The famous Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori once said, “Play is the work of the child”.

For young children, play is natural. Therefore, play-based learning feels natural to them too. Thus, play-rich environments become the single most important learning environment in early childhood education.
For more about play-based learning and its benefits, read our article on How Children Learn Through Play.

Today’s article shows how everyday items can be turned into playtime resources for foundational skill development.

*These games can be played in home or school environments.

Name: Seven Stones (Lagori)
Nature: Outdoor game; needs more than two players
History of the game: Lagori is an ancient Indian game—at least 5000 years old—that is now played in many countries around the globe.
Skills developed: Counting, fine and gross motor skills, strategy, teamwork

Name: Four Stones (Nalugu Rallu Aata)
Nature: Outdoor game; needs five players
History of the game: Another ancient Indian game, Four Stones was played in many rural districts of Andhra Pradesh until the 1960s and 1980s. Unfortunately, the popularity of this game has waned over the years. The origins of this game are also a mystery.
Skills developed: Communication (verbal and non-verbal), strategy, team spirit, social behaviour, reflexes, gross motor skills

Name: Chain (Sakli)
Nature: Outdoor game; needs more than two players
History of the game: The rules of this game probably evolved from the Western game ‘Tag’. Labelled ‘Chain Tag’ in English, Sakli is listed as a ‘traditional outdoor game on the verge of extinction’ by multiple sources.
Skills developed: Alertness, patience, caring, social emotional development, gross motor skills

Name: Hopping (Langdi Taang or Langdi)
Nature: Outdoor or indoor game; can be played individually (by asking children to ‘catch’ a hidden toy or object)
History of the game: Langdi originated during the Pandya Dynasty—also called the Pandyas of Madurai—from 6th to 14th Century C.E. Back then, this sport was called ‘Nondiyaattam’. Sports players consider Langdi to be the foundation of all sports, and the official field sport version is very useful when training for sports like kho kho, volleyball, and gymnastics.
Skills developed: Gross motor skills, balance, strengthen legs, small and large muscle development

Name: Five Stones
Nature: Indoor game; can be played individually
History of the game: This game appears in multiple civilizations since ancient times. Played by children globally, this game has many names — ashyk, jjagebatgi, anju kal, five stones, jackstones, etc. The Indian version of the game usually uses stones, although any similar sized object will suffice. After all, the Ancient Greek version of the game was played using the ankle bones of the sheep (these were called ‘knuckle bones’).
*Recommended for older children aged 5-10.
Skills developed: Dexterity, fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, reflexes, helps in focusing

Name: Tossing A Paper Ball
Nature: Indoor game; needs more than two players
History of the game: We do not know when paper began being used as replacements for balls, but the game of tossing a paper ball has proven effects in the classroom, with multiple modifications as per the age of the students’.
Online Modification: Children can create paper balls, and toss them at the screen, in the direction of their classmates, while naming any one. That child then repeats this motion, and the game moves on until each child has a chance to call out a classmate’s name.
Skills developed: Fine motor skills, memory retention, gross motor skills

Multiple research studies over the years have proven the efficacy of play in enhancing social and emotional development—apart from other foundational skills—in early childhood. Hear Square Panda Thursdays host and early years’ stalwart, Ms. Sonia Relia, speak about how play enhances these skills. As Ms. Relia says, “The day you cannot play with your students is the day you stop working in early years.”

Watch this space for more ECCE-related resources, activities, and educational content.
Learn more about Square Panda’s experiential play-based foundational program, at https://ecce.squarepanda.in/program.

Well before infants can understand any words, for example, they find speech interesting to listen to, and prefer it to other kinds of sounds (Shultz & Vouloumanos, 2010).

Phonics, at its very core, is the method applied to teach people how to read and write an alphabetic language using sounds. 

Phonics has been around for a long time, and is one of the most recommended methods of teaching in schools, especially in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE). In fact, American President Benjamin Franklin even attempted to create his own alphabet to replace the existing one.

This article answers the most common questions about phonics and related terms, its use in Indian schools, and how it can be used in the classroom.

What does the term ‘phonics’ actually mean?

Phonics helps teachers and educators develop reading skills in children by linking sounds in a language to the letters and words that represent them. Phonics instruction has a profound impact on young learners’ brains and studies have even shown its effectiveness over other teaching methods.

What are some common terms related to phonics?

Phonological Awareness: This is the awareness of the sound structure of any language. Children can recognise and work with any sound of the spoken language once they develop phonological awareness. For e.g., they can pick out words that rhyme, break up a sentence into words, and more.

Phonemic Awareness: This is the ability to notice and work with individual sounds (or phonemes) in spoken language. For e.g., blending sounds to make words, breaking up words into individual sounds, and more.

Why is phonics so important in early childhood?

Sounding out words becomes easier: Phonics breaks down words into components, helping children ‘read’. Over time, they can even recognise patterns in words and automatically learn to read them correctly.

Links sounds and letters: As the phonics method uses sounds to link to respective letters or letter groups, children know exactly which sound should be produced for each letter or letter group, making the reading process simpler.

Long words become easier to read: Unlike when children learn a language via complete words, phonics breaks down longer words into individual sounds. Young children eventually learn to break down (and read) any long word into sounds even if they do not understand its meaning.

Children gain secondary skills: While phonics primarily aims to develop the reading skill, children also simultaneously learn to think logically (as they read words they don’t understand), and pick up writing skills (during spelling-related phonics exercises).

Why must we ‘teach’ sounds?

Even as children automatically pick up sounds since birth, they are not completely equipped to process the information on their own. For example, children would not automatically know that ‘MAT’ and ‘MAP’ begin with the same sound, or that ‘PAN’ and ‘DAD’ have the same sound of ‘a’. This suggests that children need to know how sounds map to a written system, and for this, they need explicit phonics instruction.

Why not simply teach children to read? Won’t that help them map sounds to written words? 

Being read to is another crucial aspect of foundational learning, but it cannot replace phonics instruction. A study by Evans & Saint-Aubin in 2005 showed that as children were being read to from a storybook, they spent much longer looking at pictures than reading the words or text. It is not realistic to expect young children to learn much about mapping sounds and written words simply from being read to.

How does phonics work in Indian languages?

Most Indian languages are ‘pure phonic languages’, i.e., the word sounds exactly like it is written. Plus, every sound has a specific written representation which does not change. For example, Hindi and Marathi use a Devanagari script, and the sound of each alphabet in this language is distinctly different. अ remains the same pronunciation, whether the word is अनार or अक्षर.

While only a small percentage of Indian schools focus on phonics and related activities at present, this method of instruction has been highly recommended for ECCE in the recently released NIPUN document and the National Education Policy (or NEP 2020), for all languages.

Can phonics be included as a small part of each lesson?

Sounds are already a part of every lesson, and there are quick tricks educators and teachers can use to leverage this for a revision lesson. For example, after a story session, children can count the syllables in each word, they can rhyme with numbers (one-sun), and even simply sound out letters they have learnt previously.

Can parents also help with phonics instruction?

The home environment is crucial to develop holistic foundational skills, say experts. The role of parents in fostering their children’s development is twofold: they introduce children to sound, and play a crucial part in reinforcing teachers’ instructions. Parents can be given a list of words and stories introduced in school, which they can repeat with the children during daily chores and activities. Parents can also ask questions about further letter sound knowledge, like ‘What is the beginning sound of this word?’ or ‘What is the last letter in this word, and what sound does it make?’ Parents unfamiliar with the language can listen to songs and rhymes in the language of instruction with their children, and encourage their little ones to sing along.

What sort of activities can help children develop phonemic awareness? 

Simple letter identification activities can be turned into phonic games, by asking children to also sound out the letter. In the same way, sorting activities can be grouped as per rhymes, syllables, beginning sounds, and more. You can even group children in pairs for a ‘partner reading’ exercise, where one child reads a small text and the other closely copies the first. They can then switch roles, helping each other when they stumble.

Learn how to turn even the simplest of items into a learning resource for phonics and language development in next week’s Square Panda Thursday’s webinar. Join the live session on July 29, at 5 pm: https://squarepanda.app.link/e/2907b

Phonics teaches children to be fluent in a language while reading. To be more efficient, this instruction needs to work hand-in-hand with vocabulary instruction and other types of learning for a well-rounded development. From an educational perspective, being able to predict the pronunciation of words using letter-sound knowledge is better than rote learning the pronunciation of all words.

A year ago, the pandemic drove education online, with educational institutions embracing online classes and digital learning in all its forms to deliver learning to their students. Schools and states adopted different means of reaching out to students; some sent home learning materials, others delivered learning via common messaging apps.

Education moved online, but children across various levels and ages in India continue to experience learning loss, particularly in early childhood education. A survey showed most parents are very worried about their young children losing out on essential development in these early years, and thus they are in favour of online schooling. 80% of parents surveyed said online preschooling delivered clear learning outcomes, and 75% of these parents would recommend online learning to their friends and families.

However, remote learning poses challenges even in suitable settings. Add to that a class full of fidgety young learners – those who choose to come at all – and this type of learning becomes harder to sustain.

To be successful, remote teaching and instruction needs to follow similar ideas as regular instruction: clarity, review, and checking for comprehension. At present, the guidelines to conduct online learning are as yet a work in progress. Even so, based on their experience this past year, multiple early education experts and educators have offered pointers on ways to help remote education be as effective as possible.

1) Changing The Mindset (of teachers, children, AND parents)

The very first challenge to online learning is getting children to show up for classes. With several preschools closing permanently, those still active report almost an 80% reduction in enrollment for the school year 2020-21. Parents who were once convinced about the importance of early learning might give preschool a miss now.

What is needed is a strong reminder about the priority of early education, especially for parents. Plus, to effectively guide this conversation, teachers and caregivers must first understand the nature and science of early learning and how it impacts a child’s future. 

Once in the online classroom, teachers need to consider the socio-cultural circumstances of each student as they deliver instructions; they need to develop a structure, objectives, and teaching plans as per this. Establishing a routine and schedule can do wonders for children’s engagement. They learn to expect certain activities and games at certain times, and they feel confident because they know exactly what comes next.

Initiatives across Maharashtra, Odisha, and Chattisgarh have shown that dedicated efforts by governments, schools, educators, and Anganwadi workers can stave off some ill-effects of learning loss in early childhood. We can take inspiration from these efforts and replicate the same in our classrooms.

2) Remote Relationship-Building

Relationships are the bedrock of society, and, in early childhood education, are the basis upon which socio-emotional behaviour develops. Although physical bonding is ill-advised at the moment, educators can devise strategies that enhance bonding in online classes. 

For a social connect, teachers can structure lesson plans that involve the formation of groups, as much as the curriculum allows. Children can be paired up for games and activities, or even simply to lend a helping hand to one another.

To further enhance this social emotional development, it is recommended to connect with the families too, and share a child’s achievements via weekly messages or a phone call. Rotate this responsibility among teachers so one person is not bearing all the burden.

3) Let Simplicity Guide Your Lesson Structure

Online learning offers reduced opportunities to gauge how instructions have been received by students. This makes simple instructions even more crucial to the classroom. Keep the language direct, the instructions uncomplicated, the explanations brief, and the expectations clear.

For reduced hassle, stick to simplicity in all decisions, whether they are logistical (which edtech app is the best to use) or substantive (is the new learning material clear enough).

4) Make Learning Interactive And Engaging

Student engagement is a common requirement in any early learning curriculum, but planning for such engagement is less so.

Just as in a physical classroom, young children need opportunities to develop all the foundational skills — motor skills, cognitive skills, reasoning, socio-emotional skills, foundational literacy and numeracy — in online classrooms too. Avoid conducting simpler reading and listening exercises; actively pepper your learning modules with quizzes, puzzles, and interactive question-and-answer sessions. These sessions act as review lessons, helping children retain their learning. Some teachers across India have taken the initiative and started recording small lessons before class. They then pause these at key moments to incorporate mini-games and play-based activities for higher engagement.

5) Humanise The Digital Space

Child-friendly spaces always have a colourful and fun theme, so why should an online classroom be any different?

If you use an online platform like ZOOM or Skype to teach, you can check if the background is customisable. Or, you can simply add a few little toys, colourful hand paintings, and even letter and number cutouts for a ‘classroom’ feel. This can be customised as per the age of your learners. Invite questions about the children’s background too (in case of live video lessons), and involve parents in creating fun learning spaces for children, so they exhibit more enthusiasm for learning. 

Lessons via chat-messaging services can be enlivened by the use of emojis; recorded lessons can have some engaging anecdotes to add humour; physical resources for children can be repurposed (read: painted or reprinted) to add in pops of colour.

Are you a parent? If so, here are 4 tips that can help you balance schooling at home with working from home.

While incorporating each idea mentioned here might be challenging, bearing them in mind is prudent. As we learn more about how online learning works, these lessons can help us reach children in every corner of India, creating a truly literate future for our country.

See how Square Panda India can help you build a robust ECCE ecosystem in your state, district, or school: ecce.squarepanda.in

Early childhood education is the core of all future learning, and early literacy is its foundation. 

Educators, parents, and other stakeholders in the ECCE ecosystem know that one of the most critical tasks they face is developing fundamental language skills in children. This needs to be supported in the curriculum, which itself needs to work holistically, nurturing language, early numeracy, social, emotional, and cognitive development.

Fortunately, we have the perfect guide to help you navigate this task.

Our Roadmap To Early Literacy Development

Phase I: Understanding Foundational Skills

Phonological awareness: This is the ability to recognise and work with sounds in the spoken language. For example, a child that understands sounds of a language would know that PAN was made up of three sounds from P/A/N. Phonological awareness is the foundation for learning to read and is an important component of both reading and spelling. It is the ability to recognize and work with sounds in spoken language. This skill comes naturally to some young learners, many do need help honing these skills. This can be harnessed by increasing activities like singing and rhyming, and focusing on a few sounds at a time.

Print awareness: Children also need to learn that spoken words are represented by written symbols. Print awareness translates to alphabetic understanding. As children understand how to map individual sounds to the respective letters, they gradually begin to decode words. Young children should always be encouraged to scribble their thoughts down, whether they know how to write yet or not. They can represent their ideas via pictures, or even practice certain letters repeatedly. This exposure is crucial to developing a strong grasp of print awareness skills.

Vocabulary and concept development: This stage is predictive of future academic behaviour too, and is the most critical step on the foundational literacy pathway. Constant and regular exposure to reading material in their surroundings will benefit children; they face future years of schooling armed with a larger vocabulary and well-developed language skills.

Phase II: Creating Learning Environments

Language-rich environments: A groundbreaking study by Hart and Risley (1995) showed the amount and kind of language parents use with their young children is a strong predictor of important educational outcomes. Learning centres too can adopt this language-rich environment, providing frequent verbal interaction between young learners and their educators. For instance, simple storytelling sessions can serve multiple purposes. Reading stories out loud can teach children new vocabulary and sounds, they can be given opportunities to predict what comes next, and teachers can ask questions to extend children’s verbal responses. To enhance this experience, children need to connect their own background, culture, and experiences with the learning. They need context, and the learning needs to be localised to fit these needs.

Print-rich environments: A high-quality learning environment is, by its very nature, print-rich. Children have access to an array of different literature at all times. Schools and Anganwadis can increase exposure to print by:
– creating a schedule of the day on the board and encouraging children to read and follow it
– labelling everyday objects like the desk, blackboard, and walls in multiple common languages
– creating a library of multicultural books for children to read and even take home
– investing in multilingual and multi-modal digital tools that help children develop foundational reading skills

Scheduled Reading Time: This is one of the most important components on the road to early literacy development. Daily schedules should set aside at least 15 minutes a day for reading and reading-based activities. Books—digital and physical—should be read, then re-read for better comprehension. To increase engagement, children should be encouraged to participate in lively discussions, activities, and games based on the books.

*Stay tuned for a very special reading-themed article, complete with children’s book recommendations, coming to you next week.

Phase III: Developing Adult Literacy

Responsive skilled educators and Anganwadi workers: Our guidelines would be incomplete without our teachers, educators, Anganwadi workers, and their influence on early childhood education. Responsive caregivers are key components of a literacy-rich environment, engaging children in a variety of ways and adjusting their content delivery and communication to fit their learning needs. Such educators are well-equipped to deal with 21^st century classrooms and turn their students into the citizens of tomorrow.

Involved parents: Interventions at any level across the educational landscape need the support of parents. Partnerships with parents and guardians improve learning outcomes, and support in-school learning. As parents understand their role in their children’s education, early learning initiatives become stronger and much easier to conduct. At-home initiatives can then be undertaken to extend learning opportunities beyond classrooms and into homes. For instance, parents join hands with educators and Anganwadi workers to help children work on activity sheets, at-home activities, reading practice, and more.

A network of stakeholders: Quite like the African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child,” an entire community of people must interact—and do it well—so children across grassroots in India have access to quality early education. A learning community where each stakeholder – parents, teachers, principals, administrators, Anganwadi workers, and more – can share and access relevant information at any time cultivates equal partnership between each person in this community. Eventually, an active learning community can help India build a robust and healthy early learning landscape.

Square Panda India is helping early readers and pre-readers transform into holistic learners using a multi-modal foundational literacy program backed by the latest neuroscience research. Learn more about us: ecce.squarepanda.in.

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Memory plays a key role in building a solid foundation for learning, both inside and outside the classroom. Retaining what they are taught helps children excel academically, score well on tests, and stay cognitively engaged throughout their lives. However, remembering everything we have learnt is not an ingrained skill, and it is something ECCE educators and Anganwadi workers need to develop with certain teaching strategies.

Why does the brain find it hard to remember?

How The Brain Is Wired To Forget

How Memory Works

Think of your mind like a spiderweb, with multiple connected neurons. 

Each time we learn something new, like when a child is introduced to a sock puppet for the first time, the brain turns this experience into a memory. The same neurons involved in making a memory are the ones involved in forgetting it. Once we understand this process, we can devise simple strategies to help us retain important pieces of knowledge. Each time we revisit a particular memory, our synapses are strengthened. Think of it as painting. Apply one coat of paint, and the colour is light. Another coat of paint makes it darker, and stays longer too. This phenomenon is called synaptic plasticity and explains why some memories stay for a lifetime while some fade away. 

Different memories are created differently. For someone literate in English, the word ORANGE is more memorable that SMAPTFIN. That is because our brains connected oranges to the smell of the fruit, the colour, and perhaps some distant childhood memory. That means the more connection you have to an experience, and thus your neurons, the stronger is the memory you make.

The Research Into Memory And Forgetting

Rote memorisation leads to a superficial grasp of learning and is quickly forgotten. 

This is something psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus discovered in the 1880s. His studies showed that without reinforcement or connections to prior knowledge, information is quickly forgotten. He called this the forgetting curve, which was a measurement of how much we forget over time.

We lose roughly 56% of information in one hour, 66% after a day, and 75% after six days.

An article by neurobiologists Blake Richards and Paul Frankland counters Ebbinghaus’s theory. They purport that the goal of memory is to evaluate the purpose of each strand of memory, evaluating and potentially discarding information if it doesn’t promote our survival.

A scientific way to retain learning, then, is to increase children’s connections to as many things as possible. So, we are effectively widening the spiderweb in their minds. The following are the most effective learning strategies:

5 Teacher Strategies To Help Children Retain Learning

*can be repurposed for learning with parents too

• Regularly revisit learning: According to research (Carpenter et al., 2012; Kang, 2016), children perform better academically when they are given multiple opportunities to review learned material. Instead of moving on from a topic once your teaching is complete, recap the topic after periodic intervals. Another smart way to reinforce learning is to connect old topics with new ones. For example, the way Square Panda’s sequenced curriculum revisits key topics while adding layers of complexity to make sure learners are revising while learning.
• Break information down into bite-sized pieces: The shorter attention spans of your little learners means you have to space out the information you share with them. Teach them in small increments throughout the day, weaving learning with interactive games and active play. This way, children process the information much faster without having to sit still for longer periods, something that causes the dreaded ‘b’ word: boredom.
• Use multiple modes to deliver information: Use images to support the text you teach. Bring a plant to show colours of leaves, throw a ball to explain motion, collect pebbles to familiarise children with shapes and textures. It is easier to remember information when it is presented in different ways, and particularly so when visual aids are involved. Rather than rely on one mode of instruction, mix it up by adding multiple modes together.
• Use rhymes and songs: Human brains are wired to remember music, patterns, and sounds, and so, using music to teach can help increase recall in children. Create little songs and rhymes about the topic you are teaching, and encourage your students to do the same. For example, if you are talking about frogs, you can bring in an element of maths too by singing Five Little Speckled Frogs.
• Make learning fun: Using entertainment and games in learning has always been encouraged by early childhood education experts. Such instruction makes use of the child’s interest to teach them new concepts. Theoretical subjects are easier to follow, their creativity blooms, and they are actively engaged in learning. Educators and caregivers can take the aid of child-safe educational apps, finger puppets, musical instruments, stories, and more as they teach.

Even as we learn that children start to forget almost as soon as learning happens, there are certain evidence-based strategies to help reinforce learning and increase memory.

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With what do you equate early childhood education? 

Most people would likely relate this term with academics. While the primary focus of ECCE has always been academics, this is but one component that makes up the whole. Research tells us that social and emotional development is as deeply woven into the fabric of early education as academics. For example, a 2015 study by Jones, Greenberg, & Crowley linked higher social emotional skills in kindergarten with important outcomes like education, career, and social success by the age of 25.

Comprehensive programs that enhance foundational learning and include a component of socio-emotional skill development are perfectly geared towards delivering the best results for young learners.

Defining Social And Emotional Development

A child is considered to be developing socially and emotionally when they start to understand who they are, what they are feeling, and how to interact with others. They are able to:

• Forge and sustain positive relationships
• Experience, manage, and express emotions
• Explore and engage with those in their environment

Technology And Social Emotional Skills

While there is research about the usage of technology while developing socio-emotional skills, this does not take into account the scope of edutech as we know it today. Companies that provide digital learning tools for their young learners are more concerned with holistically empowering their audience. Their research takes into account each developmental domain and is increasingly focused on providing the best overall foundation for learning, with a special curriculum for developing social emotional skills.

When children work together on computers or other types of technology, they learn to negotiate and take turns. Conflicts may arise while working together, and young children will need to solve problems. Technology is very prevalent in young children’s lives. Some advocates state that, since this is true, children should begin using technology at an early age, when they are motivated and fearless to learn.
(McCarrick & Xiaoming, 2007)

Supporting Social And Emotional Development In Early Learning Centres

A 2014 UNICEF Study put enrollment in preschools at around 70%. Of these, about 36 million children (3 to 6 years of age) were enrolled in Anganwadis (Ministry of Women & Child Development 2015). Anganwadis, part of the ICDS scheme, form only a part of the early learning settings children are exposed to; the rest involve public and private learning centres with enrollment skewing towards private schooling centres. This makes professional caregivers who care for and teach young children the most important partners in supporting their social and emotional development and building their readiness for school.

High-quality education is critical to maintaining positive socio-emotional development. Not only does a quality education promote active learning and engagement in children, it also mitigates the effects of other risk factors and builds resilience in children. This is partly due to the positive relationships young children form with their caregivers in a high-quality learning centre. Read our thoughts on quality in early education. When children perceive at least one supportive adult in their life, they are less likely to experience the effects of an adverse experience, and be more socio-emotionally developed individuals.

Well-trained early care and education professionals are critical to the creation of such quality learning centres, and to supporting the social and emotional development of their charges. Their expertise enables them to weave social and emotional skill-building into daily activities, routines, and even their own behaviour. They know to implement targeted curriculum with games, stories, and activities.

Supporting Social Emotional Learning At A Higher Level

Leaders and policymakers play a higher role in fostering and promoting positive environments across learning centres. These typically involve strategies, policies, or structures related to the teaching-learning climate and support services, like establishing a team to administer structural changes in working environments and developing clear guidelines for adult behaviour in learning centres.

8 Activities To Build Social And Emotional Skills

*note: these suggestions can be repurposed for at-home learning, by parents and other educators.

1. Build A ‘Feeling Box’: Help children put their feelings into words by labelling emotions in this little ‘feeling box’. Make your own feeling box, and model for children how to communicate their emotions to others.
2. Move To Music: Pick easy songs with lyrics and beats that encourage movement, like Square Panda’s letter-dance song. Make the motions with children as the song plays. Point out how good their dancing is getting, and credit their listening skills for it.
3. Play Board Games: Board games (specially those requiring teams) increase emotional intelligence by teaching children to take turns, think ahead, be a good sport about losing, and learn that actions have consequences. Here’s a fun little board game created for your little ones especially by Square Panda India, to get you started. 
4. Make A Share Box: A study from Duke and Penn State followed over 750 people for 20 years and found those who were able to share and help other children in kindergarten were more likely to graduate from high school. Teach children that sharing is caring (and fun); decorate a box and fill it with things children choose to share with their friends/family, like playdough, crayons, music boxes, soft toys, and more.
5. Use Hand Puppets: You can get these online (see the one Ms. Sonia Relia uses during our Square Panda Thursdays sessions), or ask children to make their own, using random picture cutouts glued to a popsicle stick. These help in acting out stories and exhibiting various emotions.
6. Read Stories: Use stories to talk to children about different social situations. Reading and playacting stories aloud (using hand puppets as props) provides a great opportunity to discuss the connection between behaviour and emotions. For example, “The panda is running fast! He seems scared.”
7. Sing Songs: Take children through the gamut of emotions while singing songs like ‘If You’re Happy And You Know It‘, or ‘Looking In The Mirror’. The wordsmith in you can even come up with lyrics to the tune of popular songs, which talk about sharing, being kind, and other social messages.
8. Use Daily Activities To Develop Social Skills: Activities like snack time, digital time, and recess can be used to develop social skills like taking turns, sitting together, and engaging in conversation. This helps children build positive peer relationships and foster healthy social and emotional development early on.

Key Points To Remember While Developing Social Emotional Skills

• Children Learn By Watching: All children automatically mimic the behaviour of those closest to them, which in many cases are adults. Let them see you model appropriate behaviour and exhibit patience, kindness, and helpfulness throughout the day. Explain what is appropriate behaviour and what is not, and make sure you recognise their positive behaviour and praise it.
• Diversity Plays A Major Part: India’s multicultural heritage translates into a diverse classroom full of children with unique sets of experiences, abilities, and learning needs. Such diversity also brings rich cultural and linguistic differences. Being aware of and adapting to each child’s specific needs can be the difference between a socially aware and competent future citizen or one unable to cope in challenging situations. In classrooms, for example, teachers can encourage expression in the language children are comfortable with, and assign ‘helper buddies’ to children who are struggling socially.
• Connecting With Parents Is Important Too: Establishing a link with parents and caregivers of children is extremely important for success in a school setting. Increased parental engagement, and an awareness of the importance of social emotional development helps children, particularly those struggling with behavioural problems. Schools can figure ways to reach out to the parents regularly, and encourage them to visit or volunteer in the classroom.
• Maintaining A Daily Routine Is Critical To Social Emotional Development: In any setting, adults need to stick to a regular routine each day so children can predict what comes next. This helps them feel safe and in control. In case of any adjustments to the schedule, make sure they know changes are coming, so they are well-prepared for it.
• Encourage Early Friendships: Young children often play next to each other rather than with each other. This has only increased with online learning. What educators now notice, is that children are beginning to show empathy to peer problems even online, giving rise to early friendships. Encouraging more interaction between groups of children, assigning buddies, and drawing out quieter children are some more ways to increase positive peer relationships from an early age.

Early childhood is a critical period to develop social emotional skills. The quality of experiences in this stage can have a lifelong impact on children. Adults are mainly responsible for developing strong socio-emotional skills in early childhood. The early learning programs that prioritise children’s social and emotional health are rewarded by highly engaged little learners who express and use emotion in productive ways.

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The ‘learning loss’ is real.

Multiple early education experts have sounded the alarm, saying the gap in learning caused due to school closures can impact an entire generation of children. In India, around 320 million students have been affected by COVID-19 school closures, and the numbers show no signs of abating. This situation is compounded by the fact that India had already noticed signs of learning poverty among our children. The ASER 2019 report shows only 16.2% of children could read Std I text while in Std I, and this number improved to 50.8% of children in Std III. This puts children’s ability to read at least two years behind where the current curriculum expects them to be at their age.

Why A Learning Loss In The Early Years Is Especially Worrying

Cognitive psychology suggests that without practice, children are most susceptible to forgetting facts and procedural skills (Cooper & Sweller, 1987). A WHO research paper shows a poor start in life can lead to poor health, nutrition, and inadequate learning, resulting in low adult earnings as well as social tensions. Because of this shaky start, affected people are estimated to lose about a quarter of their average yearly income, while their country may lose up to twice their current GDP expenditure on health and education. These consequences impact not only present, but also future generations.

Types Of Learning Loss

According to the CEO of Azim Premji Foundation, Anurag Behar, learning loss is of two kinds:

a) What children should have learnt during the period when schools were closed (e.g., in 2020-2021).
b) What children have already forgotten from their previous year (e.g., until March 2020) of learning, which we can term ‘academic regression.’ This phase is similar to children’s experience during the summer vacations when they forget parts of the previous year’s learning.

Experts warn that these effects will only compound over time. For early learners who are missing out on learning during the most crucial period — 85% of the brain’s development happens in the early years before the age of eight — this loss will negatively impact their future.

How Edtech Helped During This Crisis

India has always been invested in early childhood education; we are the proud flag bearers of one of the most extensive ECCE programs in the world – the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). We have taken further measures to increase the focus on early education with our National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

As a nation, we recognised the need for urgent intervention and have taken (and continue to take) steps towards mitigating learning loss. Educational initiatives by several nonprofits, learning institutions, and edtech organisations followed announcements of public-private partnerships by various state governments.

Teachers’ Ability To Use Technology Rose: The mayhem caused by school closures led to a nationwide crisis. However, educators across India rose to the challenge, valiantly fighting to deliver education to their students. Since in-person learning was not a possibility, educators used innovative modes of delivery, like loudspeakers, WhatsApp, and more. (Read their efforts, in The Inspiring Educators Innovating Teaching-Learning During This Health Crisis) While striving to figure out a way to teach despite school closures, multiple educators have reported a rise in their technology-based knowledge and ability.

Opinion About Using Technology In Education Has Changed: The scale tipped towards a more positive outlook, say educational experts. A significant portion of this change came from the outreach and support given to traditional learning by multiple edtech organisations and the Government itself. The Centre emphasised digital techniques and tools to help teachers navigate teaching and learning during this crisis. The increased usage of technology has given educators a better understanding of how to leverage online learning for better outcomes in their classrooms and learning centres.

Online Instruction Took Hold: With little to no contact between children and their teachers, online instruction was one of the few ways educators approached the crisis. Fueled (at least in part) by increased access to digital devices, online learning emerged as a strong alternative to traditional learning. To withstand tech-equity issues, problems of internet access, and the dizzying array of approaches to online instruction across states and schools, governments partnered with the private sector, boosting access to educational technology programs and digital learning.

Our world as we know it has changed, and how we impart learning to children has to change accordingly. The pandemic has highlighted multiple areas of improvement in the early learning landscape in India. How we bridge the learning gap will decide our children’s future and the future of India.

What have been your young learners’ experiences with learning loss during the pandemic? Comment below.

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Early Childhood Care and Development or ECCE. 

This term has gained much attention across India, a country that has long since taken strides to bolster early development with world-famous schemes like the ICDS scheme, and more. The NEP 2020’s focus on bringing early childhood education into the formal schooling framework serves to support such schemes, and revive interest in ECCE. While the focus is on providing equal access to early childhood education across the nation’s grassroots, this is only the first step towards becoming a literate India. What we need is equal access to quality early education.

Global and national organisations both heed this fact; renowned children’s social welfare organisation, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), always prefaces the word education with ‘quality’ across their policy documents and resources.

This, however, begs the question…

How Do We Define ‘Quality’ In ECCE? 

This definition differs from country to country, and even across the stakeholder groups, depending on values, socio-economic context, and more. Research has tended to use structural or process dimensions, or both, to gauge the quality of preschool programmes (Lamb, 1998). 

*Structural measures refer to staff–child ratios, staff qualifications, teaching experience and stability, health and safety factors, and the physical setting. Process measures include the quality of interactions between staff and children. These measures are then related to favourable child outcomes.

Low-quality Programs Hinder Progress

The research is clear; early experiences have a longstanding impact on children. To summarize, all brain development depends on what we have experienced before. All our neural pathways are formed as a result of repeated actions, and occur from the bottom up. These early experiences shape our learning capacities, our behaviours, and even our physical and mental health. When these early experiences — of which early education is majorly responsible for — are not supported by an adequate quality of ECCE, we risk our children’s future.

Square Panda India Recommends: How We Go About Implementing Quality In ECCE

• Trained ECCE stakeholders: There is strong evidence that enriched stimulating environments and high-quality pedagogy are fostered by better qualified staff, and better quality pedagogy leads to better learning outcomes (Litjens and Taguma, 2010). This suggests well-trained and well-educated adults are key to providing high-quality early educational programs for favourable child development. However, training is simply one factor that impacts child outcomes. It is the ability of the trained adult to create a holistic learning atmosphere and pedagogical environment that makes a difference in quality. This includes:
  – A good understanding of ECCE
  – Knowledge of how an early brain develops, and how early experiences impact learning
  – Supporting resources (like tools, infrastructure, and a strong early learning community) to reduce burden on educators and Anganwadi workers

• Content Backed By Early Childhood Research: Global research is clear; not only are the early years crucial to children’s development, but they also need to be supported by a stimulating and enriching environment. For a well-rounded development in these early years, ECCE programs need to include quality content that is based on the latest learnings in early childhood research. This curriculum needs to take into account the entire ecosystem that comes into play when a child begins to learn, and integrate multiple crucial components of early development into the programs.
  Read more about Square Panda’s research into neuroscience and the early learner.

• Measurable Outcomes: While driving up the accessibility to early education is a noble cause, attention must be taken to ensure high quality programs reach India’s children. Data from multiple countries share a cautionary note; evidence from high-, middle- and low-income countries alike demonstrates that even when access goes up, children’s outcomes do not always improve (e.g. Wong et al., 2013). Measurement is the only way to gauge if our early learning programs are having the required impact on children’s development. We can track outcomes at scale across the entire early learning landscape, customising the indicators of development as per each state. The data derived can then be used for actionable insights and corrective actions. 

As innovators of high-quality ECCE programs ourselves, we are uniquely positioned to partner with multiple stakeholders at different levels of India’s early learning landscape. Learn more about us and our NEP 2020-aligned programs at ecce.squarepanda.in.

*To view our approach to implementing our foundational learning and educator empowerment programs, read this article.

The largest child care program in the world, the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), is a powerful testament to our nation’s commitment to children and their development. Spanning each region in India, Anganwadi centres aim to reach children across rural areas and marginalised and disadvantaged sections of society. There are 1.36 million functional Anganwadi centres and over 25 lakh Anganwadi workers and helpers across the country. 

While initially conceptualised to address malnutrition problems and provide nutrition to young children and mothers, the Anganwadis have now evolved to include intersectoral collaboration between health and education. At present, these centres focus on food, nutrition, and early childhood education equally.

Why The Focus On Early Childhood Education?

A young child’s brain sees the highest period of brain development in the early years; if this development is not nurtured in a supportive environment, their growth can falter, causing irreparable damage and lifelong repercussions.

While recognising the important role of nutrition and food in the growth and development of children, our policymakers kept in mind the nature of ECCE, which involves a holistic intervention that covers health, nutrition, and foundational learning (including psycho-social and emotional needs).

As the primary care providers for a majority of the population — out of the 240 million children in India aged between 0-8 years, 74%, i.e., 178 million live in rural areas — Anganwadi workers truly are at the frontlines of early development.

These warriors have already proven their mettle while impacting nutrition across India. The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) calls them instrumental to child development for the role they play in fighting malnutrition.

The New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 recognises the immense reach and potential of these centres. The guidelines now require Anganwadi workers to impart pre-primary education to their charges, thus turning them into early years’ educators.

While a visionary thought, certain challenges impede a swift transition for the workers: adequate knowledge of ECCE, qualification and training dedicated to early childhood education, structured curriculum and resources, and an understanding of 21^st century skills and methodology.

Journey From Anganwadi Workers To Anganwadi Educators

As leaders in the early education space, we at Square Panda India believe we need a three-pronged approach to empower Anganwadis as the NEP 2020 envisions:

• Training And Skills Development: Anganwadi workers will need to be skilled in the pedagogy of today’s changing world, including adapting to a teaching-learning methodology that is more hands-on, experiential, and play-based. The main objective of this training should empower Anganwadi workers with knowledge of ECCE, including the neuroscience behind early learning, an understanding of various early childhood education schemes, and a well-rounded understanding of nutrition and how it affects learning and the young mind.

• Build An Early Learning Ecosystem: An early learning ecosystem cannot exist without the support of each of the early childhood education stakeholders – parents, pre-primary and primary teachers, principals, Anganwadi workers, administrators, and other early years’ educators. To create a nurturing environment for children, we need to combine the efforts of each of these stakeholders and build an early learning community to share knowledge and information, taking our early learning landscape to new heights.

• Hand-holding And Support: To ensure seamless transition from Anganwadi workers to Anganwadi educators, they  need to be supported by a network of resources that are easily available at their disposal. Technology and digital tools can be leveraged for a more comprehensive approach to reduce the Anganwadi workers’ burden. 

India has left its mark on the world and the early childhood development sector with the ICDS scheme. The Anganwadis have the power to break the vicious cycle of undereducation, and holistically develop children’s minds and health equally. All that is needed is our support, investment, and an enabling environment.

Square Panda India’s Anganwadi Workers Upskilling Program aims to empower Anganwadi workers, transforming these centres to their fullest potential for children’s holistic development. Learn more about our programs here.

Early experiences during the period of rapid brain growth until the child is eight can influence future learning, health, and behaviour. Studies conducted by the Harvard Centre for the Developing Child show us that a child’s brain makes one million new neural connections per second in the early years. Subsequently, children deprived of developmentally appropriate stimulus in these early years are at risk of lagging behind their peers.

Given the widespread agreement in research and education literature that discovery-based methods could be more effective in academic and cognitive development, play-based pedagogy is a powerful mechanism to support early learning. Numerous researchers agree that learning through play builds a foundation for creativity, intellectual growth, and problem-solving ability in children.

*Why is play-based learning so important? Read this article to find out.

The importance of play-based learning has been recognised by the New Education Policy (NEP) of 2020, which outlines an educational transformation based on the principles of a play-based approach to early childhood education.

However, simply sending children off to play will not culminate in them acquiring essential foundational skills. Facilitators are needed at each level of the early education landscape, from administrators, to teachers, and parents, if we are to insert effective play-based instruction into daily activities.

THE BENEFITS OF PLAY-BASED LEARNING

A quick glimpse at how play-based learning strengthens many areas of a child’s development:

WHAT SKILLS DOES PLAY-BASED LEARNING DEVELOP?

Much of the early learning programs developed by experts include experiential forms of learning, including play-based instruction. 

For instance, Square Panda India uses our expertise in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) to design a curriculum that strategically embeds play into our learning system. Our program weaves in gamification and storytelling as a part of our experience-based learning model, ensuring children are constantly engaged and enjoying their learning.

These play-based activities and learning games expose children to a new skill:

HOW CHILDREN LEARN THROUGH PLAY

By his own admission, Albert Einstein’s introduction to scientific inquiry came about accidentally, with play. This pivotal event occurred when he was just four or five years of age, stuck in bed due to an illness. Seeing his boredom, his father handed him a magnetic compass to play with, and Einstein spent hours twirling the compass this way and that, wondering why the needle kept pointing north. This experience left a lasting impact on his mind, leading him to believe that a greater truth was hidden behind everything.

“Play is a powerful instrument to guide knowledge and education, and is, in fact, the key to learning. We’ve seen the research, and have found through our own expertise and case studies, that play-based instruction enriches the early education experience while reinforcing essential skills like literacy and numeracy, inquiry, expression, creativity, experimentation, and teamwork.”

– Ashish Jhalani, MD, Square Panda India

Young children learn differently from adults, taking inspiration from pretense and their imagination. Play brings together the logical and creative parts of their brain. Children tap into various skills as they play, creating an outlet for stress and anxiety at the same time. They begin to communicate ideas, develop a foundation for literacy and math, understand vocabulary, learn about actions and consequences, build deeper understandings about social relations, and recognise how their initiative influences decisions and self-choice. Researchers have even found that play helps children regulate their own emotions, helping them think before they act. Their experience with play-based learning helps children become thriving adults capable of living in any range of personal and professional environments.

 “The heart (human values and ethics), the head (our minds), and the hand (our bodies), can be holistically balanced with play and activities”

Says early years’ author, educator, teacher trainer, and content developer, Sonia Relia

*Watch her educational series with Square Panda India, called Square Panda Thursdays, here.

The education space is evolving; early childhood educators, Anganwadi workers, and adults responsible for imparting education must strive to create a play-friendly learning atmosphere with an appropriate balance of play and academics to reach young learners naturally. This is the best way to bring tangible results to children’s growth. 

See how Square Panda India is helping ensure that today’s young minds become tomorrow’s visionaries: ecce.squarepanda.in

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