Technology is growing by leaps and bounds, becoming more commonplace in our daily lives as the years go by. In fact, Artificial Intelligence has the potential to add $957 billion, or 15% of current gross value added, to India’s economy by 2035, according to an estimate in a study by a tech giant.

One sector benefiting from technology-the education sector-is yet to see positive results in a country like India. Globally, private investment in educational technology, broadly defined as the use of computers or other technology to enhance teaching, grew 32% annually from 2011 through 2015, rising to $4.5 billion globally.

We’re seeing terms like Artificial Intelligence (or AI) and Machine Learning (or ML) being used very frequently in conjunction with education. We’re decoding these terms, and what changes they can bring to the Indian education landscape, in this article:

What Is ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI)’: It’s also called ‘Machine Intelligence’, and describes the artificial simulation of human intelligence, by machines. Examples of AI include Apple’s SIRI, self-driving cars, Presentation Translator for PowerPoint (it creates real-time subtitles for what the teacher is saying), and more.

What Is ‘Machine Learning (ML)’: A branch of Artificial Intelligence (AI), ML helps systems and software analyze and interpret patterns, by experience and exposure to repeated tasks. ML gets computers to perform tasks without being explicitly programmed for them. Apart from Siri, Alexa, and all the others, ML is used in GPS navigation services, social media platforms (Facebook can recognize a photo of your friend the instant you upload it), the spam filter in your email inbox, and even language learning apps like Square Panda and Duolingo, who use the games and exercises played on their system to calibrate and cater learning as per each individual learner’s level of learning.

“India will have the highest population of young people in the world over the next decade, and our ability to provide high-quality educational opportunities to them will determine the future of our country.” – (NEP, 2020)

We think the new policy by the Ministry of Education perfectly sums up our nation’s future requirements, to create a globally competitive, employable workforce of citizens. For this reason, AI and ML will need to be an intrinsic part of education, right from the early years.

Here’s what we think the future of education will look like, with AI and ML:

Smart Content Will Be Everywhere: Smart learning and smart content include any type of learning that is studied online, including video lessons and recorded classes. Textbooks as we know it will change, with parts or even whole chapters being converted into digital lessons. These new syllabuses will help children of all ages and academic levels, increasing their engagement to a greater extent.

Learning Will Get More Personalized: What we will see as the education landscape changes, is more adaptive learning methods adopted by schools and states as a whole. AI and ML have the unique ability to ‘read’ a child’s data in real-time, and adjust the curriculum to cater to that learner’s particular learning needs. Children coming in the invisible ‘middle strata’ (those who don’t attract attention by being at the top OR the bottom), will not fall through the cracks. Educators will see the benefits of adaptive curriculum, with having to put in extra efforts, which thereby frees up their time for other tasks. Not just learning, but each child’s response and feedback to learning will be personalized too, allowing parents and educators to understand individual children’s performance in detail. Multi-level classrooms, with children of different grades packed into one class with just one teacher, like those seen in rural areas, can make the best use of this personalized approach to learning.

Technology To Support Teachers And Educators: There are multiple instances of AI and ML being used in classrooms across the globe, with varying degrees of success. Not only does the technology get more affordable as time goes by, but it even allows teachers more time to work on lessons and plans, by taking care of all mundane administrative tasks like note making, collating data, etc. that is, for now, a task most Indian teachers have to do manually.
For instance, our early education platform at Square Panda has a ‘Portal’, to help monitor learning in schools and at home, in real-time. Read all about it, here.
All the evidence points towards AI and ML being a strong source of support and aid to educators, and are not to be taken as replacements. After all, education wouldn’t be the same without a ‘human touch’.

An Unbiased Assessment And Tracking System: On account of providing real-time traceability and trackability, AI and ML systems have started to flourish in the edTech segment. Grading and checking will soon be done via a programmed system, removing the possibility of human error and bias with it. Negative feedback will be done away with, increasing a child’s enjoyment of learning, without fear of repercussions.

Increased Reach: India has a vast geography, with multiple remote, hard-to-reach areas; these make equal learning opportunities harder for children in such areas. Technology enables children all over India, especially in the remote areas, to access quality education right from the early years. To make up for the intermittent internet connectivity in such areas, the tech can even be customized to work offline for long periods of time. AI can enable easier access to offline content, and even provide automated tutoring and mentoring programs for different learning styles. The near future could see a greater degree of interlinking and connection between the schools and students, allowing students to take courses and classes that were otherwise out of reach for them. 

Skilling: The performance matrix in AI algorithms helps the machine determine what the child is likely to excel in, while enhancing skills that are applicable in the real world. AI and ML can also help train teachers, skilling them to solve quality issues in the education sector. The enhanced skill set children develop can help them compete on a global level as well.

The education sector in India has predominantly been ruled by human-to-human interaction. With the recent pandemic, this rule is slowly changing, and moving towards a slightly more digital learning landscape. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Intelligence advances are here to stay; educators need to plan for involving digital methods alongside traditional learning, gradually preparing the next generation to leverage the global AI revolution to our country’s advantage.

Interested in adding AI and ML to your teaching? Check out our Square Panda early literacy platform, which uses an adaptive engine to develop early English literacy in young children aged 2-8. As a child plays with our educational games, our software runs in the background, analysing patterns of play, frequency of words played, challenges faced, to suggest letters/words that the child should be focussing on next, inside the games themselves. This data also reflects in our ‘Portal’, allowing educators and parents the ability to monitor progress in real-time.

Stay tuned for our next post, on how we intend to spread early literacy even at the heart of India, and later, another upcoming post where we’ll be talking about how Square Panda is building a safe and kid-friendly ecosystem inside our platform, along with tips to keep every young learner safe while online.

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Mahatma Gandhi (full name, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi), who is also known as the Father of the Nation, was born 151 years ago today, October 2nd, in 1869. 

His contribution to India’s freedom struggle is well-known, but did you know he was equally invested in education in India? 

Mahatma Gandhi On Education In India

Seeing more merit in an education system that was free from British influence, Mahatma Gandhi proposed that schools should begin generating their own income via saleable handicrafts, to become more financially stable. He also believed teachers should have freedom in curricula matters, so they could impart originality to students, rather than sticking to a set format and guidelines. He counted the great Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy, as one of his major influences.

Did You Know? 

Mahatma Gandhi was an avid reader, with a collection amassing more than 11,000 books (a figure he mentions during his interview conducted on July 27, 1933). This collection was later housed at Sabarmati Ashram, as Mahatma Gandhi had relinquished all claim over his books, allowing them to become ashram property.

In 1933, this entire collection was then donated to the municipal library of Ahmedabad, a gesture he made to commiserate with all those satyagrahis whose properties were confiscated by the British Government, as punishment for participating in the salt satyagraha under the leadership of Gandhi.

Gandhi’s eclectic book collection consisted of works from authors like Charles Darwin (Descent of Man), William Shakespeare and Jonathan Swift, to Assyrian satirist Lucian of Samosata (Trips to the Moon), to mathematician James Jeans (Mysterious Universe). Poetry in English, Hindi, and Gujarati also had a space on his bookshelf, including Goethe’s Faust and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. His collection also lists multiple translations in English, Hindi, and his native tongue, Gujarati, of the Bible, Quran, Mahabharata, and Ramayana. Apart from this, Mahatma Gandhi also devoured books that taught him about Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Vedanta, among others.

Not only was reading books a way to enrich his mind and philosophies, he also read to become more independent and self-reliant; he read books on childbirth and obstetrics in order to aid his wife Kasturba, when she was to deliver their son Devdas! Other similar books in the quest to prepare himself for varied situations include a guide titled ‘How to Launder‘ and a book called ‘Finger Impressions‘ written by a police officer.

His lifelong reading habit, his attitude of self-reflection, and his writing (he authored many famous books during his lifetime), is what Mahatma Gandhi credits as helping him along the path of self-growth. 

To Commemorate This Great Thinker’s Birthday, We’ll Leave You With Some Of His Quotes On Education:

What have these thoughts by Mahatma Gandhi taught you? Comment below.

Children are not born knowing how to read; in fact, it is a learned skill. Yet, it is one of the foundations on which other academic learning is based. The benefits of reading at each stage in a child’s life are well documented. So, how do you help your children along the path to reading readiness? We have some innovative and easy activity suggestions to enhance foundational English literacy and reading readiness in your children:

FOR CHILDREN JUST BEGINNING TO LEARN THEIR LETTERS

‘The Bird Nest’ – Identify The Short Vowel Sound:

*Short vowel sounds are vowels (in words) that have a short sound, usually different from the way the actual vowel is pronounced. For example, words like ‘ten’, ‘cat’, ‘yet’, all have vowels with short sounds, that don’t sound like the vowel itself.

In multiple small corners of your home, create ‘bird nests’, using lots of blankets, pillows, and even colourful scarves. Assign a letter to each ‘nest’ (for children who have already learnt their letters, you can even write the letter on a paper and place it near the designated ‘nest’). Call out a letter sound. Your child has to correctly identify the letter, and step into the corresponding ‘nest’.

NOTE: You can even simply designate small corners of your home as ‘nests’, without the physical materials, if needed.

FOR CHILDREN WHO ARE LEARNING THEIR LETTERS, AND THOSE WHO CAN READ SMALL WORDS TOO

Pumpkin Bowl – Play And Learn Word Families:

Use orange coloured paper or paint on two large bowls, so they resemble pumpkins. No orange colour OR paper? No problem! Simply use sticky notes to represent the colour you want.

For Beginner Readers: Cut out pictorial representations of common CVC words like ‘MAT’, ‘CAT’, ‘MAN’, ‘PAN’, and ask your child to sort the common sounding words into the same bowl. So, the images of ‘CAT’ and ‘MAT’ go into one bowl, and ‘MAN’ and ‘PAN’ go into the other. Once they have mastered this, you can further boost their phonological awareness by asking them to sort images based on the initial sounds of words, like ‘TAP’ and ‘SAP’.

For Slightly Advanced Readers: Write a different word family (like -AT, -OG) on the side of each bowl. Write various words belonging to these word families (like HAT-FAT, or DOG-FOG) on paper (in keeping with the pumpkin theme, these can also be orange coloured). Have your kids read out the words, figure out which word family the words belong to, and put the paper in the correct bowl.

FOR CHILDREN WHO CAN READ SMALL WORDS

Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) Word Box:

Turn any old box, like a delivery box, into a word box. Add in tactile (something you can touch and hold) letter shapes, like the Smart Letters from our Square Panda early learning system (or you can create your own letters too, using craft material). Add a few commonly used letters like ‘A’, ‘M’, ‘N’, and ‘P’ into the box. Keeping these letters in mind, say a CVC word out loud (like ‘NAP’), and ask your child to spell it using the letters from inside the word box. At a higher level, they can even be asked to create their own CVC words, or rhyming words, using any letters from the word box.

Loved these early reading activities? Tell us how much in the comments below.
Spread the learning; share this article with other friends and parents who would love to try out these activities.

Multiple articles and research show just how important acquisition of reading skills is, particularly for very young learners. Development of these skills turns emerging readers into independent and fluent readers for life, adding to their global competency, future job prospects, and overall quality of life. Every parent/teacher chooses to introduce the reading habit to the child/student in their life. What happens, though, if an otherwise enthusiastic child suddenly shows a definite reluctance to read? How do you entice young children to make an effort to pick up a book?

Take help from the below tried-and-tested steps, to help you inculcate a reading habit in your little learners:

#1: Create The Perfect Reading Spot.

Finding the perfect book for emerging readers will take experimentation and time, but as adults, you can ensure they are prepared for this experience by setting aside a dedicated reading space to call their own, inside homes and classrooms. Add comfortable pillows, blankets, and bright lighting. Fit in a desk full of books at a height they can easily reach, and voilà, you have a junior reader’s paradise!

#2: Teach By Example.

Your kids look to the closest adults to teach them things, which, more often than not, is you. So pick up a book, and show your kids how much fun reading can be. When they see you reading, it will automatically encourage them to try it themselves.

#3: Take Reading To The Next Level.

Forcing your kids to read can make them view the reading habit, which is already hard enough to acquire, as a major chore. Use various tricks and activities to show them that the reading habit is more than just reading, it is exploring new worlds, meeting new characters, and learning new things.
Introduce a new story using life-like images and sound effects (you can get these on the internet; just check the terms of usage).
Encourage more interaction by reading through live-action ‘stage shows’ with your kids acting out their favourite part of a book.
Change up their reading routine slightly; make them read the story aloud to you. Their pronunciation gets a huge boost, along with their confidence level.
Host storytelling competitions amongst the children; the winner gets an extra half hour of playtime with Square Panda, or gets a snack of their choice.

#4: Get A Daily Dose Of Reading In With Square Panda.

Even the most resistant learners will never say no to Square Panda play-learn time! With educational games and an early reading app that is perfect for kids as young as 2 till the age of 8, combined with adaptive technology that personalises according to an individual child’s learning level, you could not ask for more! Additionally, our educational screen time is backed by a curriculum that is completely research-based.

#5: Ease Up On The Pressure.

Children shouldn’t like reading just because the adults in their life do, nor do they have to read the same books you favour. In fact, the more choice they feel they have in choosing how, when, and which books to read, the more likely they are to turn into fluent and confident readers for life.  Let them discover their own likes and dislikes. Children will be more inclined to become lifelong readers if they are not forced into it. Give them as many different reading options as you can, like, different genres of books, special reading apps, kid-friendly podcasts, and more.

#Bonus Point: Discuss What You’ve Read.

Take a minute to chat about what you just read, whether it was the label on a toy box, or a magazine cover, or even a picture book. Have an open conversation with much structure, so it doesn’t resemble a lesson in any way. Open-ended questions like ‘Why do you think Pan sat on the mat?’ can encourage children to reason with you, asking them to recall a certain page can help their memory. This task has the added benefit of helping develop vocabulary skills, further leading down the path to reading success.

Remember that each child learns to read differently. Let them set their own pace. Provide all the support you can so your child/student feels less self-conscious about coming to you for help.

Want more educational tips and articles just like this? Watch this space for more…
Until then, grab a SquareBox (our very own multisensory educational kit for kindergarten), which not only has the Square Panda phonics early literacy playset, it also boasts loads of additional fun learning materials to make schooling at home a breeze during the lockdown.



Written by Sanjana Shukla (Content Writer, Square Panda India)

*for ages 3-6

Learning to read is undoubtedly a very important life skill, one that determines all future success. But how do you get your child ready to read? Read on for some activity suggestions, to help children develop reading readiness skills, to help them turn into independent and confident readers:

SKILLSET #1: DEVELOPING VISUAL IDENTIFICATION & VISUAL DISCRIMINATION SKILLS

Why These Skills Are Important

To be able to read, a child has to be able to identify and differentiate between letters first. Also, syllables, word groups, word families, etc. have their base in identification. These following activities help children develop and sharpen their identification and differentiation skills, getting them ready for reading.

#Activity: Sort The Card

You Will Need: Any solid coloured paper (2-3 different colours) that can be turned into a card, a pair of scissors
How To Play: Cut up the paper to create square-shaped ‘cards’ of two different colours. Ask your child to identify the colours. Keep adding more cards of the same two colours, and task your child with sorting them into same colour piles.
Level Up: You can move from 2 colours to 3, then 4, and so on. You can even teach shapes from this activity, by cutting the cards into circles, triangles, etc.

#Activity: The Card Pattern

You Will Need: The cards created for the earlier activity
How To Play: Show your children the colour cards in a pattern like “Red, Red, Blue”. Repeat this pattern. Now, ask your child to make the same pattern, by themselves. You can even try this activity with multiple different patterns, and with more colours, depending on your child’s learning level.
Level Up: Switch it up by utilising solid objects like balls or books, then teaching them to match pictures, and finally, match letters.

SKILLSET #2: DEVELOPING VISUAL MEMORY

Why These Skills Are Important

A critical factor that determines a child’s strength in reading, spelling, and writing, visual memory also helps boost awareness, mindfulness, and alertness in daily life.

#Activity: Can You Spot The Change?

You Will Need: Any ordinary household item your child sees everyday.
How To Play: Shift a routine item (maybe a pillow from the sofa or bed) away from its usual spot, making sure your child does not see you do this. Then, ask your child to move around the room, and identify what has changed.
Level Up: Gradually, as they get well-versed with picking up visual cues, increase the number of items being moved to 2, then 3, and so on.

#Activity: Which Picture Comes First

You Will Need: Picture cards, or flashcards

How To Play: Show your children 4 pictures in a row, then ask them to recollect the order they were shown in. This activity can also be turned into a number learning exercise, with questions like ‘What was card number 1, do you remember?’ and so on.
Level Up: You can start with pictures, and then move to letters (which don’t necessarily have to be introduced in order of A, B, C, D, and so on).

SKILLSET #3: DEVELOPING AUDITORY DISCRIMINATION & AUDITORY MEMORY

Why These Skills Are Important

‘Auditory Memory’ helps children recall what they hear, while ‘Auditory Discrimination’ helps them identify sounds and words correctly, both of which are a prerequisite to learning to read.

#Activity: Trace The Line

You Will Need: White paper, coloured paper, glue
How To Play: Stick the coloured paper onto the white, at the bottom, in a straight line. Ask your child to trace this with their finger. Switch the coloured paper from the bottom to the top of the white sheet, and ask your child to trace it again. You can then move the coloured strips all over the white paper, including to the left and the right.
Level Up: They can slowly move to tracing zigzag lines, or lines of more than one colour each. Slowly, you can ask them to trace over letters too.

#Activity: Storytime

You Will Need: Storybooks for your early learner
How To Play: Depending on which hand your child prefers to use, sit on their right or left. Slowly, open and close the book multiple times, then while reading aloud to them, trace the sentences from left to right. Ask them to turn the page. Repeat with every book you read to them.
NEVER sit opposite them, as they cannot see how the pages are turned, etc. in this position.
Level Up: Over time, you can not only ask them questions about the story (like, ‘Where did Pan sit?’) to help them recollect, but also ask them to put the story in order, or recreate their own story, using the characters in the book.

Early readers can practice reading with the SquareTales Reading App, along with practicing multiple pre-reading activities to help develop foundational reading skills.

Loved these ideas? Get more fun tips and expert advice in our (absolutely FREE) special ‘parent and child’ SquareTales Sunday webinar series. Register here: https://squarepanda.app.link/e/webinar2106

Join our exclusive, content-only, Square Panda club, to view this series live: https://squarepanda.app.link/etribe

Credits: Written by Sanjana Shukla (Content Writer)

Start homeschooling your kindergartner with the SquareBox, and with no learning loss. Keep reading to learn more.

Which means, these early years are incredibly important for your children. So, if a child is not learning in this period, there is a potential for great learning loss, the repercussions of which will be felt for years and years to come. That’s also the reason why the school closures due to the pandemic are keeping your children safe at home, but might just end up negatively affecting their education and overall development.

For a company whose entire raison d’etre is early literacy, this was unacceptable. And that’s why, we’ve come up with a whole new learning tool-the SquareBox!

WHAT IS THE SQUAREBOX?
A homeschooling kit for kindergartners, the SquareBox is an actual box (square-shaped, of course) that we’ll be sending your way, each month. Combining digital and physical learning, the SquareBox helps your child receive the best educational experience possible.

WHY SHOULD I SUBSCRIBE TO THIS?
Uniquely developed to enhance a kindergartner’s essential skills, the SquareBox boasts the following features:

• Square Panda’s Educational Tools: Our very own multisensory early literacy tools are included in this kit, to be introduced in a phased manner so learners are not overwhelmed.
  We’ll be giving you:
  • The Square Panda multisensory phonics learning system (see how our games work, here)
  • The SquareTales Reading App (learn more about it, here)
  • More educational tools, as they release in India.

• Guides:
  You have the SquareBox. Now what?
  To help and guide you through the entire set-up process, to tell you where to start, and how, we created a ‘Quick Start Guide’, and a ‘Parent Guide’ (also available on our website to download). These two guides will help you learn more about how the SquareBox works, to help you become a great teacher to your little one(s).

• Planners:
  For all those parents wishing they had a detailed blueprint to teach their children for every day of the week, throughout their school year, we have something for you too! We created planners for the year, each month, and every week, so you never have to worry about what to teach them.
  These planners are structured as per a carefully designed curriculum, introducing thematic units to keep your children engaged and learning. As the complexity increases, so do the challenges, as does the skill level.
  The yearly planner comes to you in Month 1, and the monthly and weekly planners are sent every month.

• Additional Learning Material:
  With every month’s box comes learning material to support your kindergartener’s education, including flashcards, conversation booklets (to aid them as they start to speak), 5 sets of SquareTales physical printed books (to be used from Month 2), and even sticker sheets (to be used as rewards for your little learners).

• Develop Essential Foundational Skills:
  The SquareBox has been developed to get children ready to enter school, teaching them skills like:

WHAT DO THE WEEKS LOOK LIKE?
Typically, a week will be 5 days of digital + physical fun learning, followed by 2 days of fun play. Instructionally appropriate, these activities are a mix of educational and social; we’re teaching them about using their fingers to make shapes, and we’re teaching them to value housework, too, with fun cleaning exercises.

WHAT IT GIVES MY KIDS?
The SquareBox ensures your children are still learning even while they are away from school, without realising they are learning.
Our bite-sized lessons (only 45 minutes per day) are perfect for their little attention spans.
Don’t have 45 straight minutes to spare? Don’t worry, our program is flexible too!
You can schedule their learning AROUND your own schedule, for the best experience for both you and your kindergartner.

IDEAL AGE GROUP
The SquareBox was developed for children in kindergarten only. For queries about other age groups, please contact us at 022-49394444 or email support@squarepanda.in.

WHAT IS THE PROCESS AFTER I GET THE SQUAREBOX?

WHERE CAN I GET IT?
For details about the subscription plan and how to get a SquareBox for your kindergartner, visit our website.

The pesky virus that is waging war on the planet might be responsible for shutting down schools, but don’t give it the power to derail your child’s education too! Subscribe to the SquareBox today! Learn more at www.thesquarebox.in.

Credits: Written by Sanjana Shukla (Content Writer)

*While this article is aimed for parents of children in junior kg, the main points apply to parents with older children too.

Scene: You are on your sofa. Your child is scribbling away on the wall, while their study books lie abandoned under the sofa. The television they insisted be turned on, blares loudly in the background. You make one more attempt to get your young child to sit and study with you. Suddenly you realise, it’s time for a Skype call with your boss, and your hair isn’t even brushed yet!

Sound familiar?

This scene repeats in hundreds of homes across India, and even the world, as you read this article. Parents and families everywhere are scrambling to balance all the tasks that have suddenly landed in their laps.

Square Panda is here to help. Use the below suggestions to balance your schooling at home, with working from home.

– Share The Work: You don’t have to do each and every task by yourself. Ask your partner and family to share in the responsibility of managing your house and your child’s lessons. For convenience and a lighter workload, you can even plan your work in shifts.
An example: If you are doing the cooking, let your partner and child clean the table and dishes. That way, your child develops their motor skills, and also understands dignity of labour.

– Plan In Advance: You do need to know what to teach your child a few days or weeks prior, to avoid confusion on the day in question. Laying out everything clearly ensures that there is repetition of certain essential tasks, but allows you to space them out far enough that your child is not bored.
An example: Select a theme for the week, like plants or vehicles, and set all your activities during that period to this theme. If you want to teach them numbers, do it using plants/vehicles. Use plant/vehicle examples to teach them about different colours.

– Introduce Self-Learning Activities: Allow your children to learn independently allow you to attend that Skype work call in peace, satisfied that your child is engaged in a fun learning task.
An example: Task them with creating their own storybook (see how). This little craft activity gets their hands moving, their creative skills are completely engaged in making up a new story, and they are then more enthusiastic to read this book they have authored.

– Plan AROUND Your Own Schedule: Create (or find) a program that allows you flexibility to work with your schedule.
Examples: You can plant engaging scientific facts into your bedtime stories, your cooking time can be their play time-just hand them some dough and let them unleash their creativity. Everything you do can be a source of learning (for more ideas, watch this webinar on Montessori learning by our incredible guest speaker, Ms. Jayamala Jadhav).

Want more on schooling your kids at home? Watch this space for more…Until then, check out our amazing early literacy products here and here.

Credits: Written by Sanjana Shukla

*for ages 3-5

Do you find yourself suddenly thrust into the role of teacher? Struggling to ensure your child learns just like they would in school?

Cast those worries away with Square Panda’s handy tips to teach young learners at home.

Set Up A Special ‘Learning’ Space: Create a special learning space for them and fill it with all kinds of colourful stationery, just like a preschool or junior kg class would. This designated space puts children in the right frame of mind to study, and actually encourages them to seek out study time. But remember, children shouldn’t be hounded to study constantly; give them their space. And the best way to do that is…

Schedule. Schedule. Schedule.: Make a daily learning plan to help your little one study, but keep it flexible. Think of it like guidelines, rather than a rulebook to follow. Schedule their lessons around your own daily work; you can even break up these lessons into mini pieces to be conducted throughout the day (like teaching them about taste during breakfast, enhancing their digital literacy while you work on your laptop, introducing them to cooking instruments and new food vocabulary while cooking, and so on). Whether you are teaching them after work, during lunch, or even early in the morning, one thing you must remember is…

Mix Physical Activities With Learning: Let your creative brain loose, and come up with multiple fun multisensory activities for your children to enjoy. Everything can be a play-learn opportunity.
For example: Have to cook? Great! Hand your kids a little dough and let them make shapes from it.
Working on a spreadsheet? Get your kids actual sheets of paper and a crayon. Let them go wild doodling anything their hearts desire.
Lots of cleaning to do? Task your little ones with becoming your helpers; hand them mops and brooms and let them clean away!

Include Their Hobbies Too: They might be little, but they have their own opinions, likes, and dislikes too. Make sure to incorporate all such activities into their learning. If you draw a blank, ask your little ones what they want to do, or even learn. Then, follow their instructions to the best of your abilities.

It’s Not School, And That’s Okay: You are NOT their teacher, and their home is not school. No one expects this from you, either. This current situation demands new roles from all of us, and we must adapt as best we can. Enjoy the advantage of this unexpected time with them; take advantage and bond with your little ones.

Keep coming back here for more fun and educational articles on schooling at home during the lockdown, parenting, early literacy, and everything in between, right here.

Credits: Written by Sanjana Shukla, Illustrated by Aaron Gomes

Change! Everyone loves it, don’t we?
That said, nothing about your favourite early reading app has changed much; we’ve just added some features that we’re sure your little learners will enjoy.

WHAT DOES SQUARETALES INDIA VERSION 2.3 HAVE?

• New Books!
  We’ve added a new set of books for your early readers to learn from. Subscribe and enjoy 5 sets of digital books including:
  – Pan, Cam and the Bug
  – Pan and Cam Hum
  – The Cub in a Tub
  – The Hot Pot
  – Dot, Dot, Dot: Review #

• Reduced App Size!
  We listened to feedback, and made as many optimisations as we could to reduce the size of our app.

• Animation!
  What were once mere images, are now cute little animations, to boost your child’s engagement as they learn new letters, words, and word sounds. Where these animations appear:
  – In our blending engine, ‘Swipe Phonics’.
  – Inside the digital books 

Want to see how this looks? Try SquareTales out; get the first 5 books for free, from the App Store and Play Store.

• Other General Fixes
  – Subscription price corrected to rupees, instead of showing in dollars.
  – Users can now move to the next practice word, without earning a star, if they choose. For that end, we added the ‘Next’ arrow beside every practice word.

These little things can make a big difference in how children engage and learn with SquareTales.

BEFORE YOU GO
New to SquareTales? Get started with our User Manual, or contact customer services to guide you.

Download from the App Store and Play Store today. Visit www.squaretales.in for more information about our unique early reading app.

Credits: Written by Sanjana Shukla

Each time you crack open that book and read to your child, they are getting better and better at building essential reading skills. In fact, children actually acquire their reading skills through repeated exposure and practice.

*For a more in-depth look at how a child’s brain works as they try to develop their reading skill, check out this blog post.

With this in mind, Square Panda is introducing SquareTales, a unique set of digital and printable PDF books, to help develop an early reading habit in children, and promote independent reading. Additionally, each set also contains additional learning materials (rhymes, songs, and fun learning activities), absolutely free of cost, available to download from our Kids’ Library.

The SquareTales curriculum follows Square Panda‘s custom-made, research-based curriculum, introducing letters in small groups (around 4-8 new letters are introduced with each book). SquareTales engages students through endearing Square Panda characters–like Panda and Cameo, a friendly pair consisting of a little panda and an enthusiastic chameleon–and compelling storylines.

Additionally, the books are divided into groups or sets, where each book focuses only on a particular area of study (For example, Set 1, which is available for a FREE preview , focuses on word families).

Word families are groups of words that share a common pattern, such as “hat“, “mat“, and “cat“. In SquareTales, this is how we classify words into word families, making it easy for children to learn and understand them, and identify these common patterns. This gives young learners a strong grasp of the rules that make the English language.

SquareTales For Parents:
We know you are very invested in your child’s future. Which is why SquareTales has a ‘Parent Portal’, to help you monitor your child’s progress as they start reading. A ‘Parent Guide’ to help you navigate your way through our early reading app, complete with expected learning milestones, can also be found on our website.

How SquareTales Works:
Step 1: Students learn letter-sounds.
Step 2: Then they learn to blend these letter-sounds to form words (e.g. c-a-t).
Step 3: They practice each word and letter for as long as they want.
Step 4: They start reading connected text, and later, full sentences.
Step 5: They can now read a whole book!
Step 6: They practice what they learnt through instructional activities.
Step 7: They learn to read the printable PDF book corresponding to the ebook.

This is a systematic, easy-to-grasp, and effective way to learn English in a fun and engaging manner, beginning with easy letters and simple words, and graduating to the ‘book-reading’ stage very quickly!

What Children Learn With SquareTales:

• Knowledge of letter sounds and how to blend them, with guided practice.

• Learners learn to use the knowledge of letter-sound relationships to correctly pronounce written words.
• Builds vocabulary, comprehension skills, and knowledge about written conventions.
• Learners will be exposed to various CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) words from each word family, for example, ‘tap’, ‘nap’, ‘sap’, from the word family ‘ap’. This teaches them to not only sound out, read, and spell these words, but also identify the phonetic pattern that marks them as a part of a specific word family.
• Learners will also be introduced to common sight words (i.e. words that don’t follow the rules of blending) like ‘the’, ‘is’, and more.

Additional Skills Developed By SquareTale’s Instructional Activities:
– Vocabulary building
– Sight word identification
– Story sequencing

The Benefits Of Teaching With Square Tales

• To make reading and learning easier, all the books (of initial sets) are arranged in terms of word families. The learning level gradually increases, book by book, to help learners stay challenged and engaged. 
• Similarly, in terms of a roadmap, each book series deals with a different, slightly more challenging theme, for example, the first series deals with word families, the next one deals with a more challenging theme, and so on. 
• SquareTales builds the essential components of reading we focus on— phonemic awareness, phonics, listening comprehension, and vocabulary.

With the first set of learning books (5 in-app digital books) completely FREE, what are you waiting for? Download the app today!

*Subscribe to SquareTales…

Monthly: At just 199/month (including GST)
Yearly: At just 1799/year (including GST)

…once your FREE digital books are done, and unlock all the new reading kits (which include digital books, printable PDF books, and activities) monthly. As the curriculum advances, so does your child’s learning and reading!

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– By Sanjana Shukla, Content Writer, Square Panda India