with a learning system that focuses on training an early learner in language acquisition using the most optimal learning styles possible.

To help you understand the research that went into creating the Square Panda phonics learning platform, we compiled all our findings on neuroscience and the early learner:

To read about the early learner’s reading brain, view our previous post.

1) The human brain has no natural correspondence between the spoken language and print concepts (writing). New functional connections need to be formed between the visual and the language systems. (Dehaene, & Cohen, 2007)

2) Kids benefit the most from a systematic instruction that will help them:

• Become aware of the sound structure of syllables (phonology)
• Isolate the units (phonemes) within syllables
• Identify which letters go with which phonemes
• Blend letter sounds together into words
• Use multisensory cues during learning

3) The above benefits multiply when children are taught these skills at an early age.

4) Studies have shown that specialised brain regions integrate each letter with its respective speech sound; these regions are especially active when this letter and its sound are presented in a multisensory fashion. (Van Atteveldt et al., 2004; Blau et al., 2009; Blau et al., 2010)

5) The research team led by Stanford University neuroscience researcher (who partners with Square Panda), Dr. Bruce McCandliss, said that the rapid brain response to newly learnt words were influenced by the way they were learnt. Words that were learnt through letter-sound instruction showed neural activity in the left side of the brain, the part of the brain that encompasses the visual and language regions.

6) Systematic phonics instruction is much more effective in grades PreK-1 than in later grades and leads to higher achievement in reading, spelling, word recognition, and comprehension. (National Reading Panel, 2000)

7) For students struggling with language acquisition, multisensory cues may provide complementary information that helps them overcome learning difficulties. (Montessori, 1967; Birsh, 1999; Reid, 2013)

8) Instruction that covers key components of reading, like phonemic awareness and phonics, in English, has a clear benefit for students who do not speak English at home, aka, non-English speaking students. (NICHD, 2000)

9) The instructions and teaching for non-English speaking students should include work with phonemes and phoneme combinations that do not exist in their native language or home language. (National Literacy Panel, 2006)

We believe in teaching the early learner’s brain, which is why our curriculum is largely based on the neuroscience research mentioned above.

Watch our VP of Curriculum and Research, Dr. Vera Blau-McCandliss, talk about early childhood literacy and how we use neuroscience research in our learning system, here.

I hope our article helped every educator out there understand their student’s brain a little better. Visit our website www.squarepanda.in for more information on our neuroscience research into early childhood literacy and the reading brain.

Give us your views on the usage of neuroscience in early education. Start a dialogue in the comment section below.

– Sanjana Shukla, Content Writer, Square Panda India

Crack open a book and it can sweep you away to fascinating new places all over the globe (and some that exist only in the author’s mind).

Turn that page to figure out something you never knew until today.

Read the next sentence, and see a new word leaping out at you.

Whether it is a best-selling fiction novel, a popular self-help book, a cookbook full of delicious recipes, or even the latest issue of your favourite magazine, each page fills your head with knowledge and facts, both obscure and ordinary.

Numerous studies have been conducted on the importance of reading in everyday life. Special research highlights a crucial fact–reading instruction needs to start early on in a child’s education, to have the greatest impact.

Watch this article in blog format here.

Every educator out there knows this, which is why most schools across the globe and in India, start phonics teaching in preschool and kindergarten.

We’re certain that you, being an educator yourself, do the same, incorporating phonics education early, into your curriculum.

Did you ever stop to wonder how your instruction is taken by them? What exactly goes on in a young learner’s brain as you teach them reading skills?

To enlighten you and hopefully give you more insight into an early learner’s reading brain, we have compiled this list of facts and research from our own in-house team as well as experts in the field of early childhood literacy.

Let’s take a peek into the reading brain with this infographic:

Watch our Vice President of Curriculum and cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Vera Blau-McCandliss, talk about the research and science that goes into early childhood education.

Watch guest speaker and cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Nandini Chatterjee Singh speak about biliteracy and its effect on shaping an early learner’s brain at the Square Panda India Launch.

Stay tuned for our next post, which will focus on the neuroscience research conducted, both by our own researchers as well as those not affiliated with Square Panda, into early childhood education, literacy, and language acquisition.

What are your thoughts on reading and the early learner’s brain? Comment in the section below.

– Sanjana Shukla, Content Writer, Square Panda India

After all these years, you probably have a routine ready. Your methods, derived from years of experience in teaching little learners, have never failed you. The decor on the walls of your classroom(s) are a testament to the hours you have spent making sure that each child’s term in school was not only well spent, but also fun. No doubt exemplary, your learning module (with the constant and diligent support of your hard-working educators) has carried generations of young learners through the gates of early education, into the glittering expanse of future learning.
And to this, if you would like to add a little something extra, if you want to further enhance your students’ language acquisition skills, if you would love to extend additional support to your educators, you are in the right place.

Watch this article in video format here.

Square Panda India is offering schools, preschools, and educators all over India the chance to become a part of the Square Panda brand. You too can be a part of the educational revolution that is sweeping the nation.

With increasingly grim stats (a UNESCO report in 2012 estimated around 124 million children between the ages of 6-15 haven’t started their schooling or have dropped out, globally), we need all the tools we can get to entice kids into learning.
That’s where we come in:

Assisted by an adaptive cloud-based software, Square Panda’s multisensory phonics learning system empowers young learners to learn through educational and interactive gameplay.

*Read all about Square Panda India and its many many attributes here.

Here are eight reasons why you should partner with Square Panda India:

Personalised Learning System Based On AI:

We have created (and are constantly updating) an adaptive software that is based on Artificial Intelligence. This diagnostic engine measures every learner’s learning level, progress, challenges, game preferences, and play patterns, each time he/she plays a game. It gradually personalises their learning experience by showing the most appropriate level in each game for that child at that particular point in time. This analysis helps you fuel their reading and learning resources, creating an interactive and effective learning environment for young learners.

Comprehensive Well-Researched Curriculum:

We based our curriculum on the following teaching styles–Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio Emilia, and Gardner’s ‘Theory of Multiple Intelligences’. We added to this the latest findings from neuroscience research on young learner’s brains, both by our in-house teams and outside researchers, and created a library of age-appropriate games that are suitable for any curriculum, be it ICSE, CBSE, SSC, IB, or ICGSE.

Complete Curriculum Package:

Not only do we offer a comprehensive curriculum to enhance language and literacy skills, we offer an entire curriculum package that consists of:

• A flexible syllabus tailor-made for Indian schools.
• Yearly updation of said syllabus, to keep up with the changing boards.
• Storybooks, reinforcing the regular teaching system.
• Workbooks, for additional practice.
• Rhymes and songbooks.
• Stories based on Indian festivals, to increase understanding and knowledge of Indian customs and traditions.

 Real-Time Assessment:

Our adaptive engine gives educators an instant look into individual students’ performance–their strengths, deficiencies, their progress in each game, and even suggestions on which games they can play to improve their skills, all in clear and concise reports.

Teacher Manual:

For ease in operating our system, we provide complete and detailed guidelines on how to run our curriculum alongside yours, as well as instructions on each game and its expected outcome.

Periodical Teacher Training:

We don’t expect every educator to have engineer-level technical skills, which is why we give technical training to every person operating our phonics platform. There is also an online certificate course for pre-primary teachers.

Extensive Support To Teachers:

Teachers everywhere, across all grades, whether in pre-kindergarten or higher, are always in a flurry of activity. Acknowledging this, we created a support system that we think will help them. We offer:

• Workbooks.
• Storybooks.
• Periodical Teacher Training (for guidance on how to use our learning system, what each game brings to the table, and more).
• Teacher Manual (for other essential information).
• Song and Rhymes books.
• Syllabus (that perfectly aligns with your school’s syllabus).

 Co-Branding:

Partner schools link their name to the first literacy product, ever, to win STEM approval. We give our partner schools all the above benefits, and more, as they come along.

Hurry! Your school can become a ‘Square Panda Partner School’ too!

– Sanjana Shukla, Content Writer, Square Panda India

Watch this article in video format here.

Images by RitaE, Anemone123, StockSnap, Pezibear, Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay

Sight. Sound. Smell. Touch. Taste.

Each sense unique. Each sense vital. Each sense necessary to function normally.

Now imagine any of the things you do every day–devouring a plate of piping hot noodles, watching that long-awaited movie in the theatre, playing a friendly game of cricket with the neighbourhood kids…

Did you ever notice that every one of your actions require the use of two or more senses, never just one?

You smell, see, and taste the noodles.

You see and hear the movie.

You see, hear, touch the bat and ball.

Vital to an experience individually, when combined, our senses transform a regular activity into something absolutely divine.

And yet, many traditional classrooms end up depriving their students of a multisensory experience, preferring to teach using only sight and/or sound.

‘Multisensory‘: A word to describe using more than one sense at a time, the multisensory model has also been prescribed by countless researchers as the optimal way to teach children, especially young learners in nursery and kindergarten.

*Watch Square Panda VP of Education and Research, Dr. Vera Blau-McCandliss, talk about learning using a multisensory experience here.

Multisensory process have also been shown as playing a key role in beginners learning letter-sound correspondence, both behaviourally and neurologically.

In the UK, Sir Jim Rose published his final report (2006) on ‘An Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading’. It affirmed that the childhood acquisition of speaking and listening skills, and phonetic knowledge, is greatly enhanced by the use of multisensory approaches.

This teaching method greatly benefits struggling readers and children with developmental abilities too, as they are assisted by multiple stimuli. Schools around the globe are gradually warming up to this style of teaching, especially in young students, but the ‘multisensory’ aspect is confined to a few subjects. Examples include singing songs, conducting science experiments, and more.

Listening to the need of the hour, Square Panda created a learning experience that greatly boosts skill level and retention…we enhanced our learning system with a multisensory phonics learning platform.

Understanding that every learner internalises information differently–some learn through touch, some though sight, and yet others though sounds–we knew we had to create a system that catered to each learner individually, as well as something that worked for everyone on a larger scale.

Meet our 45 Smart Letters™.

If their brightly coloured toy-like bodies (consonants in purple, vowels in yellow) weren’t enough, these Smart Letters have been created with food-grade plastics, making them completely safe if ingested (not that we recommend anyone munch on the letters!).

Completing the circle of ‘sensory integration’, these Smart Letters are paired with interactive educational games for children as young as 2 years of age.

Padding this already impressive early literacy program, our ‘multisensory’ approach is sure to greatly strengthen any little learner’s language acquisition and development. By providing students with multiple learning pathways, we hope to give each child a chance to succeed.

So come on and give multisensory teaching a try!

Have you tried teaching the ‘multisensory’ way? Tell us your experience with ‘multisensory’ teaching in the comment section below.

– Sanjana Shukla, Content Writer, Square Panda India

The sizzle of butter in the pan…

The pitter-patter of raindrops against your window…

The constant chatter of your neighbour on the phone…

Present all around us, sounds are an integral part of our lives. It comes as no surprise then, that ‘sound’ is one of the first things taught to children.

Specifically, the sound of letters.

WHAT IS IT?

Called phonics (or phoenics in British English), it is one of the best ways to simplify reading English, by teaching learners what each letter of the alphabet sounds like.

WHY LEARN WITH IT?

Research conducted shows a link between phonics instruction and learning to read correctly and with confidence. Children comprehend the written word more easily and accurately when letters are introduced via phonics than through any other method. Early beginners in phonics instruction (between the ages of 3 and 8) often show the best results. Research goes so far as to show that learning to read via phonics increases the enjoyment of the learner, thereby increasing their chances of becoming lifelong readers.

The National Reading Panel (NRP), US, had issued a press release, stating: “In the largest, most comprehensive evidenced-based review ever conducted of research on how children learn reading, an independent panel has concluded that the most effective way to teach children to read is through instruction that includes a combination of methods.” The panel determined that effective reading instruction includes teaching children to break apart and manipulate the sounds in words (phonemic awareness), teaching them that these sounds are represented by letters of the alphabet which can then be blended together to form words (phonics), having them practice what they’ve learned reading aloud with guidance and feedback (guided oral reading), and applying reading comprehension strategies to guide and improve reading comprehension.

PHONICS IN INDIA

Many schools across India start their phonics instruction young, in preschool itself.

This instruction can include:

– teaching the sound of letters (‘a’ is said as ‘ey’, ‘b’ is said as ‘bee’, and so on)

– teaching letter combinations (‘sh’, ‘ab’, and more)

– ‘blending’ the above two together to create words. (/sh/o/p/)

– Guessing or ‘decoding’ what new words mean, based on the students’ knowledge.

PHONICS AND SQUARE PANDA

The above reasons are precisely why we at Square Panda created a learning system that puts the spotlight on phonics. Backed by our own extensive research,

Meet Dr. Vera Blau-MacCandliss, PhD, Cognitive Neuroscience, and VP of Education and Research at Square Panda

we created educational games that have elements of phonics instruction woven so seamlessly into them, that children don’t think they are studying at all!

Our characters spell out words phonetically (watch it here) and even learn songs, the phonetic way (watch it here).

Adapting to a user’s learning level and age, each game gradually increases in difficulty, moving from three-letter words to four-and-five letter words. The composition also changes, from CV/VC (At/To) words—‘C’ stands for ‘Consonant’, ‘V’ stands for ‘Vowel’—to CVC (Hat) and CVVC (Read) words.

Games like Bubbles reinforce letter sounds, while games like Lagoon (above) and SquareLand teach common consonant blend and blend phonemes. (Phonemes are the smallest units of speech that differentiate words, e.g., pin and pan. Here, ‘i’ and ‘a’ are different.) Even decoding skills—which occur when a student uses phonics to accurately read a word—are focused on, in games like Space Cows.

Focusing on developing confidence in children—while speaking, while reading—our learning system eschews negative feedback altogether, instead relying on prompts and positive reinforcement even if a learner has gotten something wrong. Our adaptive engine records areas where the learner needs more practice, regularly repeating that letter/word at periodic intervals, spacing it out with new letters/words to avoid boredom.

Combined with AI technology and a neuroscience research-based curriculum, our phonics learning system greatly increases a child’s phonics literacy. Not discriminating between backgrounds, nationalities or even race, our games are the perfect tool to employ while introducing or reinforcing phonics to your children/students.

We’re hoping to empower children using phonics, and also, in a larger sense, languages and literacy.

Watch this blog video here.

– Sanjana Shukla, Content Writer, Square Panda India

Image by susan-lu4esm on Pixabay

This Women’s Day, join Square Panda India in celebrating all those amazing ladies who have dedicated their lives to bettering the futures of young learners.

A huge shout-out to all the amazing educators who graced us with their presence and insight into early literacy at the Square Panda India Launch.

*Read all about our launch here, or watch it here.

As a special treat, we’ve collated some quotes from their talks:

*Catch each speaker’s talk on our YouTube channel.

Here’s wishing all our ‘HERoes’ a very Happy Women’s Day!

Let’s try to make the quotes and wishes of today the realities of tomorrow.

– Sanjana Shukla, Content Writer, Square Panda India

The moment we had been waiting for finally arrived!

Square Panda celebrated its launch in India on February 19, 2019 at the Westin Hotel in Mumbai.

You may recall, dear reader, from our previous post, that while we are well-known across America, we have just opened our doors in India.

We introduced our amazing multisensory phonics learning system to India at the ‘Language, Literacy, and Early Childhood Education‘ event.

An audience comprised of the biggest names in education were left completely enthralled with the talks presented by our speakers…

especially when Guest of Honour Andre Agassi walked in.

Take a look…

Square Panda CEO and co-founder Andy Butler with Andre Agassi, who spoke about his journey from tennis to education, and from there, to Square Panda. (below) (Watch the video here.)

(above) Andre Agassi’s Q & A session with the audience.

Read his interviews with the Times of India, Economic Times, and Inside Sport.

Our Speakers:

Ashish Jhalani, Managing Director, Square Panda India, kicking off the event with an introduction to Square Panda. (Watch his speech here.)

Dr. Nandini Chatterjee Singh, cognitive neuroscientist from National Brain Research Centre on deputation to UNESCO-MGIEP, talking about ‘Shaping the Biliterate Brain – Acquisition of Literacy Skills in Two Distinct Languages’. (Watch her talk here.)

Dr. Vera Blau-McCandliss, VP of Education and Research, Square Panda, speaking about ‘The Research & Science Behind Today’s Early Childhood Learning’. (Watch her speech here.)

Andy Butler, CEO and co-founder, Square Panda, enlightening the audience on the ‘Future of Technology for Early Learners’.

Dhruv Bhargava,  VP, Data Science & Software, Square Panda, on Personalisation & Adaptiveness for Better Young Learners’. (Watch his speech here.)

Also actively engaging the audience interest were our two panels:

Panel I: The 6 C’s of Early Education—Collaboration, Communication, Content, Creativity, Critical Thinking, ConfidencePanel Speakers (from left to right): Bhavin Shah-Moderator, (Director-CEO, Education World), Vani Shastri (Director at SEED & Seed Academy, Chennai), Nitya Ramaswami (Executive Mentor, Alfa Group of Schools), Bhargavi Ajit (Adapt India).

Panel II: Evolution of Artificial Intelligence Aided TeachingPanel Speakers (from left to right): Fatema Agarkar (Co-founder, KA EduAssociates), Pooja Goyal Sharma (Head of Strategy and New Initiatives, Klay Prep Schools and Daycare, Bangalore), Dr. Seema Negi (Principal, Sanjeevani World School), Dhruv Bhargava (VP of Data Science & Software Engineering, Square Panda, California).

Appreciating all the efforts made in the education sector, the following people were awarded a special Square Panda trophy:

For more photos, visit our Facebook and Instagram pages.

Thank you to everyone who made it to the event; we couldn’t have done it without you. We hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as we did.

To know more about Square Panda, visit our website.

– Sanjana Shukla, Content Writer, Square Panda India

Square Panda is now in India!

From Sunnyvale, California, to Mumbai, India, Square Panda has had a long and eventful journey.

Born out of a vision to increase the reach of early literacy, we hope to greatly boost education in beginner learners through our learning system.

Our adaptive multisensory phonics learning platform is based on Artificial Intelligence, and uses the latest neuroscience research in the field of early learning to create educational games for young students.

Watch tennis legend Andre Agassi talk about teaching children with Square Panda.

To gain a greater understanding of what beginner learners require, and to better cater to their educational needs, we partnered with educators, neuroscience researchers, and child specialists, who now form our core team.

Based on a curriculum that combines Montessori, Waldorf, and Reggio Emilia pedagogy, along with Gardner’s Theory of Intelligences, our interactive game-based learning environment supports students from all boards, whether ICSE, CBSE, IGCSE, and even IB.

Our Tools To Teach:

A multiple award-winning platform, our technology helps children develop well-rounded skills like phonemic awareness, letter and word identification, an enhanced vocabulary, and more.

Emphasizing on Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing, our instructional and exploratory platform turns children into self-directed learners.

Our intelligent software works behind the scenes, analysing the patterns of play, the preference towards a particular game, the challenges, and the progress made, to inform the system which level is most appropriate for the learner at any point in time.

Parents and educators alike can monitor children’s/students’ progress with specialised portals.

If you are worried about protests from kids for sitting down to learn, don’t be! They will be having too much fun to even notice they are studying. Don’t believe us? Watch this video…

With a cloud-based visual and vocabulary bank, and the option to add more words as per requirements, learners will constantly be getting new stimulation.

Now you know their time spent in front of the screen won’t be going to waste, aren’t you breathing easier?

To boost your own little reader(s), subscribe to Square Panda’s online educational games as soon as you can!

– Sanjana Shukla, Content Writer, Square Panda India