Pratham Projects - Read India Campaign

English Program

The English Program targets children in the age group of 8-14 years and helps build their basic conversational skills and their ability to read simple texts with comprehension. At the end of this 8 month program children learn to pronounce alphabets and ‘known’ words correctly and build a vocabulary comprising of approximately 750 words and 1000 sentences. They also learn to ask 15 different types of ‘wh’ questions (‘where’, ‘what’ etc).

The program was piloted in 2006-07 and is now being scaled up across both rural and urban locations across the country. The classes are usually conducted in the community.

English is taught daily to the children for one hour, where 75% time is dedicated to listening and speaking and 25% on reading.  This pattern reverses as the reading ability of a child grows. Children are encouraged to speak only English. Pre, mid and post tests are conducted to monitor the progress of the children.