A Classroom the World Just Noticed
At Katha Lab School in Govindpuri, Delhi, a maths lesson usually starts with a story read aloud. The problem the children have to solve is sitting somewhere inside it. You will recognise the shape of that lesson.
KLS has run on Katha StoryPedagogy® since 1988 — a story opens, the teacher asks one question and steps back, and the class takes it from there. TADAA in motion. The school serves children from a low-income settlement and runs on a small budget, which is the point: nothing in the method depends on a well-resourced classroom.
The judges were looking at ordinary classroom work. Alongside that, the school’s own monthly assessments for 2025–26, covering more than 420 children, moved from a school-wide mean of 33 per cent to 62 per cent, with 97 per cent of the children tracked improving over the year.
We are sharing the numbers because Alliance partners keep asking for them, usually when a principal or a funder wants to know whether this holds up. It does, and you are welcome to use it.
An Honorary Doctorate for Geeta Dharmarajan
GITAM (Deemed to be University) awarded Geeta Dharmarajan an Honorary Doctorate this year, for her work in education and children’s literature. She founded Katha in 1988 and developed the method that the Lab School and the Katha teacher courses are built on. Thirty-eight years on, that work has reached about 12.4 million children.
Where to Send a Teacher Who Wants to Start
Every SPOC gets the same question from a teacher who missed the last orientation: where do I begin. The answer is teach.katha.org, and it is worth having the link ready.
What is there
Courses in ten languages. Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, English, Assamese, Marathi, Odiya, Bangla, Urdu and Telugu. Self-paced, nothing to install, works on a phone.
Lesson flows a teacher can use the same week. A story, a question, a discussion structure. The courses are built so that something goes into Monday’s class.
KHELTE, the teachers’ forum. More than 15,000 teachers, asking each other what worked and arguing about what did not. It runs alongside every course.
The Alliance now stands at 250+ partner organisations, and about 10,000 teachers, facilitators and grassroots partners across 22 states and 525 PIN codes. Shelter homes, schools for the blind, government schools, budget schools and some very well-resourced ones, all working off the same courses.
If your organisation has teachers who are not yet registered, send us their numbers and we will get them onboarded — learn@katha.org.
Three Books, and the Question to Ask After Each
Riding the Waves, by Aruna Shekar, illustrated by Alankrita Amaya. A picture book for ages 8 and up. Meera sails into the deep sea, going where no woman from her village has gone before her, and keeps on through high waves and dark storms for reasons larger than a day’s catch. Aruna Shekar is an award-winning teacher and children’s writer.
Ask the class: what was Meera afraid of, and what did she do with the fear? Let two children disagree before you say anything. Pre-order at books.katha.org/riding-the-waves.
Two older titles work well beside it, and all three sit inside the Gender and Earth themes. Each one has a girl who looks for a way through a problem and finds her community moving with her, which is the conversation you want the room to have.
Read-alouds for a Reader-Leader session
What to Notice When You Choose a Read-Aloud
We asked Amith, a senior editorial assistant at Katha, about a book that stayed with him. He chose A Cat, Tree and a Bird in a Book.
“I am a huge fan of stories that involve books and libraries. The entire story unfolds while a tiger cub and a baby bear are reading a book — and that detail alone drew me in. But what I love most is that the story is not what it seems initially. Sometimes what we need comes wrapped in uncertainty and fear. The bird moves from fear to trust when an unlikely friend arrives. That shift — from what we fear a situation could be to what it actually is — is something even adults need reminding of.” Amith, Senior Editorial Assistant, Katha
Amith reads manuscripts all day, and what held him was the turn the story makes rather than the premise. That is a useful test when you are picking a book for a session. A story with a turn in it gives the children something to argue about, and the argument is where the thinking happens.
Find it at books.katha.org →
What Travels Between Ten Thousand Classrooms
A teacher in Tiruvallur works out how to hold a restless afternoon class with one story and one question. A shelter home in Odisha and a private school in Pune could both use that on Monday. Getting it from the first classroom to the other two is what the Alliance is for.
There are now 250+ organisations in it, across 22 states and 525 PIN codes: shelter homes, schools for the blind, government schools, budget schools and some very well-resourced private ones. Roughly 10,000 teachers, facilitators and grassroots partners. The range is the useful part. A method that survives a shelter home in one state and a fee-paying school in another has been tested harder than anything a single organisation could test on its own.
What being in the Alliance gets you
Everything at no cost. Courses, lesson flows, training materials and the mentor network. Joining has never carried a fee and will not.
Ten thousand colleagues. KHELTE runs daily. Someone in the forum has already met the problem you are having this week, in a classroom with fewer resources than yours.
Stories, voices and activities. More than 300 voice stories, including on Alexa, and around 1,000 activities and games open to Alliance partners.
Reach for your own work. When you send us a session that worked, it goes out to the whole network. Your teacher gets read by ten thousand others.
That last one is the thing we would ask you for this month. A photograph, three lines about what happened, and the question that opened the room. If a child said something that changed the direction of the class, tell us what they said. We will carry it to the rest of the Alliance with your organisation named.
And if you know a school, a shelter or a community group that should be in this network, introduce us. Every organisation that joins makes the pooled experience worth more to the ones already here.
Tell Us the Book That Holds Your Room
Every teacher has one. The story that quiets thirty children in the first minute, or the one they ask for again on Friday because they want to argue about the ending a second time.
Write back with the title and the class you read it to. If it is a Katha book, tell us which page turns the room. We are putting together a list of what actually works, built from the people who are in the classroom, and we would like yours on it.
Reply With Your Book →