Family Reading Matters is delivered by the
NLT on behalf of the DCSF
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Having established what success would look like, the Family
Reading Campaign then identified the key barriers to achieving
the vision. The barriers are listed below:
- Lack of early language and reading experiences:
Where young children are not encouraged to talk and take
part in extended conversations with those with whom they
spend much of their time, their understanding of the patterns
of language and writing is poorer than peers who have had
richer early language experience, and their listening skills
are under-developed. The phonetic complexities of the English
language contribute to their difficulties. Where children
have not been read to they have no favourite books and are
unable to tell stories.
- Intergenerational barriers: Where parents have
not experienced the pleasures of reading and being read
to, they do not attach great value to it or think it matters.
Since reading is seen as a chore, they avoid it. Consequently,
children don't see their parents or siblings read. Where
parents do read to their children, they get through the
book quickly, without leaving time to talk about the story,
relate it to their children's experiences or explore together
the meanings of new words.
- Poor basic skills: Some parents' own reading skills
are inadequate, or have become rusty over the years. Consequently,
they have little confidence in their ability to support
their own children's reading and learning development. There
may also be language barriers.
- Economic and financial barriers: Long-term or frequent
periods of unemployment lead to poverty and its consequences
such as debt, inadequate housing, family breakdown and health
problems, which all contribute to the stress of daily living.
Reading for pleasure is seen as a luxury in the struggle
for daily survival.
- Social barriers: Reading may not be valued among
friends and peers who do not have an understanding of what
reading could do for them. They may face difficulties (such
as those described above), or may not be explicit about
why they see reading as important, perhaps fearing ridicule
from their wider social group. For those with low skills
and confidence, this reinforces their isolation, making
it difficult to find out how to get support to improve their
reading confidence and skills.
- Cultural barriers: For reasons of language, tradition
or economic circumstance, some communities do not see the
reading habit as part of their culture. In many classes
and communities reading is not considered to be a leisure
pastime. Busy working parents from all backgrounds may feel
that they do not have enough time for reading. This can
impact on their children both as a lack of example of parents
reading and also as a lack of time spent reading together.
- The barrier of low expectations: Low expectations
from parents, teachers, other authority figures, or the
children and young people themselves, can hold children
and young people back from achieving their full potential
and lead them to believe that reading is not for them.
- Institutional barriers: The failure of some institutions
to engage effectively with some groups or individuals, or
of institutions to communicate effectively with one another
and work in partnership coherently, means that some people's
needs are not picked up by the infrastructure that should
support them.
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