New children's literacy campaign: should Mumsnet sign up?

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello everyone

The charity Save the Children, with whom we've done a bit of work in the past, is asking if Mumsnet can give its collective support to a campaign to improve children’s literacy here in the UK.

Save the Children say: “Reading is the key to a child’s future: it unlocks their potential and opens up a world filled with possibilities. For our poorest children, reading well is their best route out of poverty, but thousands of children from poorer backgrounds leave primary school not reading as well as they should.”

As ever, we'd like to know what you think about adding Mumsnet's voice to this. The aim of the campaign is to ensure that every child is a confident reader by age 11, but Save the Children's position is that to achieve this we all need to play our part. The campaign hasn't launched yet, but Save the Children will be working with a coalition of organisations, communities, parents, teachers and schools, businesspeople and politicians. They are working with a range of media, including The Sun. They don’t want to give away all their campaign tactics before the launch (understandably) but if you have any specific questions about the methods and aims of the campaign, let us know and we'll see if we can get answers for you.

Please do also use this thread to let us know what you think about Mumsnet officially getting behind this one.

Thanks,
MNHQ

[FastWindow]

That's a great decision. How can we back a publication that thinks it's ok to show a daily changing pair of boobs (Kelly, 21, Rotherham, likes Yorkshire Terriers, Pina Coladas and Ignoring Wider Issues) and then try to make out the same publication is all concerned with children?

[CheltGlosLocal]

I think everything about this campaign is great until I read the sentence about working with The Sun. I recently read a really interesting blog post www.parentshaped.co.uk/2014/07/sun-grooms-children/ that challenged and changed my perception of this publication so I would have to say that I think because of the association with this particular newspaper the answer should be no.

[CorruptBunny]

Good decision. My vote would be a 'No' also.

[Toecheese]

I'm very pro literacy. I've seen children seriously underachieve because of their poor literacy and would support campaigns.

Yes the sun isn't very mumsnet. It's not a paper I've ever bought or read. However it is more likely to reach the target audience than the times or the guardian.

Does it just have to be the sun rolling out the campaign? Involving other papers would heighten awareness with relative professionals.

[Cheeky76890]

L.

[KleineDracheKokosnuss]

It's been launched. According to the Telegraph the plan is that:

"Thousands of parents and other volunteers will be recruited to read to a child, one-to-one, for at least 10 minutes per day, with networks of schools, charities and companies encouraged to participate by holding reading events and supplying volunteers. "

So my question is - will this work/make any difference?

[KleineDracheKokosnuss]

That's the thing. I read it and thought 'been there, done that' as I recall at least two, maybe three campaigns that sounded the same over the years.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

We have been there and done that, and IIRC both of those things have been shown to have little to no impact according to the Sutton Trust.

The money could have been better spent elsewhere, where it could have made a real difference to children's lives.

[Campaspe]

I disagree with lots of the comments on here. I've read the information on the Read On, Get On website, and the research paper, and I think this is an extremely worthy campaign. I understand that the involvement of The Sun makes people uneasy, but they are one of many supporting partners, and as a major tabloid, they are well placed to disseminate the message to the families who really need to hear it. All very easy to sneer, but I'd like to see the critics roll out a literacy campaign with this scope before it is dissed completely!

[KleineDracheKokosnuss]

I don't think anyone is suggesting the aim is not worthy campaspe. But there were many questions about how STC planned to actually intervene when STC were seeking MN support, and now the campaign has been launched, it sounds a lot like previously launched campaigns/exhortations to read to children. For example, Bookstart has been universal since 2004

There doesn't seem to be anything particularly new in this campaign. It is good to read to children, and it would be better if children were not behind when they started school, but I'd like to know how this campaign is going to succeed where the others have (presumably) failed.

[mrz]

Basically the campaign seems to be bringing together different organisations who have been running their own campaigns for years otherwise it doesn't seem to be offering anything new. Very disappointing.

[ChazzerChaser]

I heard it's launch via the newspaper roundup on the radio this morning. It basically said the sun are working with save the children blah blah blah. So great publicity for the sun, endorsement from a children's charity. The well being of girls sold down the river by a charity that should care about them. So disappointing.

[MrsBartlet]

Like many others on here, I thought it all sounded great until I read they were partnering with The Sun - ridiculous idea! The Sun is not a family -friendly (or even female-friendly) paper and should not be given the veneer of respectability by working with Save the Children.

[Mashabell]

This thread wasn't at the top yesterday when i wanted to tell people that the campaign had been launched, so i started a new one. It was reported in several papers, incl. the Guardian:
//www.theguardian.com/education/2014/sep/08/reading-literacy-uk-cbi-schools-read-on-get-on-campaign
I could not resist making a comment.

There have been numerous initiatives to reduce the English 'literacy crisis', and some have made a small temporary difference. The problem keeps recurring, because its cause remains unchanged: different sounds for identical letters (on, only, once) and different spellings for identical sounds (to, too, two).

They make English literacy acquisition exceptionally difficult and dependent on one-to-one help, even for children of average intelligence and above. More regular spelling systems enable all children to learn to read faster and with much less support. They also leave far fewer weak pupils lagging a long way behind.

Literacy campaigns are merely like plasters on a festering sore which keeps re-erupting. The only long-term solution is to reduce some of the worst inconsistencies of English spelling.

[BathshebaDarkstone]

I would support this. Part of the problem in my DD's school is that teachers and TAs don't take guided reading in class, we parents are expected to do it all at home.

[Catam]

Have to laugh at Campaspe's comment - so until any of us have the money or political clout to run a campaign we are not allowed to comment on those who do?

Likewise the assumption that the Sun is well placed to reach families with literacy issues - why do you think that?

I totally understand that charities want to tackle literacy, and I get that rather than back an existing campaign, they prefer to start their own (more control as well as more glory if it goes well), realistically new is not always better but nobody loves a new initiative more than funders.

Tacit approval of the Sun by a children's charity is really disgraceful and I hope Save the Children just not from misogyny are still reading this thread and taking note of all comments.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

The 'research' paper seems to be very reliant on one survey that showed hat 11 years olds that can't read enjoy reading less than 11 year old that can. Surprisingly, nowhere in the paper do they seem to have considered that these children don't enjoy reading because they can't read or find reading hard rather than the other way round.

Asking people to innovate and develop schemes/interventions that get all children reading seems rather pointless when those schemes already exist. The one intervention that is mentioned by name is Reading Recovery, which, while showing some gains in the short term, isn't effective in the long term.

The more I read, the less I think STC actually know what they're doing beyond a knee jerk 'Do Something' reaction. Which isn't a good use ofany money I might donate.

[Heels99]

What was the outcome of this? Did MN support this campaign. I notice that STC have gone ahead and partnered with The Sun on this, beggars belief

[Sirzy]

I haven't got time to read the whole thread but I think anything which helps is good BUT it needs to look at why parents aren't reading at home. If it is because parents aren't confident readers themselves then they need support to help them improve their skills to allow them to help their child.

[Mashabell]

Several papers today report on the latest OECD survey which found that in the UK only 25% of adults have a high level of literacy, while in Finland 37% do.

I can't help but suspect that this is closely linked to the fact that Finnish has Europe's best spelling system and English the worst. The simplicity of Finnish spelling enables children to become proficient readers 10 times faster than English ones. Nearly all Finnish pupils become fluent readers in 3 months instead of the 3 years needed by English speaking ones, 20% of whom still struggle after 6 years. It does not have to remain like that.

I realise that nothing is likely to change in the foreseeable future, but feel that people should at least become a little more aware what the costs of continuing to tolerate all the irregularities of English spelling are.

[mrz]

Have you seen Maarit Korhonen's book claiming Finland's schools letdown 2/3 of their pupils?

[JohnFarleysRuskin]

Even Eamonn Holmes (who I usually loathe) was asking the Sun Editor how he justified having a child literacy campaign in a paper unfit for kids.

www.facebook.com/NoMorePage3/photos/a.610853902311127.1073741836.408800809183105/798298393566676/?type=1&theater

[AuntieStella]

"that Finnish has Europe's best spelling system"

Serbocroat is nigh on 100% regular in terms of phoneme/grapheme correspondences.

What were the percentages for the countries where is it the main language?