On 11 September 2020, Primer Minister Narendra Modi talked about many highlights of the New Education Policy including focus on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN). He said that FLN mission under new policy targets all children to acquire FLN skills. Most importantly, he mentioned learning outcomes in early literacy and used the term – oral reading fluency. Probably, this is the first time in India when a prime minister talks about one of the most critical learning outcomes in early literacy – oral reading fluency (ORF).
In western countries, top leaders talk about learning strategies and curricular changes in their speech, but in India, this is something very new and indicating a new approach towards achieving foundational learning goals in the country. How will focus on oral reading fluency affect the existing curricular approach in teaching literacy?
Why is PM Modi Batting For Oral Reading Fluency?
PM Narendra Modi said that a grade 3 child should attain oral reading fluency of 30-35 words per minute to understand the texts s/he is reading. ORF is a very critical skills in early days of literacy acquisition and is calculated as number of correct words read by a child in one minute.
Let’s understand by an example, if a child reads a texts 50 words in one minute but he is able to read correctly only 39 words, then his oral reading fluency is 39 words per minute. Fluency includes three components - speed, accuracy and expression.
Renowned researcher Helen Abadzi, who worked with World bank and UNESCO on oral reading fluency, tells “The faster one reads a message, the more time one has to put it into the working memory, connect it with prior knowledge, and thus understand it. People who read beyond a minimum speed can understand the text because the mind is able to hold a message long enough in working memory, contemplate it and bring out of long-term memory relevant knowledge to interpret it”.
What is the ideal rate at which a child would be able to understand a text s/he is reading in Indian languages?
Not much research evidences are available on fluency rate in Indian languages. In English, oral reading fluency is supposed to be 45-60 words per minute by the end of grade 2.
Can all children who have oral reading fluency above 60 understands the texts they are reading? Of course, not! Just fluency in reading does not help if child does not have good language comprehension skills. If you don’t understand your language orally, even a very good oral reading fluency does not work in understanding a text.
Status Check on What Children Are Learning in India
We don’t have any national level data by any agency to understand where we are at the moment. This is unfortunate for a country like India that we have made a target without having any substantial data of current status.
But we all know that we are far behind in achieving in learning outcomes in literacy and numeracy. For years, ASER report have been showing that there has been deep learning crisis in literacy and numeracy in India. ASER exercises an evidence-based assessment criterion for assessing Literacy and Numeracy in India.
Last year’s report tells that only 51% children of grade 3 are able to read grade 1 level texts, which means 49% children are still not able to achieve grade 1 level competencies in reading even after spending 2 years in schools.
Similarly, in Numeracy, 28% children of grade 3 are not able to recognize 2-digit numbers, a competency that is targeted to be achieved in Grade 1 only.
FLN mission’s goal for achieving literacy targets by 2025 is surprising. Reducing this wide range of learning deficit and making call children acquire literacy and numeracy is extremely difficult in just 4-5 years. It demands a significant time in improving classroom process and changing teacher’s belief, attitude and practices in the literacy classrooms.
Why Focus on Just Fluency Can Impact Learning
Many literacy projects have shown a very significant improvement in fluency rate but they still unable to achieve the outcome of comprehension. One of the reasons behind this gap is less focus on oral language skills of children compared to focus on word identification.
In multilingual countries like India, focus on fluency may take away from focus on oral skill development. Any national focus on just fluency would create a wider gap in reading comprehension as a whole. Fluency can be given due focus, at right time but development of children’s oral language should not be compromised anywhere.
At present, the approach to teach literacy mentioned in NCERT documents is contradictory to the approach that will require for fluency-based learning outcome.
National Curriculum Framework 2005 published by NCERT, which serves as a guiding document, advocates an approach which is based on the assumption that child will acquire literacy naturally and letter-sound association should not be forced.
This approach is generally called ‘whole language approach’.
Whole language approach is against the use of instruction to teach letter-sound association in teaching literacy in early years. This approach is totally in contrast with the approach in which a fluency-based outcome is achieved. In fluency-based outcomes, correctness of letters-sound association is key factor in determining the rate of fluency. Learning modules which use fluency as outcomes provide instruction on accuracy of letter-sound knowledge in the early days of schooling.
Targeting FLN for all children by 2025 is a political idea which does not take account of the preparation required for adopting and enabling classrooms for new curriculum and approaches.
(Ramesh Chandra is Associate Director, Language and Learning Foundation, New Delhi. This is a blog and the views expressed in this article are that of the writer’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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