Workshop-" Children as Active Readers and Authors of Books".

Learning Matters India organised the workshop, Children as Active Readers and Authors of Books for the teachers as well as parents on 28th November, 2015. This workshop was presented by internationally trained and experienced reading specialists, Sonya Phillip and Kelly Lindsay.

The workshop sought to enable participants to learn ways of entreating young children to becoming readers and writers, strengthening their understanding of the foundations of reading with writing experiences.

Books made by children present tremendous opportunities for children to learn the links between reading and writing. In no way can the concept be made more real than by enabling children to go through the whole process from an initial idea, through production to publication. To make participants comprehend this, various hands-on activities were offered for them where they got a chance to create books keeping a child's psyche in mind. The participants were made to work in groups.

[gallery link="none" ids="5989,5990,5991"]

The first activity organised for participants was A class book on names was . They were given a sheet on which they had to write their names , the initials of their names and two things they like to do starting with those alphabets. They were then asked to share what they wrote with the other participants. The sheets were later collected and bound as a book. A name was also given to the book along with the name of the author. We were told that this activity is very well suited for the pre-primary., especially since, when this activity is introduced, the child is enabled to recognise the alphabets that his/her name and those of their peers begin with.

Flip flaps are versatile, easy-to-make projects that offer the fun of manipulation and a hint of secrecy or surprise. Making of flip books was also done where participants were asked to make a flip book on a topic of their own choice. Participants came up with ideas for example, 1. A Riddles' book where riddles are on the top and the answers are inside 2. A " Character descriptions book in which the main characters of a story are drawn in front and the attributes of each character are under the flaps. Other ideas were story- sequencing books, a phonics' book, the life cycle of a butterfly book (E.V.S), skip-counting ( Maths) etc.

In the second half of the workshop, the story, Chrysanthemum was read aloud by the presenters to participants followed by an activity where participants wrote the first and the last letters of their names on a sheet along with the total number of letters in their names. They were also asked to draw a sketch of themselves and write one special characteristic about themselves. Later the sheets were collected and bound together as a book. The participants gave a name to the book along with the name of the author. As we understood, these activities involved interesting layers of learning i.e moral- based learning, self-discovery, etc.

Other varieties of books were also created by participants, including accordion books, pop-up books etc.

There is no better way for children to acquire literacy than through making books. Indeed, the exercise was very enriching and opened a great learning/ teaching horizon.

Ms. Srishti Bedi.