Does it make more sense to teach children to enjoy chocolate than learn to read?
If you're in a hurry to get off for half term but are intrigued, you might want to click here to see this short film clip of one of the UK's leading children's authors discussing the above at a gathering of politicians, Lords and a Baroness in Whitehall this week which will undoubtedly shape UK education policy in time (and come back to read the rest in the half term).
If however, you do have a moment and need to know now, how an inner city school with 50% of its children in poverty is achieving 100% literacy at the end of year 6 and how a whole city has set its sights on tackling literacy, then read on.
My stay out of jail statement
Please note the use of quotation marks above, this is not an official quote, but one heard at one of the most inspiration events I’ve attended in my time at ReadingWise let alone my career which has taken in a lot of talks on and offline.
This declaration of a lack of confidence in those who govern us, was timely with an election on the horizon and for being within earshot of those who might need to hear it as the conference was in Whitehall. It was one of the excellent events organised by Westminster Education Forum that bring together politicians, Lords, Ladies and practitioners to discuss key policy areas and share findings and opinions by sending a package of perspectives off into the heart of government.
What is a library?
This particular event was about literacy and the provision of libraries in schools taking in the importance of doing so, the specialist role that librarians play in matching children to books and being champions for literacy in communities.
Paul Walker, Chair of the Primary Heads Association flagged the dilemma of spending £15k a year on books or getting another teaching assistant. Or how, when he didn’t have a room for a library in one of his schools in Devon with a roll of 22 pupils, he set one up in a corridor.
Several people mentioned the fact that there will of course, always be books which seems an obvious thing to say. I flagged the way that just a hundred years or so ago, that you could only drive car if a man walked in front with a red flag. And that on the day of the conference, Google were doing their first trial of driverless cars in the UK. And that in just a few decades my children will fondly tell their children how their dad used to actually drive them in a car to Cornwall and couldn’t do his email, edit a video and have a video call with a friend in Australia on the way!
Never say never. As financial pressures pile on, and the role of teachers, libraries and librarians change, screen based reading will, like driverless cars come to be the unavoidable norm. Accident-free driverless with negligible insurance costs will make self-driving insurance cost prohibitive.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love dead tree experiences much as the next person and still subscribe to weekend newspapers (follow me @nickcorston for the best bits on a Saturday morning) but am sure that advantages of cost, availability, space, annotations, indestructability, sociability, interactivity may just make eBooks unavoidable. However the fact that some research shows that paper-based books demonstrate higher retention levels so it will be interesting debate for sure.
In time maybe it will make more sense to have that TA who can use online interventions like ReadingWise to facilitate struggling readers. And access to an infinite choice that librarians will match to reading interest and ability.And to redesign the library and celebrate the role of librarians, as valued professionals who curate content and evangelise, nurture and direct a love of reading.
Indeed it was one of the freshest, youngest voices of the day who hit the nail on the head. Helen Cleaves, had given up a lucrative career in PR and marketing to become a librarian at Kingston Grammar School. She said that school libraries have a major image problem but that marketing alone won't save it.
She said libraries need reinvention, as does some content and its delivery, reminding me of Prof Guy Claxton who described a science book that spanned KS2 and 3 in a talk he did for me last year. The first half of the book had big writing and colour pictures, the second was in small type and black and white imagery!
Many people feel educational content can be most effective when the sort of techniques that make computer games so effective are deployed. Indeed the secret to the success of ReadingWise lies in its use of gamification and psychological techniques such as feedback, reward, random humour, and rapid pace – not dissimilar to the most popular computer games.
A culture of reading
Whether it’s e-paper or dead trees, the role of literacy in people’s lives will be as critical as ever and we all have to fight for everyone to be able to exercise their right to read, especially those who struggle.
One thing that really struck me was how several of the speakers are delivering amazing results, often against all odds.
Kate Pitman of Tower Hamlets’ innovative Idea Store initiative described how they had got public library attendance up from half million visits a year to two. How, by creating a culture of reading, they achieved 100% level 4 literacy at the end of Year 6. And with 50% of their children officially below the poverty line. A remarkable achievement.
She also told of many children receiving next to no parental support in their home lives and I’ve been heard stories of parents who throw books in the bin when children bring them home – a far cry from Save the Children’s Read On Get On Campaign which aims to get parents to spend just 10 minutes a day reading with their children (I was surprised how few of the conference delegates had seen this film, let alone sent it home in school newsletters).
Jane Bass, Head Teacher at Powers Hall Academy in Essex described how the ‘Get Witham reading’ day has created a culture of reading across the community. It was an inspiration to hear how Liverpool’s City of Readers initiative is focussed on delivering just that, as described in a moving talk by Dr Jane Davis who told the story of a boy whose only connection with literacy was drawing a picture of him ‘shooting/killing the book’ and how he grew to love reading. There’s a lot of amazing work going on out there that I am sure politicians will spot and align with in the next few months.
Is something broken?
But the big take away of the day was a focus on the way we teach children to read and the highlight of the day, for me, was a talk by John Dougherty leading children's author and Chair of the Children's Writers and Illustrators Society.
He described how we create a culture of ‘readers’ and ‘non-readers’, labelling children as such. How, when he and fellow authors on their ‘ Authors in schools’ initiatives go into schools, head teachers ask him to go into a room to read to their ‘non-readers’ who they have conveniently segregated and labelled. Probably for life.
He stressed the need to encourage reading for pleasure and the tedium of some of the books he had been dragged through himself by his own children.
He described how the way we teach children to read is more likely to put them off for life. Indeed a follow on speaker, Dr Andrew Davies from Durham University said that the way we teach and test phonics is akin to a clinical drugs trial!
This all prompted a question from the floor from an incredulous delegate who asked why we allow this to happen, echoing the earlier words of Paul Walker of the National Primary Heads Association that “The National phonics check is one of the most ridiculous things we have in primary schools"
John Dougherty replied by saying “because we’re governed by idiots” and expressed frustration over his inability find a national voice to tell the people who need to hear what he feels they need to hear, as they wouldn’t allow him on BBC Question Time to say it!
Nothing I write here could do justice to John’s keynote talk and how he likens the way we teach reading to the way we DON’T teach children to enjoy chocolate. So I attach it here as a YouTube video clip shot rather amateurishly on my smartphone, but you’ll hopefully get the idea (you had to be there!).
I sincerely hope you enjoy it. If you do, maybe ‘like’ it, share it, and/or send it to a friend to read over half term. Let’s all do our bit to give John a voice and give our children the right to read.
Have a great break. And thanks for reading this far.
P.S: I should probably put my hand up, as I did at the conference and say I’m not a proven educationalist or academic, but just a dad whose eyes were opened by Sir Ken Robinson’s No 1 TED talk on creativity in education four years ago.
It was his famous line “creativity is as important as literacy” that has led me, like a zombie in the head lights, to divert my career from three decades in digital marketing (having cut my teeth on laser disc based interactive learning) to literacy with ReadingWise and creativity with STEAM Co. a charity I have co-founded to power communities to inspire primary children with creativity.
