Is your child learning in school? A checklist

BASANT KUMAR MOHANTY, TT, What should you expect your child to have learnt when she completes Class I? Or, say, Class VI? The National Council of Educational Research and Training has the answer. The NCERT, which prepares curricula and textbook for schoolchildren, has come up with a chart providing class-wise learning targets from Class I to Class VIII. It will ask the Union human resource development ministry to have every school, private or government, in every state display the chart on its walls for the benefit of the parents, children, teachers and the school management. The NCERT will also conduct an annual National Achievement Survey that will test every child in every class from I to VIII. Currently, it’s done once in three years and tests only a sample of children from Classes III, V and VIII. Here are the principal class-wise benchmarks:

Class I

• Single-digit addition and subtraction
• Recognition of alphabets in mother tongue and second language (English)
• Spatial vocabulary such as in and out, tall and short, up and down

Class II

• Adding and subtracting two-digit numbers with answer not exceeding 99
• Reading text and understanding the meaning
• Recognising the different sounds a letter makes within different words
• Reading of a clock (only hour and half-hour marks)
• Observing the characteristics of shapes and figures

Class III

• Adding and subtracting three-digit numbers with answer not exceeding 999
• Multiplying two-digit numbers
• Single-digit divisions
• Complete reading of a clock
• Understanding length measurements
• Reading informational text such as newspaper headlines
• Writing letters, stories

Class IV

• Adding and subtracting four-digit numbers
• Recognising fractions like 1/2, 2/3
• Double-digit divisions
• Understanding volume measurements in litres and millilitres
• Learning to use a simple (pictorial) dictionary
• Reading and writing fluently 
• Understanding transactions of currency up to Rs 100

Class V

• Operations using five-digit or larger numbers
• Knowledge of the decimal system
• Forming an opinion about a literary work such as a story or a poem
• Knowledge of social concerns, constitutional rights and duties
• Rudimentary knowledge of geometry: lines, planes, points, triangles, etc

Class VI 

• Knowledge of negative numbers
• Algebra
• Operations in percentage
• Calculating profit and loss
• Calculating simple interest
• Familiarity with properties of geometrical shapes such as triangles and rectangles
• Internet access
• Understanding and using grammar

Class VII

• Hypothesising and providing justifications for the hypothesis (for example, explaining the reasons behind certain arithmetical truths)
• Advanced algebra
• Learning to use a complex (ordinary) dictionary
• Calculating compound interest 
• Critically reviewing literary works

Class VIII

• Complex calculations on interest, discount
• Thorough understanding of the number system including natural numbers, integers and other rational numbers, and operations using them
• Understanding the properties of numbers
• Summarising text
• Write-ups and reports on incidents
• Writing essays
• Proving theorems relating to numbers and geometrical shapes.