Primary Teacher UK

Jim Rose to Review Goals on Early Literacy

Children’s Minister Beverley Hughes today announced that Sir Jim Rose has been asked to review two of the milestones set out in the Early Years Foundation Stage as part of his review of the primary curriculum.

The review will now consider whether two statements on developing literacy strike the right balance between giving children a good start in literacy skills and supporting a smooth transition from the early years into Key Stage 1 of primary school.

The two statements are already contained in the existing Foundation Stage, currently followed by all Government funded settings. They are about the higher levels of achievement in literacy and set the aim that by around age five, most children will be able to:

• Use their phonic knowledge to write simple regular words and make phonetically plausible attempts at more complex words;

• Write their own names and other things such as labels and captions, and begin to form simple sentences, sometimes using punctuation

Recent evidence shows that just under half (46 per cent) of children achieve the first of these milestones and a just under a third (30 per cent) achieve the second, even before the Early Years Foundation Stage comes into effect across all English early years settings this September. The Primary Review will look at how appropriate these aims are for children around age five, when evidence shows it is realistic for children to achieve them, and how we make sure that children progress well, and smoothly, between the EYFS and Key Stage 1 in primary school.

Beverley Hughes also announced further details of the EYFS review, scheduled to begin in 2010. The Minister confirmed the review will assess how the framework was implemented and how well it meets the needs of children, families and childcare providers. Work will begin immediately to gather information to inform the review, including compiling national and international evidence on child development and monitoring the way in which the EYFS is implemented.

The Minister also repeated the Government’s commitment that, following the recent consultation on registration fees for childcare providers, fees increases will be held to a modest level over the next few years, to help provide greater stability for childminders, nurseries and other childcare providers.

New teachers are not being trained to identify children who are struggling with reading

New teachers are not being trained to identify children who are struggling with reading, and some lack skills in teaching spelling, the education watchdog warns today. A survey by Ofsted also reveals that many teachers fail to teach young pupils to write well and do not understand how to identify when a child is falling behind.

Ofsted investigated the 20 best teacher training courses in the country and concluded that some are not identifying the link between reading and writing, and perform poorly in the teaching of phonics for spelling. Despite showing "good knowledge and understanding" of teaching reading and writing, some training courses "failed to highlight the links between early reading and writing effectively".

Primary Boys into Books

Espionage, ghosts and aliens all feature heavily in a new list of over 200 popular books being given to schools on loan as part of a new drive to get boys reading sooner and trying new books. ‘The Famous Five’, ‘Just William’ and even Roald Dahl books are not featured.

The £5 million scheme, Primary Boys into Books, expands the programme launched by Ministers last year for boys aged 11-14. Public libraries select free books from the list drawn up by the School Library Association, and deliver book boxes to schools in their local area. This is the first time DCSF has funded public libraries and school libraries to work together to improve services for children.

Statistics show that boys are ten percentage points behind girls in English at Key Stage 2. Ministers hope that better reading habits among boys will help close the gender gap. A recent evaluation of Every Child a Reader (ECaR), a programme of intensive literacy support for children who are struggling, shows that it is possible to close the reading gap between young boys and girls. The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) published earlier this year found that reading outside school has decreased and that 38% of ten year olds play computer games for 3 hours or more a day. In a survey carried out for the National Year of Reading just half of parents (49 per cent) say their children are read to every day. Watching TV or a DVD has edged in front of a bedtime story as the more common pre-sleep habit amongst children. The findings come despite recent research that children as old as 12 wish they got read to much more often, and the evidence that children who get read to, learn to read more quickly, and more confidently, and get more pleasure from reading through life as a result.

Blast Poetry Tool

What do you visualise when you hear or read a poem? The Blast poetry tool from the BBC lets you put together your visual interpretation on a poem using images, video and sound effects that have been provided by the BBC and other Blast users. They hope to add more poems soon, so keep returning!

Link: www.bbc.co.uk/blast/writing/tipsandtools/poetryengine/

Films matched up to the new literacy strategy?

Lara has emailed me today wondering if anyone might be able to help her:

"After going on an ICT course today Get IT Write, about using film, we decided that it would be great if someone had been able to look at films and match it up to the literacy curriculum, and maybe other curriculum areas. The two course leaders said that they hadn't ever seen such a list, so I was wondering if either anyone who reads your site has such a list, or whether you could start asking people for their ideas about this so a list could be compiled? Hope you can help as this seems to be the way things are going with literacy and the new framework."

It's a good question - I know of resources produced as advertising for new films, but not specifically linked to the new strategy. I'm happy to pass on any ideas to Lara, or post them as comments below.

Just one more book!

Just One More Book! is a thrice-weekly podcast which promotes and celebrates literacy and great children's books. Each weekday morning, the authors take a few minutes out of our morning coffee ritual to discuss one of our many favorite children's books. We also feature weekly interviews with authors, illustrators and experts and enthusiasts in the areas of children's literature and literacy as well as listener-submitted book reviews.

Through this podcast and its website, they are building a lively, interactive community linking children's book authors, illustrators, readers (parents, children, librarians, teachers and literacy activists) and publishers.

Episodes range in length from 5 to 25 minutes and can be played directly from the web page or downloaded to a portable mp3 player, such as an iPod, for listening on the go.

Busy parents and teachers can now discover great read-aloud children's books while they are busy doing the many tasks that would otherwise rob them of the opportunity to research great children's books in more traditional ways.

This podcast is powered by passion. They have no advertisers or sponsors. Their goal is to link children with great books and help create happy memories for children and the adults that read to them…and to have fun!

Year of Reading 2008

Children, writers, polititions and reading champions all met today at 10 Downing Street today to launch the National Year of Reading. Ed Balls called for every employer, school, library, college and local authority to get involved and sign up to the National Year of Reading by logging on to the National Year of Reading website at http://www.yearofreading.org.uk.

The site has a basic resources section with a few activites, but mostly links to other sites, for pre-school and primary school children. Rather interesting is the 'themed' reads which also has a resources page.

Why not kick it off with World Book Day on the 6th March?

The Festive Season

In the spirit of the festive season, WebbliWorld and partner Puffin Books have a limited selection of Jeremy Strong books available for your class and school. This is a limited offer only and each school that applies will receive approximately 10-15 books and is offered as a first come, first serve basis. More information is available on their blog http://webbliworld.typepad.com/weblog/2007/11/webbliworld-are.html. It's as easy as pie, all you need to do is send us an email with your contact information to receive the books!

December is also WWF Polar Bear Month on WebbliWorld.com. They are running a ‘Name the Webbli Polar Bear Competition’ which will end on 31st December. There are lots of great prizes including a WWF Polar Bear Adoption Box, WWF cuddly polar bear toys, copies of the wonderful Puffin book ‘The Last Polar Bears’ by Harry Horse plus some exclusive WebbliWorld T-shirts. The winning name will be used on the site and in any future Aardman animations featuring the bear.

For more information about the competition, please visit the Webbliblog as well as the website www.webbliworld.com.

Literacy Stars - More free resources

Literacy Stars is a cross-curricular activity pack developed to support teachers in the KS1 curriculum framework. A free, limited teacher-edition DVD is provided to accompany the flexible activity sheets. Used together, they present challenging literacy exercises - with a little help from your pupils' favourite TV characters. All the exercises can be completed either in class or at home, and are designed to fire your pupils' imaginations and develop their reading and writing skills.

The resources include a DVD, prepared especially for teachers, with 3 different episodes of some of your pupils' favourite TV shows:
Grossology: science-based animation about two siblings investigating strange cases in school. Think CSI for kids. (1 episode.)
Power Rangers: live action about five brave teens who share friendship, loyalty and teamwork on an exciting global treasure hunt. (1 episode.)
Yin Yang Yo: animation comedy about twin rabbits who use martial arts, magic and morals to save ordinary citizens from catastrophe. (1 episode.)

You can choose to play any episode in two parts or all the way through. In this way, it can be used during lessons or for rainy playtimes. This project has been developed by the National Schools Partnership and kindly supported by TV Channel Jetix in their quest to help young children with their reading and writing development during the National Year of Reading.

All resources (DVD and stickers) will be delivered to you early January 2008. These resources are only available for the first 500 schools to register. To claim your free resources, just click on: www.nationalschoolspartnership.com/literacy

Mr Magorium’s Box of Tricks teacher downloads

There are some new KS2 fun resources for the end of term from the National Schools Partnership linked to Mr Magorium's Box of Tricks. The magical resources can be downloaded from www.nationalschoolspartnership.com/boxoftricksresource.

There are four booklets (all as PDF files) which can be downloaded: numeracy, literacy, magic and creative. Between the four booklets there is enough material to provide a whole weeks worth of work, finishing in a magic show on the Friday afternoon. What a great way to finish for Christmas!