Lost for Words: Improving Literacy – The Government's Strategy
The Government recognises that being able to read and write well is critical to a young person's life chances and has developed strategies to help all age groups and all abilities to improve their literacy skills.
But what does this mean in everyday practice? How do schools teach literacy, and what actually happens in the classroom? And how do teachers respond when children are struggling?
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What goes on in the classroom?
Nearly all primary schools use the Primary National Strategy's Primary Framework for Teaching Literacy, which gives teachers a blueprint for teaching children the four key skills that they need to get the most out of all their learning at school – speaking, listening, reading and writing.
Following a recent government review, the Framework now puts phonics – the process of learning to read by blending together the sounds of words – at the heart of classroom teaching. This is supported by Letters and Sounds, a high quality phonics teaching programme.
In September, a DVD and booklet entitled Improving Writing was produced for all schools. Parents can access these video clips via the Primary Framework to see examples of effective classroom practice to improve literacy.
In addition, the Primary National Strategy has a new Communication, Language and Literacy Development (CLLD) programme launched a year ago to improve early reading for children in early years settings and classes.
The most successful literacy teaching involves activity that is interactive and allows children to take an active role in lessons. A lot of teaching therefore revolves around getting children to do whole class activities or working in small groups.
The structure of teaching literacy is built around a sequence which links speaking and listening, and reading and writing, in the following ways:
- high-quality oral work – that is, children and the teacher talking about learning together.
- structured teaching of phonics, spelling and grammar – learning how to read, spell and construct sentences correctly.
- shared reading and writing – the teacher demonstrating reading and writing with the whole class.
- guided reading and writing – children being helped with reading and writing so that the teacher can support the group's next steps in learning.
- one-to-one support where appropriate for children's needs and particularly where children are falling behind national expectations.
In reading, children are taught in the early stages to use phonics to decode words independently. They are helped to work out the meaning of what they read and to say what they like or dislike about a book. They read a wide range of texts including stories, plays, poems, information texts in print and on computer screens and use dictionaries and encyclopaedias.
And in writing, they compose stories, poems, notes, lists, captions, records, messages and instructions. They learn how to use punctuation to show the meaning of sentences, choose the most appropriate vocabulary for their audience and practise clear handwriting.
This approach is helping us to make progress. In 2007, the Key Stage 2 results for 11 year olds found that 80% reached the expected level in English – a rise of 17 percentage points since 1997. It means that more than 100,000 extra children per year achieve the nationally expected standard than did so a decade ago.
Targeted help
The Government is now building up the support for children failing to make the expected grade at Key Stages 1 and 2.
The approach includes intensive support for pupils struggling with reading and writing at key times in primary school, and dedicated programmes to help children with learning difficulties and from ethnic minorities.
Specific programmes include:
- Early Literacy Support is a programme for Year 1 children which has been revised in line with the recommendations of a recent review of literacy.
- Year 3 Literacy Support is targeted at Year 3 children who need additional support to reach the expected level in their first year of Key Stage 2.
- Further Literacy Support is an established programme that supports children in Year 5 to reach the expected level at the age of 11. This programme has been particularly effective in raising the attainment of boys. In 2007 a further improvement saw 81% of boys reaching the national expectation in reading.
- Every Child a Reader (ECAR) helps six year olds with literacy difficulties to learn to read by providing focused one-to-one or group sessions. Results from the first year revealed that children made well over four times the normal rate of progress. The programme is being expanded so that it will benefit 30,000 children a year by 2010-11.
- Every Child a Writer (ECAW) was announced in September 2007 and will provide wider targeted support for older primary children in the areas of writing which they find hardest to master.
- The Inclusion Development Programme, launched this autumn term, provides training and materials to support schools' work with children with Special Educational Needs and disabilities. Its initial focus is on communication difficulties, including dyslexia.
- Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) initiatives include: the Black Pupils' Achievement Programme, which helps schools support Black African, Black Caribbean and mixed heritage pupils in secondary school; the Black Children's Achievement Programme, a two year pilot to develop and spread good practice in developing school leadership approaches that help boost achievement among black children; and the Minority Ethnic Achievement Programme, which provides targeted support for underperforming pupils from ethnic minorities.
Stimulating progress among all pupils
Underpinning all efforts to tackle literacy is the idea that pupils of all abilities should be moving forwards in their learning, and making good progress at all times during their school career. Targeted support should be available to those who are struggling or coasting.
Earlier this year, Ed Balls committed a further £150 million to the £1 billion already invested in the Assessment for Learning programme, which builds teachers' expertise on tracking individual pupil progress and boosting achievement.
Meanwhile, this September, a pilot has begun in nearly 500 schools across the country. The Making Good Progress pilot will be testing new ways to assess, report and stimulate progress in schools, so that no child falls behind or gets stuck at any stage.
Teachers in pilot schools will track each child's progress on a termly basis. Once they are sure that a pupil has secured the next attainment level, they can enter them for a short test to confirm this. It means pupils are constantly challenged and inspired to improve.
Those that have fallen behind, meanwhile, will receive a short burst of 10 hours of one-to-one tuition in English on top of their normal school hours to help them get back on track.
Spreading the word – activity beyond the classroom
The Government recognises that literacy needs to be nurtured beyond the classroom too – and that a key challenge is to get young people to ditch their games consoles and MP3 players and start to enjoy reading and writing.
It has therefore established a number of initiatives to encourage families and local communities to nurture children's passion for books.
These include:
- The National Reading Campaign – promotes reading for pleasure across the whole community. Key initiatives include:
- Reading Connects which supports schools in developing a whole-school reading culture and encourages links with the local community.
- Reading Champions, which uses male reading role models – from Premiership footballers to radio DJs – to inspire boys and men to read more.
- The Family Reading Campaign which is engaging a full range of local services in a bid to promote reading in the home.
- Free books for kids – there are several free books schemes covering a variety of age groups:
- Bookstart provides free reading packs to all babies, toddlers and three year olds in England to support children's early communication and language development by encouraging parents to share books with their children.
- Booktime is providing a book pack to every four and five year olds in England this autumn to promote the pleasure of reading and encourage parents and carers to read aloud with their children.
- Booked Up is providing a free book to every 11 year old in England this autumn to encourage enthusiasm for reading for pleasure – every child will be able to choose their own free book from a list sent to their school.
These schemes give books to the individual child, but the Government also funds books for school libraries. For example, Boys into Books allowed every secondary school to choose 20 free books for its library. The school could select from a list of 170 books specially chosen to appeal to 11 to 14 year old boys – a group that is particularly prone to neglect reading for pleasure.
Next year the Government will be upping the ante further as it runs its second National Year of Reading. This will consist of a broad range of activities designed to encourage communities and individuals to develop a passion for reading as well as engaging some of the hard-to-reach groups.
Getting involved
Everybody has a role to play in helping to develop the nation's literacy skills, and one of the greatest spurs for children is strong role models at home and in the community encouraging them to improve their reading and writing skills.
If you want to find out more about the Government's literacy initiatives, and those it supports, visit the following websites:
www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/primaryframework
Primary National Strategy framework, which includes video clips showing examples of effective classroom practice.
www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/phonics
The official Phonics website.
www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/clld/
The Communication, Language and Literacy Development website.
www.readon.org.uk
The National Reading Campaign website.
www.readingconnects.org.uk
The Reading Connects website.
www.readingchampions.org.uk
The Reading Champions website.
www.familyreading.org.uk
The Family Reading Campaign website.
www.literacytrust.org.uk
The National Literacy Trust website.
www.literacytrust.org.uk/nyr/index.html
The National Year of Reading website.
www.everybodywrites.org.uk
Celebrates writing as a skill for living and offers teachers ideas and practical resources to promote writing for pleasure.
www.booktrust.org.uk
The organisation that delivers the Bookstart, Booktime and Booked Up programmes.
www.vrh.org.uk
Volunteer Reading Help, a charitable organisation that recruits, trains and places volunteers to help primary school children with their reading.
www.sla.org.uk
Website of the School Library Association, a membership organisation of school librarians.
www.readingagency.org.uk
The Reading Agency, a charity which works to improve the reading experience by inspiring, challenging and supporting libraries.
Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third party sites
Ruth Miskin – What the Government Should Do | The Rose Review | Improving Literacy: The Government's Strategy | Leitch Review of Skills | Getting the Basics Right | The Rowntree Report (June 2007) | The Long Term Costs
