Ofsted say literacy levels are falling.

[morethanpotatoprints]

Ofsted are saying that literacy levels are dropping and that those leaving primary at lower end of level 4 are not gaining GCSE C or above.

I just wondered what teachers and parents thought and if you agree where you think the problem lies and what should be done and by whom.

My view is more writing in lessons. My dd seems to do many projects involving drawing or computers and does very little writing, spelling. Also, she is brighter than her brothers but at a lower level than they were at her age.

It's down to (crap) interpretation of the curriculum then, isn't it - the press have claimed that children at primary schools only ever read extracts too, and no doubt there are plenty of terrible schools where it happens, but it isn't correct to say it happens everywhere, thank god.

I had a visiting teacher tell me that I can't possibly be serious about studying The Hobbit with my class next term

suggested I do extracts

Good, morethanpotatoprints, am relieved to hear it.

mrz! Silly cow.

so is my comment not valid?

mrz. I am only a mother here as qualified teacher years ago and no recent experience. Starting Hobbit with dd y3 after we finish Iron Man. I wish you were my dd's teacher. Go for it, I say.

I worked for a Head once who objected - when I insisted we made time for books right up to Y6 he made us write lesson plans for storytime.

Did you see my link southeastastra?

Many of the countries with higher pisa ratings exclude children who are not native speakers from their data ...apparently the UK doesn't

Sorry, southeastastra - yes, you are probably right about the data, in part.

I'm in KS1 morethanpotatoprints

The Hobbit's a cracking adventure story for young children.

She claimed the language is too difficult for Y2

mrz the language in The Hobbit certainly isn't easy, but you could do so much with it (if you were allowed to and didn't have to worry about OFSTED/targets/other interfering crap). I think you're great for trying it.

Did anyone see the article in the Daily Fail about how teachers are failing to foster a love of reading in the classroom? I was - I always thought it was up to teachers to teach a child to read, because teaching reading requires a lot of training and understanding of learning styles, theoretical concepts etc. But actually fostering a love of reading should be largely down to parents???

So 20% of children in the UK have no books in their house at all, and Victoria Beckham prances around saying she never reads anything but magazines and that's perfectly OK and it's all the teachers' fault???

I think some schools are so hung up about that outstanding lable from Ofsted they have lost sight of what is important.
A colleague's daughter attends the outstanding school where they live but comes to Brownies held in our school. She saw our posters regarding our escaped class pet, who is a dragon! And said we never do anything like that. Parents evening revealed they only ever do spelling and grammar exercises! Except for assessment 3 times a year.
The same child revealed shed been sneaking into the library when it was a wet playtime because they never read anything but scheme books!

"I hate to be pedantic, but it was said in the news report that one in five children did not meet the national average"

In which case the news report was wrong. What they should have said is that one in five did not meet the expected level and yes, that is a serious failing. And it appears that that number has remained unchanged for some years, and that improvement stalled from the mid-00s to 2009 (cut off of the report that was in the news yesterday).

It isn't good enough to have that many children who are being failed at such an early stage, year after year.

I don't think the language in The Hobbit makes it unaccessible to Year 2 children. Surely you only learn new words by hearing and reading them in context, anyway? What better way to improve your vocabulary than through an exciting story, particularly an exciting story read really well by someone?

Fascinating thread all.

mrz I think the discussion of your teaching the Hobbit in KS1 is incredibly interesting. Our school sees reading Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) as the pinnacle of KS1 reading achievement.

My questions are these:

Do teachers still read to their classes? If so, are they free to select some of the classic children's literature for this?

Do teachers find writing assignments 'old fashioned' - we have had none at our school until Y4. Nothing KS1, except one weekend hosting a stuffed animal which frankly most parents filled in, rather than children. Reading diary in Y3 child can write something about the book, but usually just a short comment like 'read chapter 3' & date. Reading diary Y4 has a grid of ideas - write acrostic of title, draw a story map, write a letter to a character, etc... Which I've had my DD really work on, I haven't allowed the usual one line (or indeed one word answer) to suffice this time.

I really wonder about creative writing? mrz here and elsewhere you've made illusion to your escaped pet exercise - could you expand on that or could you put up information somewhere? I'd love to pass the idea on to our school.

Do teachers value research? I'd love to see some assignments where my DDs were asked to find out more about an author or story (i.e. Find 10 amazing facts out about Roald Dahl?)

Anyway my questions are because a lot of the above isn't happening at our school at least.

Sorry - should have said - this isn't just for mrz.

I'd love to know what other teachers do (and perhaps links to good resources - I've started sending things into school as they have an 'ideas box' on their moodle website).

thanks

Our dss are still read to by the teachers, in KS1 and KS2. Looking at their work on parents' evenings, there clearly is plenty of opportunity for creative story writing, too, because my ds1 (year 3) seems to enjoy writing quite lengthy and fantastical stories, involving a wide variety of improbable characters. His manner of writing is really quite amusing - he has some very interesting turns of phrase which he must have picked up from his reading, somewhere. Research has also been requested, more often for holiday projects - finding out something about the topic that has been agreed for the next term and reporting back to the class in any way the child sees fit, whether via poster, list of facts, story, poem or artwork. During school time, the classes do also sometimes seem to be asked to do their own research on things, using resources available to them. They've also started getting the children to pretend to be, eg, travel agents, doing research into a holiday destination relating to the term's topic, then selling it to a client, and that sort of thing.

Pastsellbydate. I obviously don't have a classroom as a supporting mum so the resources I can use are a bit limited. I get mine form tes, the standard is good/ have to make some corrections, but all in all would recommend. I suppose you know of this already though.

morethanpotatoprints

Yes, I feel I have to keep an eagle eye on what DDs are doing and ensure that we do a bit extra at home to ensure understanding, let alone progression.

I have signed up to TES but haven't really accessed literacy worksheets/ etc.. What would you recommend.

thanks

Sorry, I miss read your post Pastsellbydate, I thought you were looking for new resources for yourself not the children, sorry.

Please don't ask me as I don't know what I'm doing really, lol. My PGCE is post compulsory and only use it for weak areas for my dd. It takes me ages to find stuff but I'm getting a bit better, lol