The workshop question seemed straightforward enough: name words that rhyme with ‘ball’. Responses flooded in. “Tall,” “wall,” and “fall” appeared as expected. Then came the curveball—not one but several students typed “LOL” into the chat.
Purva Grover laughed. Of course they did.
The moment crystallised something educators across the UAE have been grappling with as classrooms shift online yet again: children speak digital now, fluently and instinctively, borrowing from the vocabulary that surrounds them daily. In creative thinking classes, Grover reasoned, there are no incorrect answers. The students scored high on imagination, even if their phonetics needed work. You can’t fault them for drawing from their world.
But the LOL incident lingered. It raised a question that extends beyond rhyme schemes—what happens when children can compose emails like professionals yet freeze when asked to shake hands? When they’re comfortable changing Zoom wallpapers mid-maths lesson but struggle to read the room in physical spaces?
Grover, a Dubai-based author and founder of The Reading Village, believes the answer lies in strategic reading. Not reading for reading’s sake, but carefully chosen books that bridge the gap between digital fluency and emotional literacy. As UAE schools navigate another phase of remote learning—what Grover calls “classrooms without walls”—she’s compiled recommendations designed to address specific challenges parents are witnessing daily.
The approach is tactical. Each book targets a skill that online education either neglects or inadvertently undermines.
For children who type with confidence but shy away from face-to-face interaction, Grover suggests dramatic storytelling sessions with *Giraffes Can’t Dance* by Giles Andreae. The goal isn’t just reading—it’s performance. Get expressive, she advises. Teach tones, pauses, silences. These lessons transfer to the digital classroom and beyond, building the emotional vocabulary that text-based communication strips away.
Then there’s the challenge of processing disruption. At the end of each school day, Grover recommends asking children to scribble how online school felt. No grammar marks, just honesty. *Today I Feel Silly & Other Moods That Make My Day* by Jamie Lee Curtis provides a framework for naming emotions, helping young learners make sense of a phase that adults struggle to contextualise themselves. A few words into the process, children begin identifying what makes them happy, sad, or furious about learning through screens.
Attendance presents another hurdle—not just logging in, but showing up meaningfully. Grover emphasises that joining class isn’t merely about ticking a register. It’s about appearing for friends waiting in pixelated boxes, maintaining connections without proximity. *The Invisible String* by Patrice Karst reinforces this, offering an early lesson in sustaining friendships when physical presence isn’t possible. On days children feel fed up, they still log in. That matters.
Some schools permit cameras off. Others allow pyjamas instead of uniforms. Grover questions whether these concessions help. Dressing for work and play remains important, she argues. Heading straight to the screen without showering or brushing sends the wrong signal—to teachers, certainly, but more critically to children themselves about how seriously they take their own education. *The Dot* by Peter H. Reynolds explores the value of showing up prepared, of taking one’s work seriously even when circumstances feel chaotic.
Then there’s asking for help—a skill often mistaken for weakness, particularly when the fear of online judgement looms. Wi-Fi glitches, file upload difficulties, concentration lapses—these overwhelm children who worry about appearing incompetent in front of classmates. Grover urges parents to encourage hand-raising when doubt, confusion, or fear strikes. *What Do You Do With a Problem?* by Kobi Yamada tackles this directly, reframing struggle as something to confront rather than hide.
The recommendations feel personal because they are. Grover, who previously served as associate editor at Khaleej Times during her 19-year journalism career, received the UAE Golden Visa in 2021 under the People of Culture and Art-Writer category. She’s authored four books, including *She*, which has been translated into seven languages. The Reading Village, her Dubai community, exists to nurture stories—and storytellers.
She reads 52 books annually, one per week without fail. That discipline shapes her belief that books aren’t escapes from digital education but tools to navigate it more effectively.
The wider concern persists: are children losing the ability to negotiate on playgrounds, to read social cues, to exist comfortably in unstructured physical space? Possibly. But Grover suggests this moment also offers an opportunity to build digital literacy intentionally, rather than letting it develop haphazardly through memes and chat abbreviations.
Children, she notes, love experiments. They’re far more open to classrooms without walls than adults manoeuvring schedules and furniture to accommodate school from home. The adaptability is already there. What they need are frameworks to process the experience, language to describe what they’re feeling, and permission to struggle visibly.
For parents navigating this alongside their children—managing their own frustrations with connectivity issues, academic uncertainty, and the erosion of boundaries between home and school—Grover offers one final recommendation: *How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk* by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. Because before you can guide children through disruption, you need to understand what they’re actually saying.
The workshop where students answered “LOL” took place weeks ago now. But the insight it provided continues shaping how Grover thinks about learning in 2024—about what children need when education happens through screens, when rhymes come from internet shorthand, when friendships exist primarily in digital boxes.
Whether this approach works at scale remains unclear. Educational outcomes take years to measure, and online learning’s long-term impact on social development won’t be understood for another generation. What’s certain is that children are speaking a hybrid language now, blending playground vocabulary with pixel-based communication.
The question isn’t whether to resist that evolution. It’s how to ensure they develop fluency in both.