Make use of summer holidays, teach children Urdu or another language

Shams Ur Rehman Alavi

This post is for parents and elders, reminding them that summer holidays are the best time in the year to teach kids, a language.

Especially, the mother tongue. You can teach an extra language and I am writing for Urdu, because in many Indian states, children don't have the option to learn Urdu in schools.

The third language in schools is generally not Urdu. Hence, they are unable to learn it properly. It is time to sit with kids and teach them Urdu.

In Muslim households, Urdu words are known, grammar is known and it is spoken. What is needed is just to read the script and write. So for that, just a small effort is needed.

Barely 20-30 min a day, it doesn't take more. As most kids are familiar with the script too because they learn the Holy Quran [Arabic], it is even more easy. But it needs a bit of discipline and patience. 

You have to do it each and every day. Within a couple of months, the kid would definitely pick up enough. I had written a similar post on this blog five years ago. Check the link below

READ: Teach kids an additional language or their mother tongue in vacations

Subscribe to children's magazines. Kids like them, make them read. You can start with a Urdu primer also. There are many Urdu magazines in India. NCPUL's Bacchon Ki Dunia, Hilal, Noor, Umang and Payam-e-Talim have good circulation.

LIST OF CHILDREN'S MAGAZINES IN URDU IN INDIA

1. Bachchon ki Dunia, Delhi
2. Umang, Delhi
3. Noor, Rampur
4. Hilal
5. Naya Khilauna, Kolkata
6. Ghubbara
7. Butul [focuses on girls, more]
8. Payam-e-Talim
9. Gul Bootay
10. Sada-e-Atfal
11. Achha Saathi
12. Fankar
13. Guldasta-e-Talim

Why there are no cartoons for children in Urdu magazines, newspapers?

اردو میں چارلی براؤن کیوں نہیں ؟
I feel the decline in circulation of Urdu newspapers in India is due to the fact that except politics, protests and religion they don't carry any other thing properly.

There is nothing for children. No cartoons, no comics. I have never seen Charlie Brown or Archies in Urdu papers. Till a few decades back, there were cartoon strips in magazines like, Khilauna.

But now there are no such magazines either. The social magazines or other journals also publish the children's corner, but there are no comics.

Short stories, poems are fine but cartoons immediately draw the attention of the kids. If there is a comic strip the child will read it, get used to the script at an early age and get addicted to the Urdu paper as well.

I wish that the editors of mass circulated daily newspapers like Roznama Sahara, Munsif, Siasat, Urdu Times, Inquilab, Akhbar-e-Mashriq, Aag, Salaar, Etemaad and Azad Hind realise it.

This post was published long ago. A good news is that now there is attention towards the lack of cartoons in Urdu magazines.

For more update, read these two posts, written much later. It shows that there is no need for pessimism, as individual efforts can also go a long way towards changing the situation:


1. First Urdu website dedicated to children's comics and cartoons
2. Children's magazine: Bachchon ki Duniya launched, contains colourful comic strips, cartoons