I Wished There Was Someone to Listen

One afternoon, my son and I were practising for his PSLE Hindi orals. He read a passage aloud while I sat beside him, stopping him to correct a pronunciation or asking him to try a sentence again.

Reading aloud needed more than a passage and a willing child. It needed someone to hear the hesitation, catch the word that had gone wrong and ask him to begin again. On the days I could not sit beside him, the practice simply did not happen.

I wished there were someone to listen when I could not.

That wish would not leave me.

The Hindi Lab was built so children can read aloud independently, hear each sentence through Listen & Learn, and receive scores for pronunciation, fluency and pace. By the time they walk into the PSLE oral examination, reading a new passage should not feel like starting from the beginning.