<p>Last Saturday, Prem (class III) also joined us. We continued to play word games. Both Arbaaz and Prem are able to identify letters. Good stuff.</p>
We then moved to learning conversations. The approach we followed was we
assigned characters to ourselves, started conversations in Hindi, it was
very easy for kids to identify the replies to statements to like “Good
morning” or “How are you?” when asked in Hindi. Slowly we transitioned
to English versions of these. Let’s see if we can have a small story
next time.
**Interactivity** catalyzes learning. It is difficult for kids (7-8
years) to sit consistently and listen; as soon as we moved into a model
where learning was just another game, the process became fun and fast.
For instance - in the word game, we raced in two criteria: a) the number
of times you’d refer the alphabets list to identify a letter, b) how
fast you’d identify the letter and the word.
Then for a set of correct answers, we all would celebrate with hi5s or
short breaks ;) **Positive reinforcement** is pivotal. We do try to
repeat the act we get accolades for. [Whale
done](http://www.amazon.com/Whale-Done-Power-Positive-Relationships/dp/074323538X "Whale Done!")
is a great book relevant to this.
The most interesting part was where we **reversed roles** - my kids
became Teachers. And they taught me Telegu. It was fun, I was badly
struggling to identify letters, trying to use my Meta Indic language
skills to guess the letters. Kids would laugh and correct me :)
My father and I used to do this when I was a kid. He would teach me
maths, give a few problems. After I solve them, I would give him
problems which I thought were difficult, say adding/multiplying 10-12
digit numbers :P I would watch him solve and learn the tricks. And after
that the same problem won’t fall into \_difficult\_ problem category :)
I enjoyed every bit playing the games. Thank you kids.