Why does teaching and learning of decoding the script continue to bother us as teachers and as learners? We spend a lot of time teaching for this, yet, we grapple with low outcomes when we assess basic reading among children. Where does the problem lie and how do we find appropriate solutions? Do we simply say that exposing children to a text-rich environment lead to magical learning outcomes? It cannot be that simplistic. At the same time, teaching decoding cannot be limited to teaching the letter-sound connections, or akshar gyan, while we lose sight of other equally important aspects of early language curriculum. How, then, do we ensure we have a balanced approach to teaching decoding?

The theme ‘Decoding the Script’ was dedicated to exploring these questions and many others. Blog pieces were organised to set the context to what decoding entails, what are the factors we need to consider when we try to point out possible reasons for the many challenges teachers and learners face - such as the dwelling on the idea of the unique nature of Indian scripts and challenges they pose for teachers as well as learners. Then we moved on to understanding the nuances involved as we get deeper into decoding or breaking down the idea of the script. We tried to see if we could identify any developmental patterns most children go through as they learn to read and write the script, any difficulties children typically face as they begin to learn a particular script. We also had some insights on phases of word reading in Indian languages presented as an outcome of a recent study. This was followed by a few pieces that outlined some practices from the field tried and tested by people who have dedicated a lot of time and energy to support children with reading.

As we conclude, let’s stop to contemplate what we have learnt, what we see in a new light, and what aspects we missed addressing and how we can take this up.

Shuchi Sinha, through her piece, ‘The Nature of Scripts’, helped us understand the three kinds of scripts commonly found across the world. She highlighted what is unique about the nature of Indian scripts - they are alphasyllabic in nature. What does teaching and learning them feel like and what challenges would such scripts pose? The idea behind this somewhat theoretical piece was to make familiar, through a better understanding of concepts, what sounds alienating to most practitioners.

Shailaja Menon and Harshita Das presented an overview of phonological and phonemic awareness . Through this we understand that oral speech can be analysed in smaller units of sound, such as words, syllables, onsets and rimes and individual phonemes. Broadly called phonological awareness, this is very important to the success of every reader. Learning to decode the script involves understanding the relationships between the sounds and the symbols, and it is not enough to teach the symbols without helping students grasp how they can become aware of and manipulate the sounds. This piece also offers some useful strategies to support the teaching of phonological awareness to young children.

Sonali Nag, in her piece ‘Early reading in Kannada: The pace of acquisition of orthographic knowledge and phonemic awareness’ highlights some key findings from a longitudinal research study conducted by her team of researchers on reading acquisition in Kannada. This is an attempt to fill the gap in our knowledge about the acquisition of Indian scripts. Reading this piece helps find some answers to questions as to why children find it difficult to learn a complex script such as Kannada, or for that matter, most Indian scripts.

The LiRIL team - Sajita S, Neela Apte and Shailaja Menon, presented an overview of key findings on the various phases of word reading in Indian languages. This piece presents findings from the study, a first of its kind, that adapted Ehri and McCormick’s Western approach of the five phases of reading to the Indian context. They highlight some important implications for teachers. For example, children don’t learn the script all at once, and any predictable errors they make should be considered developmental markers, which should be used to aid the child’s progress. The study also found that children take the first four to five years of schooling to acquire fluency in Indian scripts. This means more time has to be dedicated to teaching reading and writing of Indian scripts than it is currently done. Considering the scripts offer different kinds of symbols,- they suggest that maatraas and moolaaksharas be introduced side by side  in early grades so that children learn them simultaneously, and that samyuktaaksharas used in common words be introduced as sight words from earlier on. Further, they reiterate that it is important to give equal importance to other aspects of a balanced literacy curriculum besides decoding a script.

Keerti Jayaram from Organisation for Early Literacy Promotion (OELP), Nilesh Nimkar from Quest and Maxine Berntsen from her time at Pragat Shikshan Sanstha each present extremely useful insights for teaching emergent learners how to decode the script, from their experience on the field.

Keerti, giving us a detailed overview of the Varna Samooh Approach devised by OELP, also suggests ideas we could adopt in our classrooms and makes other key recommendations. She advocates that the child’s home language and real-world experiences be given utmost importance in the classroom and that these be linked to reading and writing activities. This will help children transition from home language to the language of the school. She suggests that we keep classroom experiences as authentic as possible so the processes seem relevant and purposeful to learners. We need to provide opportunities for strengthening reading comprehension and higher order thinking skills through rich and interactive conversations.

Nilesh Nimkar, highlighting the challenges a teacher faces as she teaches decoding of an alphasyllabic script, shows how daunting an experience it is for the children, how unfair it is to expect children to learn the script through meaningless repetitive means and rote learning. He presents an alternative teaching strategy devised by Dr. Maxine Berntsen and adapted by QUEST. This way, instead of teaching the entire Varnamaala at one go, the aksharas are introduced in groups with some maatraas in a way that the children can decode controlled yet meaningful texts that consist of words close to the children’s spoken language before they master the Varnamaala. The focus in this approach is on meaning making as against an approach that emphasises on script acquisition alone. He also writes that given the diverse and multilingual nature of our classrooms, any approach such as this also offers many challenges. However, one could take steps towards making classrooms innovative spaces where knowledge generation is given utmost importance and where working in collaboration is key.

Dr. Maxine Berntsen gives us a brief overview about the Pragat Shiksha Sansthan (PSS) approach she devised as she engaged with children over many years in the first of her two-part blog. And in her second, she goes on to give us details about how to teach akshar gyan using the PSS approach to teaching literacy in Indian languages. She reiterates that a systematic teaching of letter-sound connections have to be taught but, in doing so, one should not lose sight of other aspects such as discussion, storytelling, read-alouds, browsing books, drawing and painting, craft, drama, songs, riddles and play in the language classroom. While language instruction should be rigorous, it should also contain a variety of activities and approaches that touch on lives of children, and should take into account children’s needs and interests.

Finally, we come to aspects we did not address. We wish we could touch upon aspects such as assessment of reading fluency, and how best to teach fluency through practices such as guided reading and shared reading. Our focus was mostly on teaching of the Indian scripts and the challenges thereof, and so we could not talk about bringing a fine balance as we approach teaching both an Indian script as well as that of English. It would have been ideal if we touched on the teaching of English as a language in a primary grade classroom, where the language is not only new to the learner but to the teacher as well. We urge readers to give us feedback on our blog posts on the theme. We also hope to hear from you about experiences or stories that you may want to share.

We thank all our contributors for making time to write for us. It has been extremely insightful a journey for us at ELI, and we hope has been for you as well.