What does a thirsty crow do when faced with a half-full of water? A smart crow instead of doing the many to-and-fro trips for pebbles, will look for a single straw, and slip away.

And what does the fox do, faced with grapes out of reach? He gets a ladder. No senseless high-jumps for him! We are dealing with modern day children, just won’t do to talk of long routes when there are short-cuts in plenty.

Forty five delightful story charts that recreate simple chapters from the Panchatantra and Birbal’s wise tales, and more, are regaling children in 1400 government schools of Bangalore, part of the Karnataka Learning Partnership Programme, these comprise the tools that are being developed in raising the reading levels of the children of classes 2-7.

As R.S. Umachagi, headmaster at the Government Primary School, Doddanekundi, says “where are the grandparents today to tell the stories? Nuclear families are depriving children of that pleasure. Hence, this technique is an instant winner with the children.” At the Nallupuram government lower primary school, where all the 50 students are from the neighbouring slums, a majority speak Telugu and Tamil. But, as headmistress Usha says, “The charts have helped improve their reading skills. Many have progressed from 0 [ordinary or zero] to word level.”

After 15 days, Mohammed of Class IV has gone from ‘0’ to ‘p’,
para] level’, while Ramachandra has gone from ‘0’ to ‘l’ [letter] level. Usha, like some others, feel that the charts could have been slightly different for classes II-V and VI-VII. Latha, who teaches at the Vimanapura Government Kannada Primary School, thinks that a child in a lower class could feel demotivated when unable to read what the child in a higher class can. However, one of the objectives of having all the classes reading the chart together was that the seniors could teach the juniors. Also, as a volunteer from Akshara points out, it is not necessary for the child in the lower class to read the full chart. But then again, a story can’t be left half-read!

Teacher Shantala at the Doddanekundi School relates how after completing 15 cards, some children stumble reading basic reader cards. Headmaster Honaiah of Vimanapura school feels that while direct teaching helps only bright students, the chart method helps even the weak ones.