Memorising content does not help in building langugage skills

esterday me and eight year old had a good discussion on how language was tested before vs. now. I remember during my school days, we were expected to remember the stories and answer the questions by memorising and regurgitating on the paper.

The education is so different now where the kids are tested on their comprehension skills. Of course, the old way of testing students on their memory still continues in our education system.

When the students are expected to score good grades the entire focus is to memorise the content instead of comprehending the text. This way students might score well in exams but the comprehension still remains a challenge.

Students are expected to learn all the subjects in a a language that they fail to understand and thus they end up looking for online classes and tuition to make sense of the texts in their notebooks. This also prospers cheating and finding shortcut to gain more marks in their language.

My son started learning English with the help of phonics, he started reading without much difficulty. Its good to wait until the children start reading before we expect them to write pages of stories, and remember the stories in their textbooks.

According to Tribune India, "“An estimated 5 crore children currently in elementary school have not attained foundational literacy and numeracy, which is the ability to read and comprehend basic text and the ability to carry out basic addition and subtraction with Indian numerals. " This is a big number and tells a lot about why youngsters suffer in jobs without being able to communicate.

This is where you can think of reading skill as cracking a code that helps kids understand the pattern and lets them make sense of the words and their formations. As the  "Matthew Effect"in reading states, when children fail at early reading and writing, they begin to dislike reading.

According to Keith Stanovich “Lack of exposure and practice on the part of the less-skilled reader delays the development of automaticity and speed at the word recognition level.  Thus, reading for meaning is hindered; unrewarding reading experiences multiply; and practice is avoided or merely tolerated without real cognitive involvement.”

The teachers and parents really need to find ways and spend time to help children crack the literacy code and not just expect them to memorise the text to fetch good marks.

I have strongly believed in the idea of surrounding kids with books and stories, reading together, making reading a fun activity and not looked at something to be done as part of a punishment.

‍