ABSTRACT
The period of lockdown associated with Covid-19 spread was a time of emotional breakdown for human beings, especially children. The article attempts to state how technology enabled reading can give relaxation to the children and also how they will automatically develop their linguistic skills through this process of reading. The article recommends the usage of E-books, E-readers,journals and digital libraries to ensure the easy availability of reading materials for children.
KEY WORDS: Pandemic, stress, technology enabled reading,linguistic skills,mental stress
INTRODUCTION
“The Covid-19 pandemic has spread worldwide, has made millions of people sick and triggered an international response spearheaded by WHO to halt its spread.From Wuhan, China it spread like wildfire.The virus has now visited almost every country in the world,bringing about death and debility.Covid 19 is presently ravaging the whole world without sparing anybody. Somehow or the other, almost every person in the world has been affected,” (Koley and Dhole, 2021).But the age group who are the worst affected was children .Children were forced to live within the four walls of their house. They were forbidden from going to school, playing with their friends or even from spending some time outside.Along with the threat of Covid-19, they also faced the much larger threat of depression and absence of mental well being.”The Covid-19 pandemic has affected us both physically as well as emotionally, be it adults or children. The lockdown was a big transition, necessitating variable degrees of adjustments. This ‘adjustment’, by definition, is stress. For children, uncertainty, social isolation, lack of peer to peer interaction and no outdoor activities have led to signs of irritability, boredom, anxiety, depression, stress, fear, worry, and other negative feelings. “(Taneja, 2020)
IMPORTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY ENABLED READING
The best means to relieve mental stress of children in the lockdown period is to encourage them to spend time reading. Reading is one of the four language skills along with listening,speaking and writing.”Reading is an extraordinary achievement when one considers the number of levels and components that must be mastered.”( McNamara, 2007) It is process by which we gather information,entertain ourselves and enhance our linguistic skills. Because of the recent advancements in the technological field, numerous opportunities are available for children to engage in reading, even when they are not able to access libraries physically. The first one is the chance to access E- books or electronic books. Electronic books are seen to promote literacy skills and reading skills in students. “As the literacy world adapts to the transformation of reading options offered by ebooks, the choice of reading on paper or screen seems rarely to be an ‘either/or’ situation for most readers, with each form of reading suiting a different situation. However, it is important to recognise that the use of electronic texts is becoming an increasingly important part of students’ literacy learning, and the number and quality of ebooks available for children and young people to read for pleasure is increasing year on year.”( Picton,2014), Here comes the importance of e- readers such as Kindle in fostering the reading skills of students.
Another means to enhance the reading skills of children is to encourage them to read blogs. A blog is a regularly updated webpage or website. Blogs give a platform for students to improve reading comprehension skills and also to improve their literary skills. By accessing blogs, children can maintain an up- to-date track of recent events, familiarise with reviews of famous books and become autonomous learners. Thus blogs become pathways to wide vistas of the literary world.The blog software is easy to use and can be a motivational tool for learners. “As students seek out and read the blogs of other bloggers, they will need to develop their reading skills and learn to be critical of what they are reading, thus again developing their literacy skills”( Clughen and Hardy, 2012)
Also the reading skills of students can be enhanced by accessing online or digital libraries. A digital library is a collection of textual, numeric data, scanned images, graphics, audio and video recordings that provides access to digital collection for ease of retrieval of information to the users. Digital library is characterised by features such as flexibility and ease of accessibility. In India we have National Digital Library of India which is a project under the Ministry of Human Resource development of the Government of India.
CONCLUSION
“The experience of stress is so unavoidable that attempts to eliminate all stress would simply create more stress….Even small steps towards stress relief can bring great pay offs, as they lead to a chain reaction of positive change.”(Scott, 2013). Reading is one such means to remove stress and improve mental health of children especially in this period of Covid-19. Through the strategic use of technology that the children possess, they can make it a fruitful period of acquiring linguistic skills such as creativity, vocabulary expansion, broadening of perspectives and thus attain a purgatory effect. In addition to this, reading promotes cognitive development and cultivation of values among children.In short, reading gives pleasure to the young hearts of little children and make them well equipped with a sagacious attitude and good literary skills.
REFERENCES
Hardy,.C & Boulton.,H.Writing in the Virtual Environment.Writing in the virtual environment - CORE.https://core.ac.uk/Display/30636812
Koley, Topos., & Dhole, Monika.(2021). The Covid-19 Pandemic:The Deadly Coronavirus Outbreak.Routledge.
Taneja, Vikas.(2020, November 20). Is the Covid-19 Pandemic Making Children Introverts. The New Indian Express.Is the Covid-19 pandemic making children introverts? | Parenting News,The Indian Express.
Picton, Irene.The Impact of E-books on the Reading Motivation and Reading Skills of Children and young People.https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED560635.pdf
Scott, Elizabeth Anne.(2013).8 Keys to Stress Management.WW Norton & Co.
