Channel 4 Lost For Words week

[majorstress]

seems to be a literacy focus, I saw Dispatches last night but seem to have been the only viewer. Was I?

What did we learn? What else are they going to say next?

here is a link
www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/L/lost_for_words/monteagle.html

I watched it majorstress, found it interesting as my DS1 is dyslexic and went to a school which uses Ruth Miskin phonics scheme.
Intend to watch tonight 9pm C4 Last Chance kids, to see what they say.

I plan to catch up on these shows.

I don't come across too many literacy issues other than dyslexia, which my school addresses quite effectively with the right parental support.

I would be quite interested in helping out in the community, via church, if I could get the right training.

Well I've watched all of it so far. It's not about dyslexia per se, it's about LARGE NUMBERS of English kids going through infants, not learning to read on the first pass, and then sitting there for the next 6 years not understanding anything. You can predict their behaviour, and future.

So what, I might say, MY dd is brilliant...but wait who is that boy in her class who constantly plays up? Yep, it's one of these kids.

And who are those adult thugs, hanging round the corner scaring the wits out of us? You guessed it.

I could not believe my ears when I heard my own dd's classmates' attempts at reading. And no it's not the immigrants, it's the native locals, mainly boys. My heart goes out the the disruptive boy in the programme, dad in prison, who could not even manage CAT.

The most telling point was the Nigerian dad, a women's prison officer-he was DUMBFOUNDED that the inmates, growing up with all their past opportunites, could not read.

Scary ST, do ALL the kids in your school learn to read at their level? Are those who don't succeed ONLY SN? Do you have to go through church, rather than directly to school (aren't you a teacher already?)

I kept thinking, surely some of these count as special needs children, or have dyslexia. But no, they are just socially deprived. Then they showed one who clearly had SN, couldn't even speak, and in a short time she was massively outstripping the "challenging" kids.

I was also surpised when they seemed to say, after loads of other interventions, well NOW this worst boy (dad in prison) is now going to get one-to-one sessions for TEN minutes a day.

TEN MINUTES! big deal. Most middle class 3 year olds get more than that! This is an emergency! He is 9, I think, normal and healthy otherwise and can't read C-A-T! He should not be sitting through and disrupting lessons that have reading as a prerequisite.

Why doesn't the government give an incentive to poor parents to send ALL to nursery school? Just free places clearly isn't enough, they must attend!!!

I have volunteered at dds school, to read one-on-one for 10 minutes a week with 2 classes of yr 6 kids. I'm kind of dreading it and wondering how to cope, so that's why I am so interested in this.

Social deprivation is not the cause of reading problems -the children hadn't been taught how to read when they first started school; it's as simple as that

As an independent, remedial reading tutor I can assure you that plenty of children from affluent families don't learn to read either, if they aren't taught properly using synthetic phonics first, fast and exclusively.

My website is included in the links from the Lost for Words website. You may find the following page interesting reading:
www.aowm73.dsl.pipex.com/dyslexics/main_method_3.htm

Ok point taken, I'm struggling with class issues daily so it tends to come to the fore and I assumed not all schools had these problems. But I bet they are worse if kids have illiterate parents and haven't gone to nursery.

I dispute that children can only learn with this method, and I doubt that's what you mean. But it seems reasonable to JUST GET ON WITH IT, BRITAIN. If you are going to stick them in school at 4, which is bizarre by most countries' standards, then get on and teach them wholesale with this method. Otherwise what are they doing there, at taxpayers expense? Don't review it again for 10 years-then update according to the research of THAT time.

continuous change pisses off the staff.

Whilst I, as a non-expert and with no vested interest (apart from being a parent) would agree there are no doubt affluent families around with non-reading DCs, I'd bet a lot of money the VAST majority of these DCs are from poor families (as in 'inadequate', not as in 'not much money', tho in this day and age there's probably a strong correlation between the 2!). I tire of hearing in the media about 'how our schools have failed our children' when it's blatant buck-passing. The people who have failed those children are their parents by either casually conceiving them in the first place or by just being totally inadequate and chaotic as human beings themselves.

I think the schools actually do a good job considering the lamentable state of so much of their raw material. Yes, I'd agree education fell foul of a heap of mumbo jumbo in the 70s and 80s resulting in a lot of people with barely adequate reading skills and I also agree that there are several ways to skin a cat (my DSs schools use a variety of methods based on synthetic phonics and a fair bit of whole-word recognition.) but it would seem that SP IS the way-to-go for a lot of kids, perhaps the majority. I laud the schools' attempts to get these DCs reading as it is key in future educational success.

Oh dear. Round and round it goes. Teachers blame parents. Parents blame schools. Secondary teachers blame primary teachers. Primary teachers say secondary teachers don't understand the problems.
One thing that came across to me from watching the programs was that a lot of time, effort (along with money) was put into getting those children to be able to read. Will that be maintained once the cameras have gone? Is the success of the school due to the phonics scheme or more due to any extra attention the children were getting? Instead of "new initiatives" or whatever they are called would children learn better if either class sizes were halved or teaching staff doubled so that more time could be spent using whatever methods to help children to learn.
I would also think that schools should particularly be there for the children from poor (in whatever respect) backgrounds. For them being educated is probably their only hope for escaping that background. In those cases it's no good passing the buck back to the parents even though it is their responsibility.

I wondered about that too juule-cameras of course would make a huge difference to most kids. I hope they go back and do regular updates!!!

I think there's no point apportioning blame, especially to the parents. I am highly educated and still feel at sea much of the time as a parent, god help people who are illiterate and broke as well.

but what IS this scheme going to do in the future?

If they came down hard on those who were failing in INFANTS, right away, before they became disruptive and switched off in Juniors, that would surely be easier and more cost effective. And the head said many of these kids have not had experiences like nursery. Well, why not? It's FREE in the UK. What do we do to make sure those that need it, do it?

If their parents are addicts and/or can't get off their asses, the children should be conveyed to and from school by the state in some form (school, breakfast club, walk to school crocodile, parent mutual help network-actually I could use a network like that myself!). It would be money well spent.

OK, so maybe those children from unfortunate backgrounds SHOULD be conveyed to school by the state- oh, and maybe the state should also ensure those children had a good breakfast- um, and a good night's sleep. Perhaps it should ensure that the child got to read to a competent adult the previous evening, one who took an interest in the child's day, all as part of the after-school/evening/bed routine that the state should ensure that child has, as the state knows full well that it's THESE things coming together that increase that child's chances of 'a positive life experience'. Hang on- the state CAN do all of this! It's called removing those kids from those couldn't-care-less backgrounds. Imagine the hue and cry that'd go up if the state advocated THAT!

The government HAS tried: Surestart did all it could but whilst it'd be unfair to brand it a failure in that it seems to have made NO DIFFERENCE to the lives of those children who could have most benefited, it was of enormous help to those parents committed enough to grab the opportunities Surestart provided.. ie the sort of parents who CARE enough about their kids to TRY and do their, even though we all know parenting is one of the most difficult jobs someone can do.

And as for their being 'no point in apportioning blame', well, maybe if we called it 'pinpointing the issues that most affect the child's less than ideal educational outcome and seek to do something about THAT' it'd be more palatable? Though it actually means the same thing.

Off hand, I can't think of many of my secondary teacher collegues who blame primary and infant school teachers. Most of us have far too much sympathy for the nightmare of formall assessment that they are tied inro, and the staightjacket of literacy/ numeracy hours that the government dictates they should use.

My difficulty is quite simple. I am getting ever larger numbers of children in year 7 who are functionally illiterate. Most of them have no formal diagnosis of anything. Many of them come from dysfunctional families that will find it hard to support their child's learning needs, but this is by no means true of all of them.

At 11 these children have reading ages of 5 and 6. I'm a trained science teacher, but I have no training in how to teach these children to read, very often I have no learning support in the classroom either. And what is happeneing in my classroom is repeated all through the secondary education system.

These children don't need me, they need a Primary teacher who knows how to teach them to read! This isn't bloody rocket science. These kids cannot access the work I do, even with the most basic of SEN resources, because they cannot read the instructions! And after a while, bless them, they give up trying.

They need to be taken out of the system and given intensive 1 to 1 until they can actually function in a secondary class. Any other talk of 'inclusion' for these children is meaningless money saving!

Totally agree with you MB. It seems ridiculous that children are moving on to study at secondary level unable to read.
Miljee - Regardless of their backgrounds it would be nice if while children are at school they could be helped to gain the key skills which they need to at least function in society. To me, this means being able to read and understand what they are reading when they leave primary school or continuing with the basics at secondary. If that means more one-to-one or smaller classes then that should be being addressed. Not burdening teachers with ever more wholescale targets where individuals get lost. Of course, there is the issue of getting children into school in the first place. But surely some would be more likely to attend if they could understand what was going on.
I think I've read somewhere that one of the reasons for schools was to educate the children of illiterate parents at a time when most people couldn't read. These children depended on school and their teachers. It seems a pity that 200 years later we seem to be in the same position.
In fact, after reading this back, I realise once again just how complicated this whole thing is.

My son is 7 and struggles with reading, and is significantly behind most of his peers. But he gets a shed load of support in school and at home, and is making real progress. Already he can access other subjects, in so much as he can read instructions.... eg ' Colour in the top part of this triangle'

I teach 11 year olds who cannot do this, and who have reading ages of less than my son.

And I am expected to teach them 'Chromatography' and 'Photosynthesis' and their targets are to learn the high frequency words from Year 2

Inclusion my arse

Don't be fooled into thinking this is a "deprived" area "poor" family problem just because the school featured fits that category.
Middle class children who have attended day nursery from being very young are just as likely to have difficulties.
As a Foundation Stage teacher I see children from all backgrounds arrive at school with poor auditory processing skills and from then on it is an up hill struggle. If you can't distinguish the sounds in spoken language you can't put them together to build words.

So-is this somewhat where we are "at" here:

exclusive phonics is good.

But more importantly, call it whatever you like, kids must go at their own pace or be "held back", until they have attained what is required, in order to understand the next stage. Not just moved into Yr X, because their chronolgical age is Y.

It doesn't matter if they are 4 or 7 or eleven, (or 47 for that matter!) SEN or GnT, they should be doing learning that THEY can manage, that stretches them just a little each day. They should know their achievements are valuable TO THEM (and their families if poss) and that the right behaviour and effort is more rewarding than playing up.

This is attainable, achievable, sustainable and universal.

Was up with sick child and then couldn't get back to sleep so I caught the whole of a re-run of the first episode of "Last Chance Kids" in the early hours of this a.m.

I was in tears at Christian whose Dad was a docker who admitted that he himself had been classed as special needs at school but who had still gone on to get employment and raise 2 beautiful boys, with the eldest, Christian, having have respect for school and joy (eventually) in learning to read. If I recall correctly, it only took him 2 weeks to be able to read whole sentences when previously he had been unable/unwilling to read a word. Two weeks after being in school several years.

Although his mum and dad were clearly thrilled I can't help thinking he was lucky in as much his homelife seemed lovely and stable. Dad was shown taking them to the library once reading was going well and the boys were shown being happy and excited about unwrapping new books for Christmas presents.

One thing I noticed though was that they said that the children were split into *20" different groups for reading and I don't think there were 20 classroom/teachers so some must have used other non-teaching staff to help and you could see about 15-20 chidren in each group. Does this not tell us something about class sizes ?

Someone mentioned that Surestart had not benefitted those children for whom it was intended. On another thread I was told by a poster who was part of the target group that it was seen as patronising and avoided. I personally find it annoying that people's pride got in the way of their childen accessing facilities that were mean't to level the playing field between low paid/benefit recipient parents and others who pay for good quality stimulating childcare out of their own earnings.

If I was in government, rather than letting the middle class get too much of the benefit of those facilities on the cheap I would have made Surestart attendance, of say an average twice a week, a compulsory part of a scoial contract in respect of the right to receive benefits/tax credits. My salary is used to support my children and it certainly doesn't come with no strings attached why should any other form of income ?

how interestnig fedupwasher woman. I think I agree with you. IT is just staggering how many parents opt out of things especially, bend over backwardsly, designed for them, when it is so clearly of benefit to their children.

I too saw dispatches, thought the head teachers of the two schools who were really committed to the synthetic (??SP) phonics schemes were just fantastic. Awesome in fact. Monteagle primary school head was such a cool lady. And the head of Woodberry down - i loved his response to his critics who were saying his scheme was 'right wing' as it taught children by rote, thereby yes, allowing them to learn to read, but not engendering a love of reading. His response was to say that if teaching some of the most deprived children in the country to read, about things they would otherwise possinbly never experience - such as other countries, museums, art galleries etc, was right wing, then that was fine with him. HE;d accept that label.

We have the opposite people at the head of our school. Full of all this love of reading stuff - which is fine, but it is quite important that in their haste to ensure your child LOVES reading, they actually do get round to teaching them to bloody read!

need to move kids from their school asap.

o my god mild mannered - you should come see my kids school. then you would see.
here is a selection of reasons why they do not learn to read:

1. Teacher who does not believe in national curriciulm, wants children to love books, feel comfortable with books, and so lets children choose own books from selection including all abilities, so children pick totally unsuitabel books, get frstrated they cannot read them, and behave badly and give up.
2. Children get annoyed they cannot read, and embarrassed, so behave badly to take the focus of the reading problem, then they are chucked out of the class into the corridor / heads office and so miss more learning to read time.
3. Children whose parents are not literate themselves and so too embarassed to take them to libraries or read at home with them, as cannot do it themselves.
4. Children who have suffered or still are suffereing really awful things at home, and so are just so disctracted and in some cases quite distrubed, and so disrupt the class to the extent that the rest of the class cannot hear the teacher.
5. A school with a contscatly chaging senior management team, all of whom have different strategies on how to teach reading, so the scheme gets changed every 5 seconds and nobody gets to progress down one particaulr route, they just get a 5 minute go at lots of routes.
6. Each child is given a book to take home occassionally, a recent letter home said 70% of the home readers had not been returned by the end of last term and could htey have them back please.
7. No funding to replace the books as funding follows the children and becasue the school is so crap and/or lots of the kids in it live in temporary housing and don't stay in the one area for long, the kids leave, and so we have a falling roll - a decreasing number of pupils.

blah blah blah blah!!

I could go on.

My question in our school is how do any of the children learn to read?!

Our teaching authority has a compulsory hour of maths per day. They have now made 2 hours PE per week compulsory too. Teachers also have to fit in music, science, health/RE. technology etc etc. I was shown the daily timetable of the school's infant class (P1-P4 composite) - there is only about 30 mins left for language per day! My daughter started school in August. She is struggling. It is very difficult with these kind of timetable restrictions for the school to fit in as much help as she requires (although they are great and are trying hard)
So yes - I can see why some kids slip through - at this stage I just hope tat my dd won't be one of them!

But don't they have a compulsory hour of literacy every day too?

These hours really add up-why do a proportion of kids not benefit?

I was looking at Kumon maths for dd1, not very enthusiastically, and then it occurred to me she is spending an HOUR every day doing maths at school, but comes home with little or no understanding of the homework she has been set. She is slow and finds it very tortuous, and as her parents who have really thought hard about this and her, we think the answer for her is simply more practice.

I hate math myself, but the homework seems very simple, with only one problem of each type- the school is not a high flyer by any standard.

She's so bright and willing (according to teacher)-and he "only" has 28 for her maths set-what is happening TO HER for that hour?

The problem with the literacy hour was that teachers were told to teach to the higher ability children and not to worry the others would catch up (which as teachers said at the time didn't happen)
Exclusive phonics isn't good
and children who have attended Sure Start Centres are leaving with lower levels of language than children who haven't (it could have something to do with the level of qualification of the staff employed)

www.tes.co.uk/search/story/?story_id=2357765

Here's a thing. Why don't parents get more teachin gin how to teach. My DS was being taught at a nursery how to read I I didn't have the foggiest what I was doing. I established it was a 'look and say' approach later on. I am lucky enough to have a sister who teaches little ones and she explained to me in lay terms the different approaches to teaching reading. In the end DS was taught bu 'look and Say' what I could remember of phonics from my childhood and DP's childhood (much better memory than me).

DS s a fantastic reader but don't get me started on his writing. He is the equivalent in writing to some of the kid's on that programme with regards to their reading. I suspect that is because I didn't focus on it like I did the reading. I got some advice on here on how to help him but we parents are pretty clueless I think in many areas. I now do with dd what I never did with DS in the hope her fine motor skills develop.