Reading time: 2 minutes
Charles Dickens is one of the best known names in English Literature.
His writing includes Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol – which are widely read today.
Who is Charles Dickens and was has made him inspire generations of authors?
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Reading time: 2 minutes
In 2016, the OECD examined the literacy rates of 16- to 19-year-olds in 23 OECD countries and came to a startling conclusion – England occupied the bottom spot with more than 1 in 5 young adults having a low level of literacy.
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Reading time: 3 minutes
With the advances in technology and the capabilities that the internet has introduced, many traditional learning tools and resources have started to decrease in popularity.
As students prefer to do online research from the comfort of their room, there is a noticeable difference in approach to studying and research methods compared to 20 years ago.
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Reading time: 3 minutes
Throughout UK schools, there are more than 300 languages spoken as a first language.
While proportionally ESOL students account for just under 7% of pupils, in inner cities this percentage can often be as high as 75%, as is seen in various schools in London.
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Reading time: 3 minutes
Reading for pleasure is starting to feel like a lost art. It is something that every primary school student is encouraged to do but they often find other pastimes more appealing as they grow up.
Whether this is due to lack of motivation at home or at school is often down to individual cases. Reading is an important tool for every child and adult, as it keeps the imagination active and also helps to further learning in general – deepening cognitive ability.
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Reading time: 3 minutes
Games have been employed in schools, in one form or another, for decades.
Yet today we’re only just coming to realise the true potential power of gaming, and beginning to understand that the advantages go beyond convenience.
Here we inspect just how powerful a resource games can be for boosting literacy skills.
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Reading time: 2 minutes
You may have heard the news. Apparently handwriting is soon to become obsolete.
However, for those of us who are dedicated to the idea of writing being indispensable, comfort can be taken in the fact that the death of writing (and reading) was discussed as early as 1987 and then promptly rejected by commentators.
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Reading time: 2 minutes
More than 1.2 million children in the UK have dyslexia, a disability which results in difficulty reading and understanding the meaning of the words in front of them. Many children who have dyslexia have said that the words they see do not stay still. Instead, they move around the page, affecting their ability to read them.
Unsurprisingly, dyslexic students can find themselves falling behind others in the class, resulting in performance issues.
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Reading time: 2 minutes
Since the 14-19 reform act, there has been a great deal of change in the curriculum in the UK. Now, our education system provides our youth with training in skills that are going to be useful in life and help them build up knowledge to help them succeed.
It was designed to help encourage more and more young people to continue into higher education. However, not every young individual wants to go to university, so the 14-19 reforms provide alternative further education paths for these individuals.
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Reading time: 2 minutes
Students who struggle with literacy or numeracy barriers can often have low self-esteem as they become more and more aware of their differences to their classmates who do not have the same struggles. This lack of self-esteem then becomes a barrier to them overcoming their difficulties, as they lose the will to try new tasks or commit themselves to activities that challenge them.
Raising the self-esteem of someone who has a genuine barrier is tricky, as their doubts have a basis in truth. You need to avoid false praise or platitudes and instead target things they really are good at to begin with. Build up their basic level of confidence and some of this will transfer onto their academic work.
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Reading time: < 1 minute
World Book Night is an annual celebration of reading and books that takes place on 23 April. It sees passionate volunteers give out hundreds of thousands of books in their communities to share their love of reading with people who don’t read regularly or own books. World Book Night is run by The Reading Agency, a national charity that inspires people to become confident and enthusiastic readers to help give them an equal chance in life. World Book Night
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Reading time: 2 minutes
Those who perform poorly at school overall are the most likely to have poor reading and writing skills. Socio-economics play a large role in the profile of a pupil with low literacy along with gender.
It has been evidenced that boys are twice as likely as girls to have low literacy skills at the point of leaving school and this barrier can really hold those affected back when looking at career and lifestyle choices.
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Reading time: 2 minutes
Engaging teenagers in Maths and English can often feel like an uphill struggle – particularly if their levels of numeracy and literacy are low. It’s even more of a challenge to emphasise and convince them then that these are probably the two most important subjects to focus on when planning their career path.
Where being a celebrity is now a very popular answer to ‘what career do you think you want’ and then specific replies being that being either a footballer, model or reality TV star is at the top of the list, there’s a falling perception in some teenagers that Maths and English are of any value.
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Reading time: 2 minutes
The use of tablets in schools is currently at its highest ever level, with no sign of a downturn.
Technology charity Tablets for Schools has recently released the results of a study examining the use of the hardware in both primary and secondary sectors. The figures show that of the 671 schools sampled, tablets are in use to some degree in 68% of primary schools and 69% of secondary schools.
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Reading time: 2 minutes
Students who speak English as a second language can face multiple barriers to education. It is important that we strive to enable these pupils to have full access to the curriculum, allowing them to develop autonomy and achieve in mainstream education.
In order to do this, here are our top 5 strategies to support your ESOL pupils, which can be adapted to suit both group workshops and the mainstream classroom
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Reading time: 2 minutes
The overarching aim for English in the National Curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment.
The syllabus for English in the new National Curriculum has been under fire in the last few weeks. This week the OCR draft English Literature syllabus appeared to have dropped US works such as Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, John Steiner’s Of Mice and Men and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.
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Reading time: 2 minutes
I have recently been conducting some research around innovation in education. With ever-advancing technology, there seems to be new ideas cropping up daily which would be fantastic to utilise for education, whether it is in the classroom or for individual study.
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Reading time: 2 minutes
Last week saw the news that Ofqual had “launched a conversation with the public on how standards should be set for new GCSEs.” The new GCSE shake-up will include the replacement of A-C grades with a 1-9 numbered scale, with 1 for the lowest performers and 9 for the top performers; thought to be “awarded to only half the pupils now achieving an A*” (BBC, 2014).
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Reading time: 2 minutes
Over the past few weeks there have been several national days and weeks to promote reading, such as World Book Day. There are still more of these to come in the form of International Children’s Book Day (2nd April).
These have been great ways for schools to encourage their pupils to read for pleasure and share their views and opinions of the books they read. This has been achieved in several forms, such as dressing as their favourite book character.
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Reading time: 2 minutes
Last month we took a look at how the art of storytelling could be used in the classroom, as inspired by National Storytelling Week.
We have another great reason to look towards the educational opportunities to be found in the world of literature tomorrow in the form of World Book Day. This yearly event is another fantastic initiative to promote a love of reading in both primary and secondary schools: “It’s a celebration of authors, illustrators, books and (most importantly) it’s a celebration of reading.”
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Reading time: 2 minutes
“National Storytelling Week is about giving out to all cultures, tales that give a twinkle to the eye, that raise a question in the mind and stories that have survived the brightness and the shadow of man’s imagination.” (Society for Storytelling, 2014)
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Reading time: 3 minutes
Making the move from primary school to secondary is a daunting experience for many children and, as a result, it is a transition that needs to be as smooth as possible.
The percentage of pupils that received a Level 4 in their KS2 Sats results in reading, spelling and mathematics has risen slightly compared to the 2012 results. However, it is still evident that a ‘significant percentage of pupils are leaving primary school without a sufficient grasp of reading, writing and maths’, which adds more stress and strain for all the staff involved (The Guardian, September 2013).
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