NLT policy

Are the literacy targets impossible to reach?

1 Nov 2007

The National Literacy Trust (NLT) has a vision of a society in which everyone has the reading, writing, speaking and listening skills that they need to fulfil their own and,
ultimately, the nation’s potential. Undoubtedly all those involved in education, and in
children’s services in general, would agree that their ultimate aim is for all children to
develop and to achieve their full potential – whatever that may be.

The problem is that, when this laudable aim is translated on the ground into
curriculum, into teaching and into public money, with the attendant need for
accountability, the tendency is to focus on assessments as a way of ‘proving’ the
achievement of potential. Before we know it, we have created targets to ensure that
children are achieving levels that, we have decided, indicate the required progress,
and a battery of tests by which we can measure whether individuals, schools and
authorities measure up.

The targets culture may be controversial but this does not mean that we should not
seek to raise standards of literacy. The NLT believes that to do so is both possible and necessary, and furthermore, that poverty and deprivation are not insurmountable
obstacles. West Dunbartonshire, Scotland's second most disadvantaged local
authority, believes it is the first in the world to virtually eradicate instances in its
schools of pupils not reaching expected reading levels. In 2001, almost one in three
pupils were entering secondary education without functional literacy. By 2005, only six
per cent of pupils moved to secondary with a low reading age. However, it is
necessary to bear in mind that the level of functional literacy West Dunbartonshire has
aimed for is set lower than schools in England, at a reading age of 9 years and 6
months. This year's national test results showed that 93 per cent of 11-year-olds in
England achieved a level 3 in reading, the level expected of a 9-year-old. So, the
majority of English primary leavers are well on their way to reaching the West
Dunbartonshire goal already. In Rochdale, results at key stage 2 between 2003 and
2006 were the most improved in England, and had risen to the national average,
despite Rochdale being the 25th most deprived borough in the country. On one of its
most notorious housing estates, all children reached the literacy targets.

These achievements have been due to long-term, wide-ranging support for literacy
that extends beyond normal classroom practice. Back in 1997, West Dunbartonshire
council took a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to illiteracy and instituted an intensive, 10-
strand programme beginning with intervention in the early years and continuing
through secondary education, involving staff, pupils and their parents. Rochdale has
developed a borough-wide, all-age literacy policy, driven by the director of children’s
services and placing a great emphasis on family learning.

The successes in these areas illustrate that raising literacy standards requires new
thinking and more holistic strategies. These have added power because they are able
to draw on the resources of the family and wider community. Involving parents is
becoming well-recognised as a route to raising children’s attainment, and the evidence about the vital role that parents play in supporting their children’s education is unequivocal. However, the area of family learning is not without its challenges. For
some schools it is new territory, and they may need encouragement and support to
work successfully with parents, particularly when teachers are wary of parents, or
parents have had negative experiences of school in the past. Meanwhile, the strategic
lead for family learning is currently in danger of being lost between directorates and
government departments. However, with vision and determination these obstacles can be overcome. One route is to involve voluntary and community organisations in
providing family learning, as these groups often have a keen understanding of family
life in their own areas.

Other agencies and organisations within the community can also play a vital role in
promoting reading to children, and thereby in supporting the development of their
literacy skills. Libraries, for example, provide a venue in which children can meet their
peers in a social setting and talk about reading, and many are practised in working
with whole families and in ways of making reading fun. Again, there are challenges in
building partnerships between schools and libraries – especially when they sit within
different directorates at local level – and again, a strong vision is needed to overcome
these challenges. When early years, health, youth, housing and other services also
have ownership of such a vision, they will be able to play their part in supporting
children and young people to achieve their potential through developing their literacy
skills.

Even with all this support in place, there is still the issue of what to do about those
children who do not achieve the ‘level expected for their age’. The recent
personalisation agenda is an attempt to respond to this, by putting the child, and their
parents and family, at the centre, and identifying and building on their unique qualities
and needs. This differentiated approach might include such issues as:

• Gender: boys score lower than girls at all levels of literacy testing. Research
suggests various strategies that can raise the achievement of boys without
harming that of girls: pedagogy and awareness of different learning styles;
individual target-setting; assertive and aspirational classrooms where children
are praised; and working sensitively within the socio-cultural environment1.

• Socio-economic status: in general, the achievement gap between children from
disadvantaged and advantaged backgrounds is bigger than the gender gap.
Outcomes for children in public care, in particular, tend to be much lower than
the national average. These children have a particular need for stability, for
consistent messages and for a designated teacher to act as their advocate.

• Support for children from ethnic minorities: including those from particular
groups that tend to have lower attainment, and those who speak English as an
additional language. Children who begin school speaking no English in general
catch up with their peers; however, their parents may lack the skills or
confidence to support their education. It is also important to provide teachers
with the specific skills to meet these pupils’ needs.

• Support for children with special educational needs: teaching for these children
needs to be based on careful and ongoing assessment of their needs, and
strategies that support their independence, combined with support for their
social and emotional development2.

Approaches to personalised learning are currently being testing through Making Good
Progress pilots in around 500 schools. These involve: changes to assessment,
allowing children to take national tests as soon as they are ready; one-to-one tuition in
English and/or maths for those who are falling behind; and new targets for schools
(supported by a financial premium) for moving children on two levels within a key
stage. The new Public Service Agreements announced in the recent Comprehensive
Spending Review formalise this measurement of progression: by 2011 90 per cent of
children should progress two levels in English between key stage 1 and key stage 2
(and there are similar progression targets for the other key stages).

Within secondary schools, the new curriculum being introduced from September 2008
aims to be more flexible and less prescriptive, allowing teachers to respond to pupils’
individual needs – particularly those who are struggling. Extended schools are also a
key part of the agenda, with the challenge being to ensure that all schools make the
most of the opportunities that they can offer their pupils, and that those pupils most in
need receive the benefits.

However, this emphasis on personalisation leaves us with a tension: does it have the
aim of the best for each individual child at its heart, or is learning being personalised to the individual in order to produce individuals who are all the same? In our endeavours to give children equal chances to achieve, are we guilty of putting across the message that achievement means the same thing for everyone at the same time? For example, it seems that we should be particularly cautious in tying attainment to age: since children mature physically and emotionally at different rates, it might be logical to suppose that their cognitive development is also differentiated. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that the age at which a young person reaches puberty, in relationto that of their peers, can have profound effects on their outcomes and life chances3.

All this suggests that the methodology by which we assess pupils and set targets
needs to become much more sophisticated. Some steps are, in fact, being taken in
this direction: the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA)’s Assessment for
Learning agenda recognises the importance of keeping the individual at the centre. Its
principles include enabling all learners to achieve their best and to have their efforts
recognised; using assessment methods that protect the learner's autonomy, in order
to enhance motivation; and ensuring that learners understand what it is they are trying
to achieve – and want to achieve it. The QCA is also rolling out the Assessing Pupil
Progress scheme, which supports tracking and making judgements about each pupil’s progress in reading, writing and maths. It aims to provide an overview of performance based on a wide range of evidence, giving a detailed profile of what a pupil can do and identifying areas to be developed. It can provide a national curriculum subject level when needed, based on a holistic judgement rather than an arithmetical accumulation of marks. This is in keeping with the emerging findings of the current Review of Primary Education, which argues that summative assessment by teachers is more reliable than national tests4.

The NLT believes that in addition to changing the methodology of assessment, the
concept of children’s literacy that is assessed needs to be broadened. This would
include a greater emphasis on speaking and listening skills, which after all underpin
reading and writing. The current situation as regards speaking and listening is
inconsistent, with the skills being assessed at key stage 4 but not in the earlier tests.
The fact that boys tend to do relatively well in speaking and listening when they are
assessed at 16 raises an interesting possibility. Could placing a greater value on what boys can do, earlier on in their school lives, have an effect on their enjoyment of
school, confidence and concept of themselves as skilled learners, with potentially farreaching consequences? Similarly, could doing more to value the language that all
children bring to the classroom, whether English or not, have positive effects on their
confidence and ability to learn?

The experience of education is not just about skills acquisition, but also about gaining
motivation to learn and formulating aspirations. Even when children do not have
families that are supportive of these aims, teachers’ aspirations for children can have
a great impact. Children need to develop literacy skills not only in order to become
economically productive, but in order to foster creativity and imagination and to help
them develop their identity. For this it is vital that we find ways to help them enjoy
reading books and – importantly – other kinds of texts. Evidence indicates that
children in England are reading better but enjoying it less5. If in our efforts to make
children literate we put them off reading, we are still failing them.

The NLT believes that in the midst of encouraging children to enjoy speaking and
listening, reading and writing, targets still have a role to play – when they are used in a
positive way, to foster motivation and aspirations, both for individuals and for society
as a whole. If it is agreed that there is a level of literacy that is needed by most people
in order to function and flourish in society, it is right to do everything in our power to
ensure that every child who is capable of doing so aspires to, and attains, that level.
Even more importantly, it is right for schools, families and all organisations that have
involvement in children’s lives to work together to ensure that all children fulfil their
potential. We know that with vision and commitment this is possible.

Rodie Akerman, National Literacy Trust, November 2007

1 DfES/University of Cambridge, 2005
2 DfES, 2004
3 Blakemore, S-J. and Choudhury, S., 2006
4 Harlen, W., 2007
5 NFER/DfES, 2003

Literacy targets policy paper [pdf]

Tags: Policy, Schools & teaching

Return to nlt policy