But I Taught You That Word Last Week.

I remember saying that more than once. I wasn't upset with my children. I was puzzled.

We had gone through the meaning together. We'd used it in a sentence. They understood it perfectly that evening. Yet a week later, it was as though we were meeting the word for the first time all over again.

Over time I realised the problem wasn't the child.

The problem was that the word had simply disappeared.

In Singapore, children cover an enormous amount of Hindi. By the time one chapter is finished, the class has already moved on to the next. Unless those words come back again and again, it's perfectly natural for children to forget them.

That changed the way I thought about practice.

Teaching a word once isn't enough. Seeing it once isn't enough either. Children need to meet the same word repeatedly, in different sentences, different activities and different contexts, until recognising it becomes effortless.

That idea shaped many parts of The Hindi Lab. I wanted the words children learnt today to quietly return tomorrow, next week and next month, so that when a parent finally sat beside them, they could smile and say, "You remembered that one."