Bookworm knows that to build a reading community, working with children is not enough – its focus must also be directed at Policy, educators and the wider community. In keeping with this mandate, Bookworm works with administrators, teachers and parent groups, through workshops and participatory sessions, to develop an awareness based on an understanding of using books in the classroom in creative ways.
Bookworm concentrates on working with the existing educational system and workshops are pitched at the professional development of the teacher within a system that is entrenched with fatigue and lack of innovation and intervention.
In India, individual States are compulsorily mandated and funded by Central Government to conduct a number of teacher training workshops during the year in specific areas of the curriculum. In Goa, Sujata Noronha is on a list of academics/practitioners (MRPs – Master Resource Persons) who get ‘plugged into’ State-driven programs to transfer understanding. As a consultant in Early Literacy, she travels across the country (lately to Rajasthan, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra) to share Bookworm’s methodology with organisations that are also aiming at promoting reading, either through centres within or outside of the school system.
As part of these programs, Bookworm is developing a range of documents to explain, and encourage others to follow, how books can be brought alive in the classroom, books can be linked with curriculum content, and stories can be used as building blocks to aid reading and writing. Educators and educational academics are invited to contact Bookworm if they are interested in finding out more about Bookworm and its resources.
