Concepts and Challenges of

Literacy in India:
A Mini Handbook for Educators

UNESCO Workshop for Educators,

New Delhi,
April 9 – 10, 2016

Material Compiled by:

National Brain Research Centre (NBRC),
Manesar, Gurgaon – 122050,
INDIA.
Contact:
Dr. Nandini C. Singh: nandini@nbrc.ac.in
Dr. Chaitra Rao: chaitlee@yahoo.com
 Literacy in India: A Perspective from Educational Neuroscience
UNESCO Workshop for Educators
April 9 – 10, 2016

Literacy and Language in India

In today’s world, literacy is not only a key to success, it is becoming crucial for
survival. The UNESCO Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report of 2015
has ranked India among the few countries to achieve the goal of ‘universal primary
education’, with 99% of all children enrolled in primary school.

However, school enrolment is only a first step. In India, the challenge of teaching
children to read and write is magnified by the great cultural and linguistic diversity of
our population. Schools in most states across India have a minimum two-language
policy, wherein children learn to read in English and the official state language. Other
schools follow a three-language policy by teaching English, Hindi and the state
language, while a few even teach four languages.

Multilingualism and Multi-literacy

Before thinking that teaching multiple languages to children is a ‘problem’ to tackle,

it is important to remember that scientific research shows that learning two or more
languages leads to several lifetime advantages. Children who are bilingual have been
found to have better cognitive control—they are better at focusing attention on
relevant information and ignoring irrelevant information, and they are faster in
shifting their mindset from one type of task to another.1,2,3 Recent research has shown
that among older adults, being bilingual is associated with better mental functioning
in patients with neuro-degenerative diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s.4,5,6

At the same time, it is true that teaching a child to read and write in two or three
languages simultaneously is not easy, especially owing to the stark difference in the
structure and sounds of English compared to most Indian languages. The aim of this
mini handbook is to provide educators with a set of useful guidelines that can shape
the methods and goals of literacy instruction in the multilingual Indian context.

Education and Neuroscience

In the last few decades, research in cognitive science and neuroscience has made
exciting and important new discoveries about how children learn to read, write and do
arithmetic. For example, researchers have found that sound awareness, that is, being
able to separate and identify the sounds (phonology) of the language is a good
predictor of how well children learn to read and write. Children who are good at
rhyming games (Which two words rhyme? – PAN, MAN, POT) and at identifying
common sounds (Which two words start with the same sound? – PAN, MAN, POT)
usually find it easier to learn to read, and make faster progress.7,8,9

Neuroscientists have additionally shown that the connections between brain areas that
process spoken (sound) and written language (vision) appear to be stronger in
children with good sound awareness.10,11
Such research has led to the birth of a field called educational neuroscience. The
National Brain Research Centre (NBRC) in India is one of the institutions that is
involved in promoting research on literacy and numeracy in the Indian population. In
this mini handbook, NBRC researchers provide a summary of scientific facts and
figures about literacy in English and in Indian languages. By facilitating the transfer
of scientific knowledge to the classroom, we hope to aid educators in teaching and
evaluating the progress of children who are learning to read and write.

The Three Components of Learning to Read

Although we are all aware that reading in English is very different from reading in an
Indian language like Hindi or Tamil, most of us do not fully understand the nature of
these differences, nor how they impact the young mind learning to read. But in order
to understand the differences, it is necessary to remind ourselves of the common goal
and components of reading in all languages.

The goal of reading is to retrieve meaning from written or printed symbols. Thus, it is
a way of decoding spoken language from print. There are three important components
in learning to read – sound awareness, print awareness, and comprehension.

As previously discussed, sound awareness is the child’s ability to identify the separate
sounds of the language. Print awareness is the child’s ability to link these sounds to
written symbols (letters or aksharas). Evidence shows that print awareness is
supported by sound awareness. So, a child who can easily identify PAN and MAN as
rhyming words, and PAN and POT as sharing the same initial sound will find it easier
to learn that the symbol <P> stands for the sound /p/ and the spelling <AN> stands
for the sound /æn/.12,13

Finally, comprehension or understanding the meaning of written matter is essential,

since reading and writing are means of communication. Comprehension includes
higher level elements of language like grammar, semantics (meanings) and
pragmatics (rules governing practical usage of language). For a child learning to read,
comprehension is greatly aided by knowing the spoken language.14 Thus, for
example, a child familiar with spoken English can learn more easily that ‘b’ in
BOMB and ‘t’ in LISTEN are silent, because s/he has heard these words.

Reading in English vs. Reading in Indian Languages

In what ways does reading in English differ from reading in, say, Hindi? One obvious
difference is that English seems less “transparent” in its sound-to-symbol mapping
than Hindi. This means that a single English letter can have several pronunciations
(e.g., ‘a’ in PAN, CAR, WARD, ABOUT), and various spellings often represent the
same sound (e.g., the sound /ɔ:/ is underlined in NO, DOOR, SOAP, THROW). On
the other hand, Hindi has many more written symbols to learn. Not only must
children learn 48 basic aksharas, they must also master numerous secondary vowel
markers (maatras like ◌ी and ◌ू) and consonant ligatures (e.g., ◌ृ for ऋ and for र).

Aside from these outstanding differences, learning to read in English versus other
Indian languages presents several distinct challenges. Some of the most important
differences to keep in mind are presented below in the form of a chart.
 Reading in English Reading in Indian Languages, e.g., Hindi

large number of aksharas plus secondary symbols

1. small number of letters in the alphabet
for vowels and consonants

sound – symbol mapping not transparent; sound – symbol mapping transparent; one akshara
2. one letter
many sounds, one sound

one sound, one sound
one akshara
many letter groups (typically)
consonant letters represent only consonant consonant aksharas include a vowel sound, many
3. sounds, separate vowel letters necessary, words do not have vowel aksharas or maatras,
e.g., H+U+T = /hʌt/ e.g., ह+ट = /hʌʈ/
writing is nonlinear, i.e., maatras and ligatures are
writing is linear, i.e., letters are written from written at the top, bottom, to the right and/or left
4. left to right
of the akshara, e.g., खाल, खेल, खल, खुल, वाब
natural speech segments disrupted by nonlinear
natural speech segments (syllables) not
writing, e.g., भित (/bhʌk/+/t̪ i/) broken into 'भ' -
disturbed by linear writing, e.g., MASTER
5. = /ma:s/+/tə/, TELEPHONE = /bhʌ/ and 'ित' - /k;t̪ i/, वतु (/ʋʌs/+/t̪ ʊ/) broken
/te/+/le/+/fɔ:n/
into 'व' - /ʋʌ/ and 'त'ु - /st̪ ʊ/

Implications for Educators

The differences between English and Indian languages, as well as the educational
policy of bi- or multilingual education followed in India have important implications
for the strategies and expectations of educators in charge of literacy instruction:-

1. When learning to read in most Indian languages, a lot of time and effort is required
to master (i) the large set of written symbols and (ii) the complex visuospatial
layout (top, bottom, right, left placement and rules for joining) the symbols.15
Children may spend the first two to three (or even four) years of school in mastering
the entire set of symbols and rules for writing them.16

2. For reading in English, children need to be explicitly taught the mapping between
letters and letter groups (e.g., ‘oo’, ‘ea’, ‘au’, ‘gh’, ‘tion’) on the one hand and the
sounds that they represent on the other. Without detailed instruction using
examples, games and other activities, many children fail to make the connections
between sounds and symbols, and lag behind in reading.7

3. The most important goal of reading is comprehension. Therefore, it is absolutely

essential that a child learning to read in a language is able to understand the
spoken form of the language. For children from families with low parental
education, learning to read in English is a challenge; similarly, for those who speak
other regional languages, learning to read the state language is a challenge.17 Such
children must be given instruction in the spoken language first, through classroom
activities such as word games, story-telling, guided conversations and so on.18
Difficulties in Learning to Read

Among educators, it is a well-known fact that not all children are the same. In every
class, there are children who excel in academic subjects and others who exhibit talent
in co-curricular activities including sports, art and craft, music, dance and other areas.
Some children are versatile, doing well in both studies and other domains.

However, a few children appear to struggle in school—they lag behind in academics,

and do not come forward to participate in co-curricular activities either. Often, they
appear reserved and isolated from their classmates, and may sometimes exhibit
strange behaviour in the classroom, such as being unable to sit still or pay attention,
not following the teacher’s instructions, sometimes even disturbing other children.

Although not all children who exhibit this kind of behaviour fall into the same
category, a significant proportion of such children are likely to be at risk for dyslexia.
The term dyslexia describes a learning disability in which a child finds it difficult to
learn the basic skills required to read and write.

Children who are at risk for dyslexia are usually intelligent, and some are even gifted.
Due to a difference in the way that their brain processes information, they find it
difficult to learn the kind of sequencing and visuospatial information that is essential
for reading and writing. (Consider the importance of these elements in learning to
read: (i) order of strokes in a letter/ akshara, (ii) order of letters in spelling a word,
(iii) size of capital vs. small letters, (iv) size and position of basic aksharas vs.
secondary maatras and consonants, (v) orientation, i.e., which way each letter/akshara
should face, etc.)

Unfortunately, children at risk for dyslexia are often not identified in the formative
years of schooling. They may be labelled ‘stupid’, ‘stubborn’ or ‘lazy’. This kind of
labelling erodes their confidence. Often, these children struggle a lot during their
school life, because in most cases, our education system focuses on evaluating a child
through tests and exams which require good reading skill for successful completion.

Dyslexia is believed to have an alarming incidence of 5-10% of school-going children

worldwide. Early screening and diagnosis will reduce the trauma that a child at risk
for dyslexia has to face.

As stated above, children at risk for dyslexia are otherwise intelligent. They might
excel by adopting alternative learning methods of processing information. However,
it is important to note that not all of these children are able to learn coping and self-
compensating mechanisms. These children need the continued support of educators to
achieve their full potential.

Children at risk for dyslexia have a different kind of mind, differently gifted, but
productive, a mind that learns differently compared to other children in the class. If
their potential is channelled, our society can benefit by getting many more talented
and accomplished personalities. It is a well-known fact that many famous scientists,
scholars, businessmen and artists have been dyslexic, including Albert Einstein,
Thomas Edison, George Washington, Richard Branson, John Lennon, to name a few.
Screening Children at Risk for Dyslexia

Clearly, the importance of early identification of children who are at risk for
developing dyslexia cannot be over-emphasized. The sooner educators can identify a
child who is facing problems in learning to read and write, the better they can help the
child to learn using alternative methods, and the greater are the chances that the child
will achieve his/her true potential.

Every child is one caring teacher away from being a success story.

To achieve the objective of early identification of risk for dyslexia, a project called
Dyslexia Assessment for Languages of India (DALI) was sponsored by the
Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India. In collaboration with five
regional centres across the country, NBRC developed a set of simple, easy-to-use
tools that schoolteachers can use to evaluate the reading-related skills and behaviours
of children in their classrooms.

In order to cater to the multilingual context of Indian education, the DALI project has
so far developed tools in English as well as in three other Indian languages, namely
Hindi, Kannada and Marathi. These tools can be utilised in assessing literacy and
related areas of skill for children learning in two-, three- or even four-language
settings.

Two tools have been developed, called the Junior Screening Tool (JST) for children
in classes 1 and 2, and the Middle Screening Tool (MST) for children in classes 3, 4
and 5. Each contains a checklist in which individual items describe problems that
might be faced by a child in reading, basic arithmetic, communication, motor
coordination or general classroom behaviour. On each item, the teacher must give a
score based on how frequently the child has been exhibiting the described behaviour:-

♦ ‘0’ means that the child has never faced the described difficulty
♦ ‘1’ means that the child occasionally (sometimes) faces the difficulty
♦ ‘2’ means that the child persistently (almost daily) faces the difficulty

IMPORTANT: A teacher who completes either the JST or MST for a particular
child must have had a minimum of three months of direct interaction with the
child prior to filling out the screening tool.
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