Flora Testimonies 14

Under this section I pen down my deepest impressions and tenderness that I feel for Flora. There are a certain instances where our kids do not fail to surprise us. It is in those crucial moments that we ascertain how distinctive and competent they are.

Flora, as Kris and I have always observed, has taken some of the best genes from each member of the family and used them to her individual understanding and development. I sincerely have my mother Dr. Sumati Khot to thank for her constant care and consultation. There is one child that we dream to have once parents know that they are expecting and when that very thought is sculpted and becomes a reality in the form of the purest angel, you start believing in one power – miracles. I strongly believe in Karma, therefore I am damn sure Flora was given to Kris and me with an indestructible reason.

There is a connection that I have never felt before. Not even with my own mother, perhaps it is the bond they speak of, of carrying your child for nine months.

With this strong belief that Flora was born with an aura around her we both decided to bring her up a bit differently. With the concept of emergent literacy catching momentum in India I was motivated to speak about this since we are raising Flora with this thought process in mind. Recently when one of my friends Sharduli, asked me if I knew about the same, I wanted to be vocal about how I am experimenting with this process. I wouldn’t say it is right or wrong and every parenting instruction you read on the internet, might or might not work for your child, however, it is imperative that you are aware of learning methods around you.

Emergent literacy promotes learning at early ages without the need to follow traditional methods. It focuses on inborn traits shown by toddlers and moulding them accordingly. These skills can easily be defined by DMIT tests and testing your child’s EQ, IQ, AQ quotients once they are 2+. Please note these are relatively scientific terms and keep changing as the child grows up and develops socially and mentally. Some of the things that I have practiced during this phase are, however just not restricted to reading in engaged ways even before she knew how to recognize letters, oral wordplay like rhyming in different languages, practicing three languages simultaneously with focus on two of them for communication purposes, pretending to write and draw even if I am not actually doing it, incorporating pretend play in her learning activities, focusing on developing one skill at a time, say for example, gross motor or fine motor without the actual need to know if she is imbibing it.

The focus is on developing phonological awareness in your kids before their school entry so that they can become indepenedent learners from an early age and reduce their dependency on human beings for knowing things. For example – we often appreciate kids who ask questions and deem them to be curious. But it so happens that if parents always answer their kids, kids are spoon fed and they lose their ability to solve problems by their own wit and wisdom. We should train our kids to ask questions and guide them to seek answers themselves through dedicated reading as in the Gurukul days. Nowadays of course with the onset of technology it could be reading them online on a Kindle or a Tab.

Nevertheless always asking Alexa, Siri or Google to answer a question is not at all the right approach. In this way we fail to give them exposure and the need to satisfy their curiosity with reading has umpteen effects. It will make them excel in any field.
Therefore developing these skills before the child enters primary school can make a kid love books and even have effective programming attitude within them from the scratch.

The process of reading and becoming literate (not educated) is actually related. You actually develop a gradual learning trajectory that produces learning outcome results. Emergent literacy as defined by Wikipedia helps in encompassing the knowledge, skills and attitude that a child develops in relation to reading and writing instruction.

How this basically helps is that consistent language interaction, consistent reading in various contexts makes them responsive and aware. As your child learns to formulate sentence structures, you will notice huge differences in their vocabulary size in all the target languages…. Basically paving the way for future Tharoors of this country. 😉

Jokes apart, this learning process is not at all stressful but such a great breather and blended learning approach even for the parents. We unlearn and relearn. I love doing that. That is why I affirm why I have learnt so much after being a mother.

All what I have said above is not just blatant theory but based on many experiments and experiences that I have had with Flora. The immense attitude towards reading and her curiosity towards story telling and enacting has made me affirm and believe in her experiential learning process. Flora has a good vocab size than an average learner and never fails to observe. She has learnt to seek answers herself and even learns without me or her father if given puzzles and mind solving games. She is certainly an independent learner. On the brighter side she also asks questions and has learnt the art of relating to stories in real life situations and implements them. She has imbibed qualities like sharing, loving, affection and even anger through these activities. She never fails to say thank you or please even at 2.5 yrs and knows the importance of bowing down before our Almighty.

I am not a certified psychologist to give anyone suggestions and advice on this topic, nonetheless, I am asked by many parents in my profession about the different kinds of methods I used for Flora while sharing her learning videos. There are a few things that I have observed in her since the experimenting began. Flora is capable of self criticism and distinct thinking. She is goal directed and persistent. When needed she is radical in her ideas otherwise a patient observer. The diversity of her interests and abilities like her father makes her focused. She has awareness about abstract and aesthetic values as seen from her behavior with elders and her age group. She is highly energetic and even impulsive when there are targeted levels of frustration when certain goals are not met.

On a humanitarian front I have also observed that she is eager to learn about moral judgement. While raising a kid, when we learn to bring them up as responsible and confident individuals the idea of seeing these changes in reality is really thrilling.

On a concluding note, I just want to put forth that no method of parenting is right or wrong, as each kid is unique and different.
Learning outcomes might differ, yet, there is no harm to try. You can discover a hidden gem within your kid 🙂

Happy learning 🙂 🙂

©Rucha S Khot

Eligible to write about learning outcomes being an educator – Pursuing M.Ed 🙂

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