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Learning in the sun
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Summer Bid to Teach Literacy Skills
The pilot scheme for literacy summer schools is a response to the fears of millions of parents that mastery of the three Rs is lacking among children.
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Four out of ten children aged 11 failed to master the three Rs, reading, writing and arithmetic effectively, according to the first primary league tables published in March this year. The results prompted David Blunkett, then shadow education secretary, to pledge that Labour would launch a big national literacy drive. Mr Blunkett said Labour's intention was to improve the numbers reaching the standard in English from 57% to 80% by 2001 and 100% by 2006.
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A report from the Social Market Foundation earlier this year highlighted worrying variations in the reading ability of seven-year-olds, with pupils in top local authorities nearly three years ahead of those in the worst. About eight out of 10 pupils achieve the proper standards for their age in national tests of English and maths at seven, but only just over half reach this level by the time they get to 11. Boys are known to lag behind girls in literacy, particularly in the 11 to
14 age group. In national tests at ages 11 and 14 only half of boys reached the expected levels in English compared to two-thirds of girls.
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A model for the future was outlined recently by the Chester headteacher Sue Pearson who has introduced a strict traditionalist regime of grammar, vocabulary and comprehension tests for her five to seven year olds. Instead of leaving teachers struggling to find time in the school day to hear children read individually, she has introduced a "reading hour" in which all classes throughout her 130-pupil school are divided into ability groups. They follow a clear syllabus based on a traditional textbook which emphasises the phonic approach to reading; learning to translate the letters into sounds rather than recognising the shape of a few known words.
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The need for improvement was underlined by the German boss of Rover last month, who attacked the educational standards of British school and university leavers. Dr Walter Hasselkus said mastery of the three Rs is lacking among 16 and 18 year olds, while the basic knowledge of graduates lags far behind that of their European counterparts.
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