A Bridge Over Troubled Waters

A year full of challenges is nearly coming to an end, but the aftereffects are here to stay. While education in India has stepped up their act and have become digitally active to ensure that the students are kept engaged within the learning circle, they are able to do very little to ensure that learning is continuous and unbroken. There is an undercurrent of content being lost in translation and the impact of lost learning is being felt the most among the little learners who are just beginning their academic journey.

Most parents of pre-schools in Mumbai opted out of school during the pandemic while only a handful of them made successful attempts to settle their toddlers down to learn through the digital platform. The impact of this learning loss must be minimized. How can this be done when yet another year of uncertainty is on its way?

Do we know how to bring these little learners into mainstream schooling with minimum disruption in their academic journey? Now we do- A Bridge Course. A course that can help develop the fundamental skills of numeracy and literacy can be the answer to the problem.

During the early years what matters is the basic skills of reading, speaking, listening, writing and counting. If these fundamental skills are developed within the initial few weeks of the new academic year much of the learning gap can be covered.

The bridge course will ensure that the students acquire the prerequisite knowledge and skills that are needed to achieve the learning outcomes of their current grade. Not only this, but it will also provide a way for the teacher to conduct a diagnosis on the learning readiness of the students before transitioning to the content of the current year. The bridge course will contain fundamentals of phonics, blending and reading, decoding, and writing and spelling which are the core skills to build literacy in young learners. If these skills are developed, they will be equipped to handle subject matter of other advanced topics as well.

The pandemic has brought about a new way of living, and it is minimalistic in nature. So why not practice minimalism in education as well? By ensuring that time and effort are put on teaching and developing those concepts that are fundamental to learning the bridge course will help little learners gear up for their future learning. Podar Innovation Centre an initiative by the Podar International School which is at the center of driving excellence has begun developing one such bridge course for learners of Grade 1. With innovation as the only motive, Podar innovation Centre from the best school in India is set to break the barriers of regular curriculum and ensure that focus is shifted on key learning outcomes to the benefit of these little wonders.