The Department of Education, CTA has organized a five- day workshop on Early Grade Reading for pre-primary teacher trainees from 3rd to7th July, 2017 in International Guest House, Delhi University. There are 11 teacher trainees, selected and trained by DoE at Sherab Gatsel Lobling, Dharamshala and one primary teacher from STS Ponta who are participating in the workshop. The Education Officer, DoE, Ms. Tenzin Legzey discussed the significance of teaching Tibetan to pre-primary children in an interesting and dynamic manner. She welcomed everybody and conveyed the perspective of DoE on early grade reading.

The trainees are learning the importance of singing poems and telling stories in order to teach Tibetan to pre-primary children in an effective way. They are learning to write short poems and modify the existing stories according to the needs of the listeners. In story-telling session, all the candidates learnt to identify appropriate stories and tell them in an effective way. In poem based sessions, the trainees learnt to select appropriate poems and also write good poems for small children. Additionally, the trainees are learning how to bring classroom teaching closer to real life experiences so that every pre-school child may draw connections between the two. The participants will develop a fundamental understanding of various components of language and their modernized pedagogy that suits the needs of small children.

The participants are participating actively in the workshop. They are reading theoretical and practical articles and other resource material. The trainees are raising pertinent and relevant questions about how to lay the foundation of reading and writing Tibetan in the most effective way.

Dr. Latika Gupta, the resource-person, is Assistant Professor at Delhi University and works in the field of literacy education. She has been the resource person of DoE for all the EGR workshops. This project is being generously funded by USAID through the Tibet Fund.