Travelling all the way from Lucknow to the nation’s capital, a dozen tiny tots from Kindergarten to Grade 2 interacted with the media at the Press Club of India on March 23, 2022. .
Their demand: 100 per cent literacy for all of India’s children. The little ambassadors from Lucknow read the day’s newspapers with fluency in both English and Hindi. They also demonstrated their one-grade-up mathematical skills, leaving the witnesses awe-stricken.
At the press meet Dr Sunita Gandhi, a well-known educationist and innovator, who is a Ph D in Physics from Cambridge University, UK; and is a former Economist , The World Bank, USA shared details of a unique learning programme she has created that helped the children in improving their Foundational and Numeracy (FLN) skills.
Dr Gandhi said, "These kids have learned these foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) skills in just 30-hours over three months, and then they practiced for fluency. This is while the schools nationwide are trying to close the two year learning loss. To acquire these skills rapidly, the children have used the reverse methodology of Global Dream Toolkits and a paired learning process of Accelerating Learning for All or ALfA.
“Global Dream Accelerating Learning for All (ALfA) is dramatically different. We do not teach the alphabet. We go straight to words. Children decode by themselves. Teachers do not teach or tell they act as enablers." Dr Gandhi explained.