Technology will win future elections David Plouffe, President Obama’s top political and campaign strategist and the mastermind behind the winning 2008 and 2012 campaigns, wrote in a forward looking op-ed for the Wall Street Journal that future campaigns will increasingly be fought out on mobile devices as much as television and computers. He cited, how […]
It makes better sense to discuss this question directly with parents. The discussion that follows could be directly shared with parents, without any need to edit.The only one natural way to learn a language is to listen to it over and over again in daily routine; think of the way you learnt your mother-tongue. English […]
Learning to read lies outside the original repertoire of the human brain’s functions and requires a whole new circuit to be built afresh for every new reader.Reading transforms the human brain, which transforms the mind, which, in turn, transforms the life of the reader. Literally and physiologically, there is no genetic blueprint for reading – […]
How did you learn your mother-tongue? Almost magically! Just hearing your mother (and others in the family and neighbourhood) talking to you and others. To be true, no special effort is needed to learn one’s mother-tongue; merely hearing a language all the time is a necessary condition to learn it. The other part, the sufficiency […]
Estonia’s showcasing The digital society www.e-estonia.com Today’s governments are, for the most part, incapable of dealing effectively and justly with the complex global challenges of the 21st Century. Governance failures will not only cause suffering for today’s citizens, but will ripple through time, constraining the future for generations to come. Revolutions have recently ruptured decades-old […]
The following are the key insights into development of reading among children:1. Reading is a composite skill and at the broadest level it is composed of character recognition (or the graphic) skill and character to sound translation (phonological) skills. A good command over the two makes for good reading skills.2. A child can be trained […]
There’s bad news for parents – schools have only a secondary role in cultivating reading skills among children. Homes, role-modeled by parents, are the primary spaces for developing higher level reading skills. Reading is a highly intensive, non-reflexive, time-consuming and collegial activity, not suitable for competitive, time-tabled schools.Happily, nonetheless, schools remain the prime planner, assessor […]
Book Excerpt from ‘Embracing the Net’ The Internet is ranked by many as one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. Much as the other major technological inventions such as telephones, airplanes and computer chips have irrevocably changed our lives, so too will the Internet. In fact, the changes are only beginning, and as […]
Learning to read lies outside the original (i.e. genetic, by birth) repertoire of the human brain’s functions and requires a whole new ‘circuit’ to be build afresh for every child.Unlike vision or spoken language, there is no genetic blueprint for reading (literally and physiologically) and the brain changes itself to suit each individual reader’s medium […]
Few ever bother to look at the comparative advantages of the four vehicles of learning – doing, seeing, hearing and reading. There is little appreciation of reading as the primary mode of learning.Incidentally, in a proud moment for India, and a great mark of insight, for the first time ever an Indian Prime Minister, addressing […]
