Date : 20/07/2006

Application of Howard Gardner’s Multiple

Intelligence Theory for the Effective Use of
Library Resources by K-2 Students: An
Experimented Model

Rashmi Kumbar
Zydus School for Excellence, India

Meeting: 142 School Libraries and Resource Centers

(part 1)
Simultaneous Interpretation: No
WORLD LIBRARY AND INFORMATION CONGRESS: 72ND IFLA GENERAL CONFERENCE AND COUNCIL
20-24 August 2006, Seoul, Korea
http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla72/index.htm

Abstract

How can school libraries and librarians be apart of the culture of promoting books and reading?
Can we go beyond organizing author talks, book fairs, book presentations etc.? Can we target the
Kindergarteners and the primary school students and do some experiment to inculcate this virtue
called Reading? An effort has been made in this direction and be considered successful to a great
extent by the author in her school Zydus School for Excellence, Ahmedabad, India where she has
been working for the last four years.
This paper provides a viewpoint of applying Dr. Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple
Intelligences namely, verbal/linguistic, logico-mathematical, musical, body/kinesthetic,
visual/spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalist intelligence in evaluating a resource by
a student. This process can help a great deal in overall development of a child’s/students
personality. The approach used here is the practical application of Multiple Intelligence Theory in
evaluating a resource by students of K-2 students. The student selects a particular resource and
checks whether all the above mentioned intelligences developing activities are available in the
resource. If at least 4-5 such activities are available, the student can take home the resource and
share it with his/her parents. Then an effort is made to collect the feedback from parents as to how
the child and the parent utilized the resources effectively and what was the learning outcome.
Based on the feedback, the child can be reinforced to choose the right resources.
Since this exercise involves both children and parents and is structured in approach, there has
been an observation that they look forward for the library periods in the school quite
enthusiastically. The author is of the opinion that Multiple Intelligence Theory helps in developing
skills to analyze a resource logically & use it effectively to increase the success level of the
students.

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 Introduction
Every parent’s desire to put their children on the way to excellent education starts
with the school. So, school is the second home where children get the opportunity to
develop their personality (1). All the necessary social and professional skills are
developed in school. Development of these skills takes place through learning &
thinking activities. So, a school that has the potential to provide education on thinking
and learning skills determines the achievement and satisfaction of the students and
parents. It is well known fact that school libraries play a prominent role in the
promotion of learning activities. In fact, a good library determines the quality of a
school. The modern concept of the school library/resource centre is that, it is the focal
point of education in a school. It is the principle source of information for students.
Coming to the other part of the children’s personality – the role of
teachers/educators, a silent resentment on this role aspect is observed in recent times.
Truly speaking, teachers have been revered in India since ages. But of late, they have
been criticized for many drawbacks of the education system. It may be due to the out
dated teaching methodologies that are dominant in many schools. Teachers are often
not aware of current trends in learning and instructional psychology. It may be due to
overwork, unjust teacher student ratio in many schools & lack of proper incentives
etc. These and many other reasons, result in the teachers being targeted. In order to
keep pace with the 21st century demands of educating school children, the quality of
teachers’ education needs much improvement. Apart from this, other educators like
the librarian can step in and make a difference in the education system which in turn
will have a positive bearing on a child’s personality.
How can a school library and the librarian make a difference in the child’s
academic chart? This can be assessed primarily by examining their role.

Role of School Libraries

Considering school libraries act as an inter-link between the students and resources,
the major roles can be mentioned:
• Reading is believed to be a virtue rather than a habit and it begins and
develops at the school library. This virtue helps every student to become a
responsible human being.
• Support and add on to the teaching process as required by the curriculum, as
schools today rely heavily on the resources in their libraries to develop
creativity and reasoning skills in young students.
• Instill in students the advantages of self learning and help to sustain it lifelong
and hence school libraries are considered as the stepping stone to intellectual
and academic career of the students.
• Introduce Information Literacy and related activities for better usage of the
resources.
• Act as gateways to loads of information and thereby help the students create
new knowledge.

Role of School Librarian

The changing role of a school librarian in India has seen the issue of individuality and
diversity being addressed. The librarian today, plays a pivotal role:
• By collaborating with teachers to plan and assess instructional units that
incorporate many different resources and acknowledge varied teaching and
learning styles.

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 • Develops, teaches and assesses instructional activities that help students in
many ways.
• Has a major say in the library management and policy decisions.
• Assists students in analyzing information needs and help them locate, evaluate
and use such information resources and further is to apply the information to
generate new information.
• By being more focused in work and professional in approach.
Having examined the roles of the library and the librarian it is better to
concentrate on various measures which promote the maximum use of resources and
thereby the overall performance of the school.

Measures to Increase the School Library/Resources Usage

Keeping in view the Fourth law of library science’ Save the time of reader’ as
enunciated by Dr. S.R. Raganathan, it is better to provide the sound infrastructure to
house the resources and to create congenial atmosphere to attract the students and
teachers. National standards for school libraries have to be set to bring in uniformity
in the services provided. Automation of the library activities and user friendly access
to the electronic resources be facilitated. Teachers and other educators be properly
oriented as to how they can make use of the various resources available in the library
to supplement their classroom teaching and how they can motivate individual learning
among students to understand and perform better. Since, Information Literacy is
becoming the foundation of lifelong learning, it is helping students to push the
envelope a little further and become more self directed learners. Further, they will be
initiated to judge the relevance of the information and use it for their developments
and have control over their learning by inducing them to collect, analyze and recreate
new information for the good of others.
Having outlined the various avenues of increasing school library/resources usage,
it is essential to plan for the information literacy activities and make efforts to design
and develop the standards and guidelines to suit Indian school library context.

Information Literacy Activities in Indian School Libraries

Owing to information explosion and technology enabled easy access to it, some
school libraries in India are now keen in exploring their roles and keep their students
to become information literate with variety of information resources. Librarians are
helping students to understand the available resources and using the knowledge
gained to create new knowledge. Similarly teachers are now creating space that
encourages students to learn more about a topic or solve a problem using information
resources located at their school libraries. Librarians are now involving themselves in
the teaching process by taking classes to teach the students as how to use a specific
resource but first and foremost they are ensuring access to an array of resources.
All this is focused on the secondary and high school students and their needs and
requirements. But if the same thing had to be done at the kindergarten or the primary
level, how would one go about it? Here is an attempt to do so.

Theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI)

Dr. Howard Gardner a professor of education and coordinator of project Zero at
Harvard University, challenged the traditional notion that intelligence is a single
capacity possessed by every individual to a greater or lesser extent. Armed with
research evidence, Gardner presents the idea of existence of a number of intelligences

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that result in a unique cognitive profile for each individual. This extraordinary
conception of individual competence is changing the face of education today. Many
educators and researchers have explored the practical implications of Multiple
Intelligence theory- the powerful notion that there are separate human capacities.
According to this theory, human cognitive competence is better described in terms
of a set of abilities, talents or mental skills called intelligences. All normal individuals
possess each of these skills to some extent; individuals differ in the degree of skill and
in the nature of their combination. Dr Gardner is of the view that such a theory has
important educational implications including ones for curriculum development.
While empirical evidence backs Multiple Intelligence Theory, it has not been
targeted to severe experimental tests within psychology. But the application of the
theory in various fields of education is currently being examined. Gardner and his
team opine that their leads will have to be revised repeatedly in light of actual
classroom experience. Yet they believe there are positive reasons for considering the
theory of Multiple Intelligence and its implications for education. To start with it is
clear that many talents if not intelligences are neglected these days. Secondly,
individuals of such talents are victims of single minded or single focused approach to
the mind. Lastly, this world is troubled with many problems. Any opportunity to solve
them can be made by making the best use of intelligences we possess. Therefore,
recognizing the plurality of intelligences and the manifold ways in which human
individual may exhibit them is an important step.
This opinion of the theory prompted the author to take up this concept and apply it
to the evaluation of resources at the primary level. Since school library plays a crucial
role in a child’s reading development, the librarian becomes the promoter who guides
the children as well as parents and collaborates with the teachers to take up various
activities contained in each and every resource by stimulating these intelligences.
To become familiar with this theory, a brief introduction of each intelligence is
given below.

Verbal-Linguistic Intelligence
The gift of language is universal and its development in children is constant across
cultures. A special area of the brain is responsible for the production of grammatical
sentences. Some characteristics of this intelligence can be identified by an
individual’s choice to process information through language. Sensitiveness to
meaning, order, sound of words is noticed. They like to explain, persuade and also
enjoy listening to or reading stories etc. they also have good memory recall for names
and dates.

Logico-Mathematical Intelligence
Along with the skill of language, logical-mathematical reasoning provides the main
foundation for IQ tests. Certain areas of the brain are more prominent in mathematical
calculation than others. A solution to a problem can be constructed before it is
articulated. Analyzing, grouping, categorizing, recognizing relationships, creating
order out of chaos, reasoning, predicting, etc. are the main characteristics of this
intelligence.

Musical Intelligence
Music is a universal faculty. Studies of infant development suggest that there is a raw
computational ability in early childhood. Certain parts of the brain play important
roles in perception and production of music. These areas are characteristically located

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in the right hemisphere. Features of this intelligence indicate that learning takes place
through sound, rhythm and musical metaphor. The individuals have well developed
auditory sense and are able to distinguish pitch, tone, rhythmic patterns.

Visual/Spatial Intelligence
Spatial problem solving is bought to bear in visualizing an object, seen from a
different angle and in playing chess. The visual arts also employ this intelligence in
the use of space. Evidence from the brain research is clear and persuasive. Just as the
left hemisphere has over the course of evaluation, been selected as the site of
linguistic processing in right handed persons, the right hemisphere proves to be the
site most crucial for spatial processing. Distinct characteristics of this intelligence are
a sense of direction, thinking and planning in three dimensions. Individuals can create
complex mental images and are able to see physical world accurately and translate
into new forms. They are able to see things in relationship to others.

Body/Kinesthetic Intelligence
Control of bodily movement is localized in the motor cortex, with each hemisphere
dominant or controlling bodily movements in the contra-lateral side. The evolution of
specialized body movements is of obvious advantage to the species and in human this
adaptation is extended through the use of tools. Body movement undergoes a clearly
defined developmental schedule in children. The ability to use ones body to express
an emotion, to play a game or to create a new product is an evidence of the cognitive
features of body usage. Specific characteristics of this intelligence develops fine and
gross motor skills experiences strong body-mind connection, expands awareness
through body, etc.

Interpersonal Intelligence
Interpersonal intelligence builds on a core capacity to notice distinction among others.
In particular contrast in their moods and temperaments, motivations and intentions.
This intelligence also permits a skilled adult to read the intentions and desires of
others even when these have been hidden. In this intelligence, processing of
information is done through relatedness to others. An ability to notice people’s
moods, temperaments, ability to understand intentions, behaviour and perspective,
ability to respond to verbal and non verbal facial clues and to negotiate and handle
conflict resolutions is noticed. Individuals work well with diverse group of people and
have good communication skills.

Intrapersonal Intelligence
It is the knowledge of the internal aspects of a person : access to one’s own feeling,
life, one’s range of emotions, the capacity to effect discriminations among these
emotions and eventually to level them and to draw upon them as a means of
understanding and guiding one’s own behaviour. A person with good intrapersonal
intelligence has a viable and effective model of himself or herself. Interpersonal
intelligence allows one to understand and work with others, intrapersonal intelligence
allows one to understand and work with one self. Main characteristics is that, the
individuals have very strong senses of themselves, their wants and needs. They are
self reflective and in touch with themselves, excellent self planners & good at goal
setting. They have good understanding of strengths and weaknesses and enjoy self
discovery.

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 So can these intelligences in each individual/child be utilized to evaluate a library
resource or inversely can a library resource help in developing these intelligences?
This is what the author has tried in her school which has yielded some positive results.

Applying Multiple Intelligence Theory to Evaluate Library Resources

In this part of the paper, an attempt is made to understand the implications of Multiple
Intelligence Theory for schools and school libraries. By concentrating exclusively on
the verbal and mathematical intelligences, schools have neglected to identify the
abilities of many students. Another main point to be taken note is that, by neglecting
the other important abilities they are depriving all the students the opportunity to
increase their strengths and improve in the areas where they are weaker. Dr Gardner
puts it as ‘children possess a combination of intelligences and they are capable of
growth in all areas’. As research says many teachers have restructured the curriculum
and put the intelligences to work in their classrooms and one such teacher Kristen
Nelson who has developed a unit that introduces the concept of multiple abilities and
has created learning centers that allow the children to explore the different
intelligences is of the opinion that “the biggest impact that the Multiple Intelligences
Theory has had in my classroom is that it has helped me create an individualized
learning environment’. She claims that even the youngest children understand that
there are different ways of being smart.
Similarly if we as librarians can catch this concept right and try to introduce the
resources and how to choose each resource by applying MI theory, then we will have
moved a little closer to our universal mission of helping each child become a literate
life long learner.

A Brief Profile of Zydus School for Excellence

Zydus School for Excellence where the author has been working for the last four
years, has been set up under the aegis of Ramanbhai Foundation and is supported by
one of India’s leading healthcare groups viz. Zydus Cadila. Zydus School for
Excellence is a comprehensive school that aims to provide each student, regardless of
ability, with the opportunity to develop his or her full potential. It seeks to create an
environment for teaching and learning in which each person is esteemed as an unique
individual and to build a community within which each is free to grow in relationship
to others. The curriculum provides all students with a series of educational
experiences that will form the basis for further development. The aim is to provide a
supportive learning environment, which values the uniqueness of each student’s
experiences and abilities.
The library is commonly called as the Resource Centre and it is regarded as the
heart of Zydus School of Excellence. Its role is to support and promote educational
goals as outlined in the school’s mission and curriculum and the Mission is to enable
students and teachers to effectively use information and facilitate them to become life
long learners. It is the commitment of the management, teachers and the librarian, to
make the Resource Centre as a role model for other schools in the city and all over
India. In every respect, it should emerge as the best example in shaping a child’s
overall personality. Library hours are introduced both at the Pre-Primary and Primary
levels with the motive that the children find themselves comfortable in the library and
enjoy a less formal atmosphere. In the relaxed surroundings of the library they
develop good learning habits which will stay with them for their lifetime. Basically,
the collection and services cater to the needs of the students as well as the teachers.

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Consistent and constant efforts are made by the librarian to structure of each library
period and method of conducting library periods.
The Resource Centre is housed in two different wings – one meant for the
students/teachers of Junior classes is located near the Pre-Primary section and the
other meant for the senior classes is located in the centre. Books/Magazines/CD-
ROMs are issued for students of classes VIII - X and only books and magazines for
students of classes Jr KG to class VII for a duration of one week. There is the option
of renewing the resources for the duration of one more week. At least one book
sharing is done by the librarian every week in the pre-primary and primary classes and
one activity based on the resources is done once a month. The resources issued are a
combination of fiction and nonfiction and most of the books issued are such that they
stimulate the seven intelligences in one way or the other. Whatever may be the set of
resources that is being issued, the children are taught how to identify and evaluate it
for optimum use, using multiple intelligence characteristics. Since the library is open
for access for parent members also, a lot of interaction takes place and guidance is
given to the parents as to how to use the resources for maximum benefit. Taking
regular feed back from the parents and teachers on the child’s performance in
academics as well as conducting in the society helps us in promoting the usage of the
resources and build a strong collection. It is noticed that a successful partnership has
been established between the Library staff, parents and children to encourage reading,
books and making use of this to perform well in their academics.

Experimented Model
Coming to the sequential flow of the whole exercise, as the academic year begins, the
first 3-4 library periods are utilized in making the children familiar with the concept
of books, library and reading. Once the children get the hang of it, the issuing process
begins. Since the library periods are structured, before the start of each library period,
the resources that are going to be issued are introduced to the students. While
introducing the resources, the questions like why the particular series has been chosen
to be issued, how it has to be used and how to really choose the resources are asked.
Since the target group is K-2 students, certain criteria or factors were kept in mind
while keeping aside the books for being issued. These factors are:
• Resources chosen invariably have pictures in them.
• They are colourful and appealing.
• The font size and clarity of letters is right.
• Single words, simple sentences and small paragraphs are the be criteria for
easy reading
• The same series or set of books is not repeated often.
• Total freedom is given to choose the book of their choice from the set that has
been laid out for issuing.
• Opinion about liking and disliking a certain series or book is carefully noted
and further action is taken in this regard.
The evaluation begins with the librarian getting involved and chooses one
resource from the pile that has been kept ready for issuing. The pre-chosen book is
held in hand and started with a series of questions which satisfy various intelligences
and are listed below under various intelligent headings.

Verbal-linguistic ability
• Identifying the bold letters in the title

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 • Recognize the letters of the alphabet in the title.
• Can you identify the various characters in the picture?
• Identify the living characters which you can locate.
• Name the non living things that are visible.
• Whether it is an uppercase or a lower case letter?
• This involves the verbal /linguistic ability as the child tries to locate and
identify, and
• Recognize the letters of the alphabet, various characters and recollect the
names of the things.

Logico-mathematical ability
• What shape is the book?
• Whether it is big or small? Thick or thin?
• What are the total number of pages? etc.
• How many times a letter is repeated in a word?
• How many times a word is repeated in the book?
Here the concepts of size, shape, numbers, counting etc. come in and answering
these questions helps in stimulating the mathematical & logical ability.

Musical ability
Every page of the book/resource involves one of the activities which will stimulate
the child’s intelligences. Once the child learns to read the pictures, he /she can be
asked to identify the rhyming words in the picture like those things which make
different sound etc.
These activities may appeal to those children who are musically inclined and may
take the lead to take a book where many such exercises can be done.

Visual/Spatial ability
Taking this process a step further, the child can be asked:
• To visualize themselves in the story.
• What might have happened earlier even before the story begins?
• What might happen after the end of the story?
To answer these questions the child will have to utilize his/her visual / spatial
intelligence.

Body/Kinesthetic ability
Some children are good at observing keenly the pictures & try to role play or do try
certain actions indicated in the picture which involves body/ kinesthetic intelligence.
So questions like:
• Who would like to ride a horse like this Prince in the picture?
• Who would like to dance with Snow White and the seven dwarfs?
Takers for such question will be more interested in taking books which stimulate
such intelligence.
Intrapersonal/Interpersonal abilities
• Identifying the names of each thing /character.
• What is the relationship of the thing to the living thing? (like Raghu’s red
ball).
• What each character may be saying to the other? (like what is mummy saying
to Rinku).

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 • If you got a chance to meet Cinderella’s step-sisters then what would you say
to them?
This involves the child’s interpersonal ability and also intrapersonal ability.
When a child get used to this exercise of evaluating a resource, be it a story book
or an informational book, it is assured that every resource is made well use of by the
child for his /her personal development. This process will help a child in utilizing the
same technique for his curricular development and thereby make better use of the
library resources for his academic backed activities projects, assignments, etc. Also
this whole process involves the child totally and helps in interpreting things in a
simpler way and thereby develop all their mental abilities without any pressure.

Conclusion
As the concentration was mainly on the pre-primary and primary level while
experimenting this model to evaluate resources, the target group being the largest in
the school (360 students) showed increased interest in coming to the library and were
excited about issuing books to take home and go through various books during the
library period itself. Interestingly both fiction and non-fiction are sought after and
therefore are used to the optimum level.
Since parents are also encouraged to take membership of the library, most
member parents are highly motivated in taking interest in their children’s reading
habits and are excited with this logical method of evaluating a resource. This helps in
ensuring high parental involvement in the child’s progress. The positive feedback
from the faculty regarding involvement in curriculum related research activities gives
an idea about the factors as to which resources help or hinder academic development.
This is one form of Information Literacy practiced at the very grass root level and
is cost effective because enough care is taken to promote all the resources that are
acquired, are also put into use. In this way, the optimum use of the resources is
achieved. The experimentation has evinced greater interest in parents, teachers and
students and there is active support to continue this for the benefit of the total
community.
To conclude, it can be said with certainty that, this whole exercise helps in
stimulation of various faculties of the brain/intelligences and also the child’s
confidence level gets a boost since he/she can self evaluate a book and make the most
of it. This results in increase in the student achievement level due to knowledge gain
and application, which results from such evaluation.

References
Ashoor, M. S. (2005). Information Literacy: A case study of the KFUPM library. Electronic Library,
23(4), 398-409.
Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences (pp. 331-367). New York:
Basic Books.
Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice (pp. 13-34). New York: Basic
Books.
Govindarajan, G. (2000, March 5). How to choose a school for your child. The Week, 1-25.
IL & FS Educational and Technology Services. (2004, June) Workshop on Multiple Intelligences held
at Zydus School for Excellence, Ahmedabad.
Kumbar, R. (2003). An empowered school library: A case study of Zydus School for Excellence
Library. Paper presented in the School Library Conference held Surat, Gujarat: Ahmedabad
Library Network.
Shalaway, L. (1997). Learning to teach: The essential guide for all teachers (pp. 50-141). New York:
Scholastic Professionals.

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Author Note

Ms. Rashmi Kumbar holds aMasters Degree in Library and Information Science (with
Gold Medal) and aMasters Degree in Arts from Gujarat University and Karnatak
University respectively. She also holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Library
Automation and Networking from the University of Hyderabad. She has been
working for Zydus School for Excellence for the last four years. She is passionate
about the school library and its role in developing over all personality of students and
has won the Best Teacher award in her school for her contributions to the school.

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