Weaving stories, opening worlds
Menaka Raman
Ten-year-old Alka goes to a learning centre run by an NGO in Delhi every week. The centre has a digital library with many books pre-loaded on to the computers. One day, while browsing, Alka and her friends came across a book called ‘How do Aeroplanes Fly’ and read it start to end non-stop. The book covers aspects of aerodynamics and how aeroplanes are built, but Alka’s biggest takeaway from the book was the fact that women can also fly planes!
Alka’s story is not unique. Books appeal to different people in different ways. And there is no one way that books impact us. This is especially true for children who are naturally blessed with a vivid imagination and curiosity about the world around them. Books fuel this imagination and curiosity whether in print or on a device.
The digital library at Alka’s learning centre was made possible thanks to StoryWeaver by Pratham Books.
StoryWeaver: Unfettered access to joyful stories
StoryWeaver is a digital repository of openly licensed, multilingual stories for children. The platform provides teachers, librarians, parents and story lovers free access to multilingual stories that engage and delight young readers. With thousands of stories in over a hundred languages spanning a range of genres and four reading levels, there’s something for every kind of reader on StoryWeaver. And importantly, there’s something for every kind of teacher too!
A free teaching resource
From enhancing listening and reading skills to helping learners expand their vocabulary to encouraging budding authors to flex those writing muscles, StoryWeaver serves as a good teacher resource and lends itself to multiple uses in classrooms and learning centres. Educators also use books from StoryWeaver to expose children to joyful reading material with an Indian context – characters and settings they can actually relate to.
With new stories being added every day, StoryWeaver is virtually a never ending library of stories which provides teachers and librarians with a growing pool of contextual resources that can be easily integrated into lesson plans and workbooks. For e.g., a story like Dum Dum-a-Dum Biryani! written by Gayathri Tirthapura and illustrated by Kabini Amin while primarily being a story about maths, also has a boy cooking and the girl being good in maths, hence breaking gender stereotypes in a subtle way. The story also has a lovely undertone of children helping out a sick mother, as well as rising up to the challenge of cooking for 24 guests! And all this while talking about multiplication and division!
Nurturing language skills
The Listening-Speaking-Reading-Writing (LSRW) framework is used globally for language learning. In classrooms, this framework can be used to expose children to all four aspects of the language they are learning and stories are a great tool to do so.
StoryWeaver’s recently launched Readalongs takes engaging level 1 and level 2 stories, ideal for young readers, and adds a natural voiceover and same language subtitling to them. This allows emerging readers to both listen to the story and read it at the same time, strengthening their reading comprehension and fluency.
Teachers can also encourage their students to create stories by using the openly licensed images on StoryWeaver as writing prompts. This helps students develop their writing skills and give space for their imagination to spread its wings.
An ever growing digital library of books
Many teachers use StoryWeaver as a digital library or to create one of their own. By accessing the platform when online, teachers can use the filters to find stories in a particular language, reading level and theme. If access is an issue they can download stories and save them on networked computers that can be accessed by students and colleagues. At the Akanksha Foundation School in Pune, a similar method has been used. Folders are sorted by themes, reading levels, subjects and language, making content easy to find. Another option is to use the Offline Library feature, which allows users to store up to 12 books per device and access them when offline without losing even a bit of the StoryWeaver experience!
Finding content easily
With new stories added to StoryWeaver on an almost daily basis, navigating the plethora of stories can be a challenge. To save teachers time, there are close to 50 curated reading lists on the platform. The lists have been curated along themes and for some themes more than one list exists across reading levels so that the same topic can be taken to learners at different levels. Each story in each reading list also has a suggested activity and a tip on how the story can be used in the classroom.
New stories in new formats
With mobile phones rapidly emerging as a means of content delivery, especially in rural areas, StoryWeaver has invested in exploring new frontiers in how stories are presented to children. Last year the platform debuted PhoneStories, fun and engaging serialized stories that were best consumed on handheld devices. The first set of books were by Sejal Mehta and Rohan Chakravarty and introduced children to India’s rich fauna. The second series followed the adventures of a kind hearted PT teacher called Miss Laya and was created by Mala Kumar and Abhishek Choudhry. The animated audio-visual books are ideal for small circle read aloud sessions and are perfect quick ice breakers for introducing certain topics to the children.
Three recently launched GIF books used GIF technology to make every page of every book dance and move, adding magic to the child’s reading experience.
Stories for all learners
Thanks to the open nature of content on StoryWeaver, teachers working with children with special learning needs can also use the content on the platform. Organizations assisting children with hearing impairments develop their English language competency by introducing the books to the children and giving them a general description of the topic. They go on to read the book with the students using some visual effects and end the discussion by asking the children to review the book and share their learnings with each other! In sum, StoryWeaver offers an interesting way to introduce new topics in the curriculum, help children improve their reading fluency, and engage them in the world of ideas through a diverse range of stories.
Book and Activity
Book: Anna’s Extraordinary Experiments with Weather
Summary: This is the story of Anna Mani, one of India’s most renowned weather scientists, her love for books and her experiments.
Introduction in class: Kids, have you ever seen a weather report on TV? (wait for responses)
Where do you think the news channels get all this information from? (wait for responses)
Today, we will read about someone who made it possible for us to know more about the weather. Ready?
Read the story aloud
Book related Activity: Let’s take inspiration from Anna Mani, shall we? And let’s try to make an actual weather instrument.
Students can do this experiment in class: Rain Gauge
Materials: Empty plastic cylindrical bottle, 30-cm plastic scale/ruler, paper cutter/knife.
Instructions:
a) Cut the top of the bottle to get a cone-shaped funnel.
b) In an open area (playground, terrace), place the bottom part of the bottle in the middle of four bricks (to hold it in place)
c) Place the funnel on the top of the bottle (with the narrow side inside the bottle)
d) Wait for it to rain or drop water from a watering can for a fixed period of time. Once it stops, measure the rainfall in the bottle using the scale.
For more information, see: http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/toys/raingauge.html
The author is a former advertising copywriter, occasional marathon runner and columnist. Her two sons have forced her to overcome her fear of heights, bugs, and long division. She can be reached at menakaraman@gmail.com.