The Experience Story

What is the approach?

It is the ‘first hand’ elaborate approach that helps the child to move towards greater reading and writing proficiency with or without the help of a teacher/ adult. It is a process that leads towards or prepares a platform for “Creative or Process writing”. It involves all the four areas of language acquisition skills.It is a basic teaching technique in reading founded on the experiences of students; story is cooperatively written under the guidance the guidance of a teacher / adult; students dictate sentences about a common experience, whish the teacher writes on a large chart or the chalk board.

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Stages in the ‘Experience story’ approach:

• Give the children the experience. Do as much of “Teacher / Adult Talk”

at this stage. (LISTENING)

• Let the children talk about their experience. Stress on the sequence /

order of events. (SPEAKING)

• As a teacher / adult, you write down all the things the children have

said “Verbatim on a chart. Get the kids to read it as often as possible.

(READING)

• Alternately, ask the children to write about it in their own words if they

are feeling “upto it”! (WRITING)

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A note on “VERBATIM”:

The reason for writing what children speak in the very same way that they say it, is, that it shows them the close relationship between speaking and writing. This in turn makes it easier for them to express their thoughts in print, as they get older. Besides, when it comes to writing (a highly creative process!) there is a strong sense of ownership to the written piece which evokes statements like “You know I told this sentence to teacher!” or “That’s my sentence!” which, needless to say, provides a strong motivation to read and write creatively.

“What I hear I forget,

What I see I remember,

What I do I (experience) I understand”

(…and whatever a child understands he/ she always remembers; never forgets!!)

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