The National Literacy Trust viewpoint

Each month, Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust, offers a perspective on current issues affecting literacy and education policy and practice.

The viewpoint is featured in our free monthly email newsletter. See also NLT opinion and policy statements

February: School libraries: the next chapter

2009
December: To blog or not to blog: that isn't the question
November: Ofsted's annual report and literacy
October: A 'Nudge' for literacy?
September: Rebuilding the economy - the role of literacy
August: School libraries - a child's right
July: The end of the Strategies
June: Rebuilding trust - the role of literacy
May: Engaging the book-free household
April: A new curriculum, a new definition for literacy?
March: The impact of the 2008 National Year of Reading
January: what does social mobility mean for literacy?

Viewpoints from 2008
Viewpoints from 2007
Viewpoints from 2006

School libraries: the next chapter

Discussion about the future of libraries has been marked in the past 12 months by both political debate over public libraries (an All Party Parliamentary Group review and a Department for Culture Media and Sport consultation) and campaigning activity for school libraries (notably by the Campaign for the Book with support from the School Library Association).

School libraries have a vital role to play in the creation of reading cultures within schools. A rich collection of books and resources, promoted by a professional reading enthusiast, working across the school community means that a school library should be a powerhouse of reading, reaching into all areas of the school’s life and into the community and homes of students. For this reason the National Literacy Trust (NLT) has for a long time supported the importance of school libraries as a resource in raising literacy standards.

To address the strategic future of this vital resource the NLT with the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council is supporting a commission to be chaired by Baroness Estelle Morris. We hope that this will push forward the conversation about how school libraries can be made more effective in a changing educational context. The commission will report after the next election with a refreshed vision for the future of school libraries.

The commission has yet to meet and the commissioners have yet to draw up their terms of reference. However preliminary conversations with policy makers, professionals and government contacts have started. Many stakeholders are already expressing their hopes for the commission. I have three personal hopes which I would like the discussions to focus on:

1.School libraries for those who need them most. The starting point for the planning of school library provision needs to be an identification of the pupils who will most benefit from the support the school library has to offer. These pupils will have lower levels of literacy, will be less likely to have books in their home and will be unlikely to read for pleasure. A deep understanding of who these pupils are, what their socioeconomic and ethnic background is and what their home and community cultures are helps to create a powerful and relevant school library.

2. School libraries that promote literacy effectively. The explosion of the reader development movement in libraries across the country has meant the proliferation of reading groups and reader promotion activities. We know that children who are more likely to read for pleasure are more likely to have higher literacy skills. Yet it has not always been the case that literacy work in schools has fully utilised the school library as a central resource. I would hope to see the commission assert the need for school libraries to be more closely aligned to national strategies to promote literacy.

3. A vision for the future of school library services. One of the reasons that I was particularly keen that Baroness Morris should lead the commission was that when she was minister I had heard her speak about the importance of school library services. She remembered how important they had been to her professional practice when she was a teacher. I had never heard this from any minister before. Local authorities’ school library services are a vital resource for schools, supporting teaching and learning. Over the next few months we will gain a clearer picture of how local authorities will relate to school improvement in the future. It will be a complex picture where School Improvement Partners will become more important as the support from the national strategies is removed. Positioning school library services in this landscape will be vital if their full potential is to be realised.

The role of the commission is to lead new thinking, it is not an advocacy activity. But I hope that the vision and enthusiasm it stimulates will support arguments for the role of the school library.

To blog or not to blog: that isn't the question

By Dr Christina Clark (PhD), Head of Research, National Literacy Trust

Our new report on writing, published at the beginning of this month, has caused something of a stir in the media and online. Fittingly, research which suggests that new technology may have educational benefits for young people’s writing has been examined in blogs, debated in comments posted on news articles, and spread across the globe via tweets and ‘retweets’ on micro blogging service Twitter.

The first significant study of young people’s attitudes to writing in the UK, our report finds that young people who engage with technology based texts enjoy writing more than young people who don’t (57% vs. 40%, respectively). Blog writers, as well as young people with a social networking site (SNS) profile, are also more confident writers. These are altogether encouraging findings as research (such as Twist, Schagen and Hodgson, 2007) has shown that confidence and enjoyment are closely linked to the development of skills.

The research also finds that blog owners and those with a profile on a SNS are significantly more likely to regularly write an array of texts compared with young people who do not have a blog or a SNS profile. For example, blog writers are significantly more likely to write notes to other people, short stories, letters, song lyrics, poems, reviews, plays/ screenplays and in a diary/ journal. This means that blog owners in particular appear to do more creative writing than young people who do not own blogs.

Unsurprisingly, as confident users of new media, many of those talking about the research online are positive about the benefits of technology. The Tech Blorge blogger says, “I think the Web is actually helping literacy because it provides endless opportunities for kids to hone their skills in front of a real audience”. But there are also online voices subscribing to commonly held perceptions about the negative impact of new media: namely that blogs, SNS and other forms of technology are a waste of young people’s time and dumb down their literacy and other core skills. Soaring_eagle1 posted a comment on The Independent website, saying that, “Writing is wonderful and actually an art, blogging and technology on the whole are an atrocity and isn't an art, it is turning our children into morons in many cases”.

Portraying writing as a high art is not necessarily the most helpful concept for young people and other learners disengaged with writing. Interestingly, despite the poster’s apparent dislike of new technology, they were in fact using it to broadcast their views and interact with a live news story, clearly demonstrating that, like it or not, new technologies provide new opportunities for communication and are already part of everyday life.

An equally hot debate on the impact of technology is the effects of ‘text speak’, which is frequently blamed for the decline of young people’s literacy skills. Our research found that owning a mobile phone certainly did not alter writing enjoyment, attitudes or behaviour. In fact, some research has shown that as long as young people understand when different forms of writing are appropriate, texting and other technologies are linked positively with literacy achievement. For example, comparing exam papers from the past 25 years, Massey (2005) found that teenagers today are "ten times more likely to use non-standard English in written exams than in 1980, using colloquial words, informal phrases and text messaging shorthand – such as m8 for 'mate', 2 instead of 'too' and u for 'you’.” However, the same study also found that teenagers are now using far more complex sentence structures, a wider vocabulary and a more accurate use of capital letters, punctuation and spelling.

Ultimately, the debate is not whether children should engage in new technologies, as this is inevitable, but how practitioners can utilise technologies to tap into children’s and young people’s passion and confidence in these new forms of writing to build core skills. Practising writing, in whatever form, makes perfect.

To read the full report, Young people’s writing: Attitudes, behaviour and the role of technology visit http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/research/writing_survey_2009.html

Ofsted’s annual report and literacy

This week Christine Gilbert, Ofsted’s Chief Inspector, launched the inspectorate’s annual report by identifying its theme:

“…the need to ensure that children, young people and adults can read,
write and do basic arithmetic. With the demise of the National Strategies, it is vital that the importance of the acquisition of good basic skills is not diluted. With nearly three out of ten eleven year olds not reaching level 4 in both English and Maths in 2009, we cannot afford to lose a national focus on effective teaching.”

The annual report is a fascinating state of the nation analysis of the services that support children and learners. The report draws attention to key themes which define the national literacy challenge.

In benchmarking our education system with the best in the world, the report rightly bases its assessment on the fundamental belief that ‘the foundations for good literacy are laid in a child’s early years. Outstanding childcare providers model spoken language well’. There has been some criticism that the report and the work of Ofsted attempt to cover too many areas. In this instance, it is a shame that its focus isn’t wide enough to take in the commissioning of speech and language support services. This is a vital activity in supporting the literacy of a large number of children and adults.

We know that literacy sits at the heart of social inclusion and social mobility. So the fact that the poorer the background of the child or learner, the more likely they are to experience poor learning opportunities is not only an injustice, it is a multiplication of injustice. The report finds that although a higher proportion of childcare settings were ranked good or outstanding than in 2007/8, the quality of childcare is lower overall in deprived areas. The report also highlights the fact that schools with higher proportions of children on free school meals are more likely to be inadequate.

Those who care passionately about the power of literacy to promote social justice therefore need to have a bias to the disadvantaged. The cruel irony is that the systems and opportunities are currently weighted against those who stand to gain most from increasing their literacy skills.

Good levels of basic skills are essential for personal economic well being. The report talks about the increase in demand for learning provision during the downturn, but also the ’resistance’ of some learners to improving their basic skills. ’Resistance’ is an interesting word, suggesting stubborn refusal. The good practice examples highlighted in the report are providers who have success through embedding literacy in vocational and workplace learning or citizenship. This suggests that rather than the ‘resistance’ of learners, the issue is with the sector’s ability to demonstrate relevance. Demand for skills will only increase when learners recognise the relevance of these skills for their aspirations.

All these issues provide a framework for determining areas of future literacy policy. However Christine Gilbert’s opening remarks highlight perhaps the most pressing literacy challenge: the teaching of literacy in the nation’s schools has for the past decade been determined by the National Strategies. What can we learn from this experience? How can teachers’ practice continue to be improved through access to best practice and professional development opportunities, whilst at the same time empowering them to be creative and to respond to the personal needs of learners and communities? How do we support the work and focus of schools on improving literacy standards after the end of the National Strategies?

A 'Nudge' for literacy?

Thaler and Sunstein are experts in behavioural science. They are also the authors of a book called Nudge which recommends techniques to help us improve the choices we make with benefits to our health, wealth and happiness.

No choices are ever presented in an entirely neutral way. Even a genuinely random placement of dishes on a school canteen counter can influence the relative popularity of salad over chips. Whilst the authors of Nudge are committed to individual freedom of choice, they do believe that it is legitimate to consider how we can ‘tailor’ choice to allow more people to make decisions that have positive benefits. They call this libertarian paternalism. If you are involved in the ‘tailoring’ of choice, Nudge is a book you might consider reading.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that we aren’t terribly good at making decisions. To make consistently perfect decisions would require full attention, complete information, unlimited cognitive ability and complete self-control. ‘Nudges’ are designed to help us fallible humans improve the quality of our lives, supporting our decision-making when we need most assistance, but without ever insisting on a particular decision if we are disinclined to make it.

National Literacy Trust research (1) has confirmed that reading has an image problem. For self-professed ‘non-readers’ it is seen as boring, and designed for ‘Johnnie no-mates’. They do not see the relevance of reading to their lives outside school, nor do they claim to see the significant differences to life chances that improved literacy could support. Some well-considered nudges could help, and could also increase the number of new parents who talk to their babies as a priority, and of dads who decide to read stories to their children on a regular basis.

For a nudge to be successful it needs to be ‘anchored’. You are unlikely to choose well when you don’t know what the decision will ‘look like’ or what the benefits of that decision will be. It is hard to overstate the impact of peer pressure - we nudge each other all the time - and social influences are very powerful.

Framing nudges sensitively is key, it also depends on the values of those you are trying to support. ‘Children who are read to, get ahead’ may work well for some, but be off-putting to others. Effective nudges for literacy have to be based on detailed knowledge of the behaviours and personal priorities of those we wish to target. There are lots of parallels between ‘nudges’ and social marketing and the work we started during the National Year of Reading (2008).

Did you know that just by asking someone if they intend to do something, they are more likely to do it? (It’s called ‘Priming’ apparently.) You can accentuate the impact of this effect by asking when and how someone might ‘do’ the thing you are nudging them towards? Combined with the ‘default’ nudge – for example everyone in your town being automatically given library membership, with an ‘opt out’ clause – you have yourself the makings of a very potent nudge.

Finally, we need great mapping to support nudges. Are books and other reading materials, and the spaces in which they are displayed and shared, ‘explained’ in a way that enables people without previous experience to make good decisions? How easy are book jackets to read?

The concept of the nudge has proved appealing to thinkers and opinion formers around Whitehall, and we know that it is already influencing policy for the future. It could be a powerful tool to support changes in attitudes and behaviours to literacy and reading.

(1) Young people's self-perception as readers: An investigation including family, peer and school influences Clark, Osborne and Akerman, January 2008

Rebuilding the economy – the role of literacy

From nowhere we suddenly seem to be surrounded by green shoots. The consensus is growing that the worst of the recession has passed and whilst there are abiding fears of a second dip, economic optimism prevails and economic indicators are increasingly positive. This is an important moment to assert the place of literacy in rebuilding the economy. It is also vital that we stay alert to the longer term impact of the recession on literacy support.

Statisticians have long calculated the cost to the economy of poor literacy skills. And it is generally accepted that a sustainable economic growth policy needs to be built on a commitment to increasing literacy. A nation where 41% of employers report concerns about the basic skills of their employees (1), needs a stronger foundation of skills. Moving out of a recession we need a renewed and sustained commitment to skilling the workforce. In the digital age, literacy is more important for equality of opportunity than ever before.

However, we know that those who hold few or no qualifications are least likely to participate in basic skills courses. So, unless we are content to rebuild a society where those who have suffered most from the recession continue to suffer most in the upturn, we need to address the issue of how we grow the demand for skills among those who need them most. We need to help more people understand the real, tangible and practical value of increasing their skills.

At the same time as the economic recovery becomes more apparent, the spectre of public sector spending cuts threatens the very education sector which will be required to support sustained growth. These cuts are the result of the drop in government revenue during the recession and the increasing national debt necessitated by economic stabilisation activities.

The Comprehensive Spending Review required by March 2011 will determine where these cuts will occur. Former Cabinet Minister, James Purnell, has recently called for the Labour Party to hold true to its priority of education, education, education and to ring-fence education spending, preserving it from impending cuts. However there are no signs from any of the parties that they see any public service sector as immune.

In the past ten years the work of many charities and community organisations has benefitted from government funding for vital programmes and services targeting the most disadvantaged. This funding looks increasingly vulnerable in the context of constrained public funding. As a result, the work of charities, including the National Literacy Trust, face very real challenges at a time when it is more vital than ever to the nation’s future. We will fight to maintain our support from government by championing the importance of literacy and committing to rigorous performance measures, including value for money, but we know it will get harder.

So despite economic optimism, uncertainties remain in assessing how the recession will ultimately impact on literacy. One thing is certain – governments demonstrate through their commitment to literacy, a commitment to issues far wider than school standards. Rationing literacy support rations aspiration. By proactively supporting literacy, government gives a voice to its citizens, promoting their rights of participation in society and empowering democratic discourse. In the next eighteen months, we hope to see a political commitment to literacy as a spending priority.

Jonathan Douglas, September 2009

(1) CBI Taking stock: education and skills survey 2008

This is significant for literacy as it suggests both the weakening of an important resource within schools and is also a negative statement of schools’ prioritisation of the creation of a reading culture. So it is not surprising that the National Literacy Trust is supporting the Campaign for the Book’s lobby.

School libraries are a vital resource; surely accepting the argument of the Campaign for the Book and making school libraries statutory is a quick win for any political party? It is a relatively easy requirement which is probably already fulfilled by the majority of schools. It would, for instance, be a perfect headline for a new government’s first schools bill. However a quick examination of the pattern of school library provision in England explains the hesitation of the political parties:

• The complex range of stakeholders means that it is possible for no one to take overall responsibility for school library provision. Schools have their own delegated budgets to provide libraries within schools, local authorities’ schools library services’ budgets are also delegated to schools. However, schools library services are legally created by public library services, even if they sit within Children and Young People’s Services. Schools, local authorities’ Children’s Services or Public Libraries, who is in charge of school libraries? At a conference ten years ago a culture minister dodged a question about school library services in the morning explaining it was the remit of education and later that afternoon a schools minister dodged the same question explaining it was the remit of culture.

• Following a decade of enforced delegation, schools library services have been dramatically cut and significantly weakened. This means that primary schools in particular, who are far less likely to have their own librarian, are now less likely to be able to access local authority support in the management of their school library.

• The evidence for the positive impact of a school library in the UK is not compelling. Whilst it would seem common sense that a school library empowers learning and teaching, following the publication of Empowering the Learning Community in 2000 (1), the government commissioned two pieces of research to determine the evidence base connecting school library provision to attainment in England (2). The reports found rich international evidence but a relatively weak domestic evidence base.

• The international evidence suggests that it is not the mere presence of a school library but its quality which will determine its effectiveness. The evidence suggests that the effectiveness of provision correlates with the presence of a skilled librarian, the quality of stock and the integration of the library with the teaching and learning strategies of the school. This means that not only does the service need to be statutory but that quality control mechanisms need to be in place. Statutory provision needs to be supported with the engagement of agents such as Ofsted.

September 8 is UNESCO’s International Literacy Day, a date at the start of school year which reminds the world that literacy is a basic human right. In the UK, access to quality school library provision needs to be an expression of that basic right. If this is to happen then there needs to be a serious policy discussion about why it is not currently the case. The last year has seen two significant reviews of public libraries, both of which will report in the early autumn. 2010 should be marked by a similar investigation into the current provision of school libraries, examining the policy systems which need to support this provision. This needs to examine the purpose of schools library services in the new educational landscape, the quality of current provision, the mechanisms for establishing a child’s entitlement through statutory provision and the need for a national advocacy and development agent for the school library sector. This would be a substantive step forward in addressing the future of a resource that can no longer be taken for granted.

Jonathan Douglas, August 2009

(1) Library Information Commission Empowering the Learning Community report, March 2000
(2) Impact of School Library Services on Achievement and Learning in Primary Schools
Professor Dorothy Williams, Louisa Coles and Caroline Wavell, The Robert Gordon University, 2002
Impact of School Library Services on Achievement and Learning
Professor Dorothy Williams, Louisa Coles and Caroline Wavell, The Robert Gordon University, 2001

In terms of press coverage the Strategies have had a rough ride. Bluntly characterised as the literacy hour, they have been seen as New Labour’s arm of control reaching into classrooms and curtailing creativity. Professionals have frequently felt constrained by the Strategies. The Cambridge Primary Review has highlighted how the statutory (National Curriculum) and the non-statutory (the Strategies) have been “intertwined in a way which makes the exercise of professional autonomy exceedingly difficult”(1).

However there is another side to the work of the Strategies which must be acknowledged. They have been the most significant workforce development initiative that our schools have ever benefitted from. For many professionals they have deepened pedagogical understanding and there is significant (if contested) data to support the argument that they have driven up school standards. Neither is it accurate to see the Strategies as a New Labour invention. The National Literacy Project was launched by the last Tory government and provided the foundation for the Literacy Strategy.

The White Paper contains little concrete information about what will replace the Strategies in supporting the ongoing challenge of raising school standards. It states that there is an expectation that schools will maintain the literacy hour, but without the infrastructure that currently supports it. Several themes are discussed – a new role for some local authorities specialising in specific learning issues and sharing outcomes with other authorities, the creation of a new market of school improvement support, a reform of the role of the school improvement partners, and a new emphasis on non-mediated learning between schools and networking.

In the current policy landscape we are increasingly getting used to massive shifts in public service delivery. As the education system reconfigures in response to the White Paper, it would be great if the response to the end of the Strategies balances the cry of relief which many may feel, with congratulations to the thousands of teachers and librarians who have responded with enthusiasm and integrity to the education system over the past eleven years.

Jonathan Douglas, July 2009

(1) Cambridge Primary Review Towards a new primary curriculum University of Cambridge 2009

Literacy is frequently seen as solely relating to individuals and educational structures and is infrequently seen as an agent of social change. The National Literacy Trust wants to challenge this perception. We know that literacy not only changes individuals’ lives but it also changes communities. Literacy has a societal role: it builds social and personal confidence, it enables democratic engagement and informs the engagement by supporting empathy.

The evidence is strong: Scottish data shows that individuals with good literacy are significantly more likely to trust people in their own community with only 2% of men and 1% of women saying that they didn’t trust people at all (1). This trust translates into a feeling of safety: other research has demonstrated that literate residents consider their communities to be much safer than residents in the same area with lower literacy skills (2). Literacy builds social as well as personal capital. The evidence demonstrates how literacy skills enable stronger relationships within communities and how literacy builds social as well as personal capital.

Rebuilding trust in the institutions of liberal democracy will require the development of stronger social capital in communities, but this must then be aligned to political activism and democratic engagement. Again the evidence suggests that raising literacy standards has a significant role to play: individuals with poor basic skills are more likely to report being “not at all” interested in politics (42% for men with poor basic skills and 17% for men with good basic skills and 50% and 21% respectively for women) (3).

Ultimately, low levels of literacy impact on participation in democracy. Men and women with the lowest literacy skills were the least likely to have voted in the 1987 and 1997 general elections (4).

In July the National Literacy Trust will launch its Literacy Manifesto – challenging the political parties to promote literacy as a priority in their election pledges. We will argue strongly that whilst school standards must be at the heart of these pledges there also needs to be a strong appreciation of the importance of the social impact of literacy. The corollary of this argument for the wider societal benefits of literacy is that partnerships beyond the school have a role to play in raising literacy standards. In the Literacy Manifesto we will argue that a stronger social infrastructure with increased democratic participation built on increased trust requires a stronger literacy skill base. There are positive signs that the renewal of systems of government will incorporate this perspective: the election of John Bercow, the great parliamentary champion of speaking, listening and communication skills, as speaker, is perhaps the most hopeful sign. However we all have a role to play in asserting the importance of literacy in social policy. We hope that the Literacy Manifesto will empower literacy professionals to argue this.

Jonathan Douglas, June 2009

(1) Parsons & Bynner New light on literacy and numeracy in Scotland Scottish Government 2008
(2) Parsons & Bynner New light on literacy and numeracy in Scotland Scottish Government 2008
(3) Basic Skills Agency Basic Skills and Political and Community Participation 2002
(4) Basic Skills Agency Op cit

National Family Week has been a catalyst for a whole range of fun and active events, from picnics to sports days. Its consumer-friendly website has acted as a family event information hub, with lots of colour and bright ideas. Wednesday was National Family Week Storytime, a day for families to enjoy storytelling and sharing words together. While the day appears to have been a great success, research suggests that connecting literacy-based activities with ideas of ‘fun’, ‘active’ and ‘spending time together’, remains a completely alien concept for many families.

2008 National Year of Reading research, co-funded by the Trade Publishers Council, explored the shared attitudes of lower-income, non-professional (C2DE) family households towards reading. As part of the study, families completed a range of tasks over a two-week period, encouraging them to engage with reading, keeping scrapbooks and video diaries of their experiences along the way. These families then took part in extensive discussions with interviewers to talk about their experiences.

The results are fascinating, and paint a compelling picture of the need to ensure that initiatives targeting these families are active, fun, and inclusive. For the families in the study, reading for leisure is not a consideration, and the majority do not feel any stigma about this. Readers are seen as part of an alien and unexciting tribe who they seldom meet. Readers are ‘losers’ – and reading is an ‘isolating’ (even ‘sulky’!) activity in generally really sociable homes.

In many of these busy households the emphasis is on shared activity, often physical. Grandparents are often the closest known ‘readers’, and there are no books, beyond picture books, in many of their homes. One impact of a decline in inherited reading habits seems to be the re-emergence of the book-free home. Books as objects aren’t considered a desirable feature of these homes. They are thought to be ‘messy’, and many of the adults taking part had not read a book since school.

Many found the process of selecting a book really intimidating, and felt in general that the packaging and promotion of reading materials made many assumptions, and were full of ‘code’ which they did not understand and were hence alienated by. The primary barrier, though, was the lack of appreciation of the pleasures to be gained from reading.

So what can we do about this gloomy picture for family literacy?

Well, there was some good news in the project too. Participants actually responded very positively to the researchers after their two weeks of reading tasks, and increasingly positive comments emerged about the pleasures to be gained, as a family, from the reading experience. Encouragement and friendly advice proved invaluable – especially when it was made clear that the ‘tasks’ were designed to be pleasurable, and the definition of reading much wider, than participants had initially feared.

Publishers are considering the issues involved in the packaging and promotion of books, particularly for key ranges like Quick Reads, to see if they can remove some of the ‘code’ which alienates these families. This will go a long way.

However, we need to go further. We need to develop more active, fun, stigma-free, ‘non-educational’ and non-judgemental reading activities that involve the whole family in reading and give members of the household the chance to develop positive and pleasurable associations with reading. We also need to adopt an altogether broader definition of reading, and of literacy. These activities will need to overcome a range of potential pre-conceptions and must not undermine the idea of having fun together.

We need to evaluate the effectiveness of these ‘light touch’ approaches in starting to overcome negative attitudes towards reading, and to understand whether this will have an impact on the overall levels of literacy and quality of life of those affected. That’s what we’ve started with the ‘Great Escapes’ family pilot, funded by the DSCF and one of the first Reading for Life projects - and we will share the evaluation of this pilot with you as soon as it is complete.

A National Storytime day is a great event to add to the literacy calendar, but working together, we can start getting families excited again about reading and hopefully bring reading back into homes all year round.

Honor Wilson-Fletcher , May 2009

The study on families, and all activity, insight and evaluation relating to the NYR is freely available in summary on wikireadia. The study of families can be accessed by using the keywords ‘research on families’.

A new curriculum, a new definition for literacy?

Sir Jim Rose’s Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum sets the scene for primary education in England from 2011. He has conceived the curriculum as a dynamic concept, delivering both a love of learning for its own sake and the understanding, knowledge and skills required to participate in a constantly changing society. So, the review launches the primary sector not into a new static framework but into a cycle of proactive change, where the curriculum as a whole will be strategically reviewed at agreed intervals.

Literacy sits at the heart of the report’s recommendation for a renewed primary curriculum. Literacy is explicitly defined as the four strands of language - reading, writing, speaking and listening. While it may not seem radical, this affirmation is incredibly important. Literacy has tended to be defined by reading and writing skills, while assuming speaking and listening will develop organically. It is vital to assert the importance of speaking and listening skills, and the review’s definition of literacy is very positive.

Speaking and listening skills underpin all learning and are the start of all other literacy skills. By placing speaking and listening alongside reading and writing in his definition of literacy, Rose recognises the importance of the mutuality of the four strands of language. Conversation orders the concepts which are encoded in writing and decoded in reading. Approaches like Pie Corbett’s “Talk for Writing” demonstrate how effective it is to develop these skills together. However, speaking and listening skills are also important skills in their own right. Their absence inhibits not only other learning, but social and emotional development, and later employment opportunities. Yet Ofsted has frequently highlighted that they are not given the same attention or curriculum time as reading and writing in schools.

The issue is particularly significant for disadvantaged children: Rose cites Hart and Risley’s research which highlighted how children from poorer backgrounds have significantly less exposure to language. Rose also considers last year’s Bercow review which drew attention to how services are frequently failing to support children with special speech, language and communication needs and called for new approaches to support all children’s communications skills. A stronger commitment to speaking and listening skills within the primary curriculum will support all children, particularly those who currently start school with language skills so impoverished that they are in danger of not being able to access the curriculum.

Along with literacy and numeracy, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capability makes up the core of the new curriculum. Clearly the skills required to use ICT will be absolutely vital for an individual to participate in virtually every way in the society of the future. However, the skills described as constituting ICT capability by the review appear to be the deployment of basic literacy skills but through digital media. To distinguish between “finding and selecting information”, “communicating and sharing information” and “manipulating and processing information” through digital sources as opposed to traditional print resources creates a false distinction. Worryingly, it may result in literacy skills becoming increasingly tied to traditional and printed resources and seen as separate to the skills used for digital resources. Ultimately, this could undermine their relevance in a technology-focused world. To avoid this, ICT capability must either relate to a more specifically technical grouping of skills, or to those characteristics that are unique to managing communication through ICT (such as interactivity, the nature of online relationships, the provenance and mutability of content) and the skills required to manage them.

When the National Literacy Trust responded to the interim primary curriculum review, one of our key concerns was that parents needed to be more strongly recognised as partners in their children’s learning in the curriculum of the future. So we’re very pleased that the final report has strengthened the review’s recognition of the role of parents. However more needs to be done. The research and consultation undertaken with parents to support the review has highlighted that the jargon of the curriculum and education system alienates parents. Those whose support for their children’s learning is most needed are frequently the most alienated. So the challenge of the next stage of curriculum reform is to thoroughly engage parents and families as stakeholders in supporting the renewed curriculum. The review recommends developing a parent’s guide to the new curriculum but there is the opportunity for more creative engagement of parents as stakeholders in the new curriculum. If the drafting of white papers by the Department of Children, Schools and Families, the workforce development plans of the Training and Development Agency and the curriculum support of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority is supplemented by a thorough ongoing approach to engaging parents as stakeholders in the new primary curriculum, then one of the most important influences in raising school standards will be powerfully brought into play – parental engagement.

Jonathan Douglas, April 2009

The impact of the 2008 National Year of Reading

This month the National Year of Reading team has published its final report, which describes the impact of the Year and what it has taught us about promoting reading to the people in society for whom it can make a massive difference.

As everyone in the literacy sector knows, the campaign focused on the social groups where there are the greatest number of people with literacy problems. They were targeted through local programmes which mobilised schools, libraries, colleges, businesses and local services to promote reading; and through a series of campaigns delivered via the media and with brand partners. These campaigns were shaped around increasing knowledge about the interests and aspirations of the target audiences and the central messages were that Improving your reading can change your life, that all forms of reading count, and that ‘starting with what you love’ is the best way to foster enthusiasm for reading as a whole..

The most important message in the National Year of Reading report is that it worked. Behaviours and attitudes to reading among target audiences were benchmarked at the beginning of the campaign; the survey was repeated at the end of the campaign to see if there had been any shifts. The headline data shows:
• Nearly 13 million individuals in social groups C2DE were reached through the campaign, 57% of the total C2DE adult population (only 75% of this segment of the population can be reached through the media)
• A significant increase in library membership among C2DE parents and their children; 70% of these children are now members, compared with 58% before the campaign
• An increase in library membership nationally; 2.3million new library members recruited between April and December 2008
• A significant increase in the proportion of C2DE parents reading to their children everyday (from 15% to 20%).
• Among C2DE fathers who read to their children, over a quarter say they now read everyday compared with 19% at the baseline survey
• A significant increase in children saying they read with their mothers everyday (32% up from 17%)

This is fantastic news, and this is a moment when everyone who worked to make the National Year of Reading a success should be proud. Every librarian, teacher, tutor, publisher, bookseller and early years practitioner who promoted the National Year of Reading is a stakeholder in its success and should be relating to their managers their contribution to these achievements.

We’re now planning the next steps. The relationship between social mobility and success in life and literacy is well established. The National Year of Reading used a methodology which we believe can change the attitudes and behaviour of those audiences who will enjoy improved social outcomes if their literacy levels rise. We are therefore committed to taking forward this approach.

The ongoing campaign which will continue the work of the National Year of Reading will be called Reading for Life (www.readingforlife.org.uk). The National Literacy Trust will lead it with The Reading Agency as lead partner for libraries. We want it to help us maintain a strong focus on the audiences we know will benefit most, and with whom we know we need to be working more effectively. Over the next few months we will also be working in partnership with brands which are good at reaching these target audiences. These brands will carry positive messages about the value of reading – so look out for Reading for Life promotions in Iceland supermarkets, on jars of Marmite, in Lloyds pharmacies and on the side of milk cartons from Wiseman Dairies.

We are inviting every teacher, librarian and professional to renew their commitment to the promotion of reading which was so effective in the National Year of Reading. Please use the Reading for Life logo and downloadable promotional material available on the Reading for Life website to take the campaign forward in your community. And tell us what you’re doing. This will be a tangible sign that, like us, you believe everyone should enjoy the rights and quality of life that reading can bring.

From the very beginning of the 2008 National Year of Reading, it was clear that the societal change championed by the year could not be completed in a twelve month promotion! Now we need to commit to a medium term vision using the learning and experience of the National Year of Reading. Expressions of official support for the new campaign have been received from the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and a wide range of other organisations, but it is the commitment of individual experts in schools, libraries and communities across the country which will be the vital ingredient in making Reading for Life a success.

Jonathan Douglas, March 2009

Reading: The Future is the review of the National Year of Reading with recommendations for the future

What does social mobility mean for literacy?

This year our annual 'What's hot, what's not' survey of literacy experts told us that policy was a tepid issue for literacy in 2009.

However, a couple of weeks into the new year, there has already been a significant development in social policy, with all three of the main political parties encouraging us to talk about social justice in a new way in the context of social mobility. As literacy is a vital ingredient in social equity, a fresh focus on social mobility is encouraging the National Literacy Trust to restate the importance of literacy in a new policy context.

But is the current conversation about social mobility just policy window-dressing or could it support us in our approach to promoting social justice through literacy?

The Government's white paper on social mobility differentiates between relative and absolute social mobility – the former being a fairer society where generation on generation is more successful, the latter where the nation's success increases against economic competitors. Literacy underpins both these concepts. In fact, three out of the four factors identified in the white paper as crucial in determining personal capabilities relate directly to the literacy agenda: support for parents, who are the key players in establishing a child’s communication skills; success at school, which is determined by literacy acquisition; and a successful transition from education to the workplace. Our recent policy paper on literacy in the workplace (see below) highlighted the danger of a disjunction between academic and workplace definitions of literacy.

Imaginative approaches are needed because this analysis of social mobility requires government to influence areas beyond the scope of traditional policy. How does government enrich the home learning environment to support literacy? How can public policy stimulate early communication experience? We believe that the answer to these challenges lies in radical approaches to working with community, voluntary and faith organisations; building literacy into health-led parenting interventions, such as the Family Nurse Partnerships; as well as promoting changes in attitudes to literacy and learning through social marketing campaigns such as the National Year of Reading.

A medium-term approach is required which looks for long-term gains in literacy standards that cannot be measured against short-term literacy targets. The short-term gains in literacy standards which can be attributed to changes in classroom practice, such as the introduction of the National Literacy Strategy, are now largely exhausted. Sustained improvement in literacy levels from the current position requires sustained medium-term approaches which can change the home learning environments of families most in need; and forge a new type of relationship between education and business.

So those of us who believe literacy is central to creating a more equal society in which all can fulfil their potential will find the social mobility analysis helpful. However, literacy approaches identified by this analysis will need to be imaginative and will require a medium-term commitment. Inevitably, it will be up to organisations like the National Literacy Trust to argue for this kind of approach, as politicians will continue to be attracted to the short-term quick-wins in a pre-election recession context.

Suddenly asserting the place of literacy in the policy landscape feels very hot indeed.

Read our policy paper on literacy in the workplace - Bridging the literacy gap [pdf]