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‘Apeejay showed us that alphabets alone won’t help your child read, you need a strategy’

Rambha Ojha, mother of Prashi Choubey, a KG student of Apeejay Saket, lauds the school for coming up with innovative teaching techniques to keep the little ones engaged

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Rambha Ojha with her spouse Praveen Kumar Choubey and daughter Prashi Choubey

Rambha Ojha is a former optometrist. She quit the profession to provide wholesome care to Prashi. Her husband Praveen Kumar Choubey is also an Optometrist (Senior) at Titan Eye Plus. In a candid interview, Rambha explains how her 5-year-old has made giant strides since joining the school.

What made you pick Apeejay?

Like many other parents, we too were particular about providing the best possible education to our child. We did an exhaustive online research and consulted our friends and relatives to pick the finest school for Prashi. For Nursery admissions, we applied to at least a dozen schools to give ourselves some back-up options. However, two schools, including Apeejay, were on our ‘dream list’. I was thrilled when Prashi got enrolled in one of our ‘dream schools’.

There is a whole batch of students who started nursery school during lockdown. How did the teachers respond when everything went online?

We too, like other parents, were worried as to how students will respond to online learning. However, as the time went by, I have noticed a remarkable improvement in Prashi’s personal and academic sphere. Her speaking and pronunciation skills have leapfrogged to the next level, all thanks to her new found confidence. We live in a nuclear family, so prior to joining Apeejay, Prashi was a bit introverted and reserved. Now she has no hesitation and can speak extensively on a given topic. The credit must go to her Nursery class teacher Ms. Nitika Sharma and KG class teachers’ Ms. Yash Walia and Ms. Heena Arora. They have come up with innovative teaching strategies that improve student engagement. Also, they have encouraged Prashi to participate in various co-curricular activities.

Tell us more about those innovative teaching strategies.

Like most parents we too didn’t know that phonics are not taught in alphabetical order. The sounds are taught in a specific order (not alphabetically). For example, s, a, t, i, p, n. Children learn how to convert letters or letter combinations into sounds, and then how to blend the sounds together to form words. This enables children to begin building words as early as possible. For instance, when faced with the word ‘cat’ a student will make the initial ‘k’ sound, then ‘a’, and, finally, ‘t’. Once the student has bisected the individual sound, they then spell them together to say the word ‘cat’. As a result, Prashi, when she was in Nursery, could spell 3 letter words with ease and even read simple English sentences. Apeejay showed us that alphabets alone won’t help your child read, you need a strategy. The teachers also recognise the importance of activity-based learning and other multimedia tools for the acquisition of knowledge. When students are engaged in the class, they learn more and retain more. Unlike other schools, Apeejay parents don’t have to fret about teaching their kids as they learn everything that’s being taught in the class. Though, such good teaching techniques will not work if teachers are not friendly or cordial with students. I am happy to state that Apeejay teachers are like second parents to students. Even parents share excellent rapport with them.  

Dheeraj Sharma is Asst. Editor (Newsroom). He covers events, webinars, conducts interviews and brings you exciting news snippets. He has over 10 years' of experience in prominent media organizations. He takes pleasure in the small things in life and believes a healthy work-life balance is key to happiness. You can reach him at [email protected]

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