Friday, March 27, 2009
Rote Learning?The Rose Review of Key Stage 2 was reported in ‘The Guardian’. The use of selected papers to leak information has been standard practice under New Labour. Apparently, the education organisations that specialise in certain subject areas were only given three days for consultation on the final draft and the unions were ignored completely.
The primary curriculum is completely cluttered with so many subjects that some are not adequately covered, History only accounts for 4% of teaching time in primary schools.
As for the emphasis on rote learning, yes, it’s true that in some aspects of knowledge you can’t escape it, you just have to memorise French verb tables, German grammar or Chinese characters. There aren’t any short cuts. The old saying that genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration is valid in many ways. David Beckham spent hours refining the art of bending the ball around a wall of players at free kicks.
However, I’ve taught children who memorised their times tables. The only problem was that they couldn’t apply them. Ask them 12 x 7, or to use it as an inverse in division and they were stumped. There was the infamous occasion in 1997 when the junior education minister Stephen Byers claimed that schools were falling down in the task of teaching children times tables. He was subsequently door-stepped by a reporter, ‘Minister what is 8 x 7?’, ‘Er… 54?’
Times tables are best taught through strategies 8 x 7? 2 x 7 is 14, double it and double it again.
I’ve got a similar problem with phonics, yes they are one important strategy in the process of learning to read, but our language is not phonetically consistent, you need other skills like reading in context and sight memory. In my experience the poor readers in upper juniors were the ones who could only use phonic strategies. As for whole class teaching, in Year One there are children who can already read fluently, they must be bored to death sitting in phonics lessons. Lastly, what about the joy of reading? Phonics reduces reading to a mechanical de-coding exercise.
Finally it’s good to see the some of the obsessive posters on the TES Forum are beginning to make a few comments that relate to the subject matter. Here are a few tips –
· Try to advance your own ideas rather than just carping and criticising. Keep to the high ground!
· Don’t use personal insults, it’s undignified, shows a total lack of class and you wouldn’t expect it from your pupils.
· Concentrate on quality rather than quantity.
· I’d like to see use of alliteration, metaphor and simile. Most of the writing is, to be frank, dull, repetitive and boring.
Good to see that there is, at last, progress. Some of you have a long, long way to go but keep trying; there are signs of improvement!
Saturday, November 03, 2007
‘The adverb is not your friend’The Primary Review researchers have indicated that reading standards have barely risen over the last fifty years and that children are bored with reading. Could this be anything to do with the dull, prescriptive and grammar-laden curriculum?
Last week, as PPA cover teacher, the script was a lesson on adverbs from ‘Jolly Grammar’. Yes, a whole lesson on adverbs. For the introduction I was instructed to,
‘Revise proper and common nouns, pronouns, adjectives, possessive adjectives and verbs.’
This for a Year 3 class. I’ll be honest and you can summon Ofsted and institute the fast-track capability procedure, but I’m a bit hazy on at least two of them.
There aren’t many books on the process of writing but one of the best is Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’. He has some fairly blunt advice on grammar, in one section he writes that,
‘The adverb is not your friend… Adverbs like the passive voice seem to have been created with the timid writer in mind… With adverbs, the writer usually tells us that he/she isn’t expressing himself/herself clearly, that he or she is not getting the point or the picture across.’
I drew the immediate conclusion, after scanning the lesson plan, that there is dry tedium, absolute boredom, the vast vacuum in space that lies beyond the reach of the most distant quasars at the edge of the known universe and then there is ‘Jolly Grammar’. I’ve got to admit that I did stray from the lesson objective a smidgeon. I read to the class ‘Grandfather’s Pencil and the Room of Stories’ by Michael Foreman.
He imagines a pencil writing about its time on the shelves in a shop, as part of a tall tree; there’s the story of the table and how it tumbled down a surging river; the floorboards were once part of a great ship ‘with cream sails and a black flag’. The boy in the story grows into an old man and his grandson discovers the pencil underneath the floorboards, his companions have been,
‘a bent pin, an old gold coin and a whale bone button. Oh, the tales they told! The whale button remembered when it was part of a great whale and…’
I got the children to write their own story about the pencil. I wrote one about a magic pencil that was held prisoner by an evil wizard. I don’t want to spoil the ending but he did escape with help from his friend the sharpener.
In Michael Forman’s story there’s whole sections of beautiful prose, ah, imagination, creativity, the joy of language and hardly an adverb in sight!
I got the children to write their own story about the pencil. I wrote one about a magic pencil that was held prisoner by an evil wizard. I don’t want to spoil the ending but he did escape with help from his friend the sharpener.
In Michael Forman’s story there’s whole sections of beautiful prose, ah, imagination, creativity, the joy of language and hardly an adverb in sight!
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
‘Jolly Grammar’Whenever I hear those New Labour spin words like ‘modernisation’ and ‘reform’ I think of Orwellian ‘Newspeak’ and believe the opposite. For public services they usually lead to privatisation and the introduction of a low cost provider. In short, black means white.
Ever since the introduction of the ‘Literacy Hour’ English teaching in primary schools has been over laden with grammar and word or sentence tasks. Children need to be immersed in the spoken language and to gain a love of story telling. As Michael Rosen commented ‘The Gruffalo’ grips children’s imagination and they want to find out what happens at the end, they engage with the character.
Instead literacy has been reduced to a dull mechanical exercise replete with targets and levels. I’m not arguing against grammar it is of course the framework around which language is constructed; in the same way every building requires scaffolding. However, the same metal poles can produce a hideous carbuncle or a beautiful structure that lifts the human spirit.
Could anyone explain why we need whole lessons that instruct children about the small number of words in the English language that use silent ‘b’ or ‘w’ or ‘k’?
As teachers we are trying to get children to ‘buy into’ reading against the competing attractions of television and DVDs. Why bother to read when it just a decoding exercise?
A classic piece of marketing is the ‘Jolly Grammar’ series it conjures up pictures of bright-eyed enthusiastic children merrily filling in work sheets. Please don’t call it ‘Jolly Grammar’ kindly rename it, here are some suggestions- (with the help of the thesaurus)
· ‘Dull Grammar’
· ‘Uninspiring Grammar’
· ‘Tedious Grammar’
· ‘Monotonous Grammar’
· ‘Lacklustre Grammar’
· ‘Lifeless Grammar’
· ‘Mind-numbingly boring Grammar’
Labels: Literacy
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Why phonics are dangerousMy blog on phonics attracted some interest from the Reading Reform Foundation, these people really are the swivel-eyed zealots of the phonics movement. Here’s a sample from their web site of their intemperate, intolerant approach,
“People need to ask themselves whether they would choose PREVENTION over intervention. They need to choose what kind of teaching they would prefer for their boys and whether they want to risk their children becoming dyslexic. Quite simply, if you are a parent, to which type of school would YOU most confidently send YOUR children?”
I don’t know all the details about the initiative in West Dunbartonshire, but maybe it came about in Scotland because local authorities still have a measure of autonomy and aren’t completely subject to ruthless central dictates. When the Scottish Executive cut funding for their programme they carried on anyway. Also in Scotland there is no high-stakes testing, no league tables and no Ofsted.
What was also interesting about West Dunbartonshire was that they’d not only used phonics but involved parents and tried to create a “literacy community”. Crucially they’d also recognised that some children don’t progress by phonics alone and the Toe-by-Toe programme gave intensive support to those older children who had fallen by the wayside.
So what are the dangers of phonics that emanate from the Rose review?
1) If you introduce some children to formal education at too early a stage they aren’t ready for it, this particularly applies to boys. The Rose review proscribes when and how to teach, it doesn’t leave it to the judgement of teachers to decide.
2) English is not a phonetic language, sorry to literally spell it out but how do you cope with those inconsistencies like soft ‘c’ and hard ‘c’; magic ‘e’ at the end; soft ‘g’ and hard ‘g’; silent letters at the beginning and end of words? Then there are all those little words - like, one, once, was, only, the, your, you, she, do, sure, what, who, out, does, come, want, busy, are, two.
3) Why do 20% of children find it difficult to read? Phonics leaves those children to struggle. Reading Recovery is an intensive and expensive programme delivered by trained teachers, peer reviewed international research has shown that it works. Albeit that even then one-fifth with global learning difficulties will also fail here, so again there really is no ‘magic bullet’.
4) Phonics fit well into the ‘back to basics’ agenda, phonics teaches children the mechanics of reading, but it doesn’t create a love of books. As the new Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen commented,
“I also reject the notion that you can teach reading without books: there has been a huge push to create an environment in nursery and reception where books are secondary to the process of reading.
“If you are just given a list of words, then the emotional impact is that reading is dull. For example, we care about the mouse and the Gruffalo when we read The Gruffalo.”
5) The notion that every child who doesn’t reach Level 4 is ‘illiterate’ is really dangerous nonsense. We had one special needs child in our school who came into nursery unable to speak, after making tremendous progress in the Juniors she got a Level 3 in her SATs. Yet she is branded an ‘illiterate’ failure and the school is dragged down in the league tables.
One of the much-quoted experiments in phonics was in Clackmannanshire, a small study of 300 children. Under pressure to introduce this ‘magic bullet’ scheme, Ruth Kelly did put out a circular to councils pointing out that by their own figures comprehension levels for 11 year-olds were no different from other councils. Later, in full retreat from an onslaught from the Daily Mail and the phonics lobby she instituted the Rose review.
Schools under central direction are now crudely introducing phonics but without the other features of West Dunbartonshire like the Toe-by-Toe programme.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
The Magic Bullet?Phonics is an important building block in the process of children learning to read. Just in case there’s any doubt I’ll repeat it - Phonics is an important building block in the process of children learning to read. But phonics alone is not a ‘magic bullet’. I’ll repeat that again - phonics alone is not a ‘magic bullet’.
There was an interesting article in ‘The Guardian’ today about a literacy programme in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland. They claim they are in the process of ‘eradicating illiteracy’. In 1997 only 5% of children had very high scores on word reading, today the figure is 45%. Synthetic phonics has been at the core of the scheme.
But it has not been the only factor. A 10-strand intervention was set up, featuring a team of specially trained teachers, focused assessment, extra time for reading in the curriculum, home support for parents and the fostering of a “literacy environment” in the community.
There is also an early intervention system from nursery upwards and those who do fall through the net are given the intensive, one-on-one Toe by Toe programme. Synthetic phonics has been only one strand in the West Dunbartonshire approach.
This is a far cry from the Rose inquiry and the subsequent edicts that all primary schools must teach phonics, the so-called ‘magic bullet’. Why doesn’t phonics alone work? Because unlike Finnish or Welsh, English is not phonetically consistent. Every study since the sixteenth century has found that 20% of children have difficulties in starting to read. In my experience the poorer readers usually rely on phonics alone, they can’t read in context and have poor sight memory of words.
Phonics has been thrust down the throat of schools, without the sophisticated and expensive programme that was adopted in West Dunbartonshire. Phonics alone will not help the poorer readers and those who can already read will be bored to death, some of them need to engage with real books, not scraps of text. In one international study England scored highly in reading but low on interest in books.
The most important thing is to inculcate a lifetime love of reading not just the mechanics of the process.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
That Overwhelming Aroma of AftershaveSome jobs or occupations you really have to question their worth to society – traffic wardens, estate agents and second-hand car salesmen would be high on my list. If a strange kind of neutron bomb or weird selective plague finished them all off somehow the wheels of industry would still turn, their loss would not be mourned. As a teacher I’d also have to add to the list those Stasi of the Literacy Strategy – the “consultants”, ‘our informants are everywhere’.
For years our school was deemed to be in need of “intensive support” our poor results were obviously the result of inadequate planning and crap teaching, therefore teams of “consultants” went through our planning with a fine toothcomb and observed our lessons.
Enthusing children? Inspiring teachers? This was some kind of incomprehensible foreign language to them. Naturally they never taught any lessons themselves. They did produce a literacy magazine that was posted out to every school. There weren’t any book reviews, in fact books weren’t mentioned at all, nor were there any examples of children’s work. Just those scary, ‘how I got my children to Level 4 by using connectives, punctuation and adverbs’, articles. As a result of popular indifference the magazine only had a short life span.
There was an award winning children’s author in a nearby school, who could have inspired other teachers, but as he was a loud and prominent critic of the Literacy Strategy he was kept strictly under quarantine in his own school, lest he infect other teachers with his dangerous ideas.
One day I was working away in the ICT suite on our community newspaper when I was introduced to the new writing consultant. I shook hands with Billy and immediately noticed something different. Most consultants keep their distance as though ‘fraternising with the enemy’ is a punishable offence. Billy maintained eye contact, asked questions about me, my family and interests, he listened intently to the replies. There was also that million-dollar smile when we parted company.
Next week we had a quick chat and he’d remembered my name, what my children were called, where I’d been on holiday and what football team I supported. These days I keep a low profile in school, one of the governors mistook me for the caretaker recently, so it’s nice to get recognised.
Billy didn’t exude charisma it positively flowed out of him. Now when it comes to male primary teachers, you’d have to say that some of us look a little care-worn – the shiny trousers, frayed cuffs and stained tie. Not Billy, he was as crisp as a newly printed £5 note, he looked as though he’d just concluded a business deal at the local golf club – the gold cuff links, that overwhelming aroma of aftershave, the keys to his sports car dangled around his fingers. The Year 6 girls instantly fell in love with him, there were chocolates for the staff and a frisson of excitement not seen since the secondary PE teacher taught a lesson in shorts. Young maaaaaan!
However… not all members of staff were won over, there was the way he gave all the children nicknames and that habit of calling the girls, ‘darlin’ or ‘sweetheart’. Maybe there was a tinge of jealousy that someone relatively new to the teaching profession had landed this high-powered well-paid job.
For me Billy was a blast of fresh air, too often the school-to-teacher training college-to-school circuit produces dullards without experience of real life. People from other careers, disc jockey, the SAS, all in wrestling, lion tamer, all bring with them transferable skills.
A few weeks after Billy had been teaching I saw our Year 6 teacher who is normally a good judge of character. There had been rumours about the class being out of control, inappropriate remarks and questionable language. I enquired how Billy was getting on, no reply, her eyes just averted towards the heavens. She showed me the children’s work that was meant for the community newspaper, even the more able students hadn’t produced anything of worth.
I showed it to Jean the teaching assistant who takes the Year 6 SEN group. She rifled around in a folder and produced some of their work on ‘Our Town’. They weren’t literary master pieces, Jean had helped them with spelling and punctuation, they’d slaved away on the computer, editing and checking spellings, but it was infinitely better than anything Billy had fashioned (there was also the knowledge that Jean’s salary was an eighth or a tenth of Billy’s).
Later on in the term I was on a course and got talking with other teachers, they’d had the same experience with Billy – he’d charmed them all to death but the children’s work had been terrible. One of them had discovered Billy’s previous occupation – second-hand car salesman.
Labels: Humour, Lessons, Literacy
