Fermanagh kids benefit from schools' quiet focus on reading

This ‘no small thing’ is ‘reading’ – a part of the curriculum that teachers really have down to a well-honed skill, thanks to years of investing in curricula and resource building across all key stages.

Sometimes, we justifiably question and criticise what schools do, but in the case of literacy learning, I believe they’re right on the money.

So, how does this work? Quite simply, children have books or ‘accelerated readers’ in their bags or under their desks at all times, and any time there are spare moments in class, such as a spare six or seven minutes before a lunch break, out come the books.

On top of that, you have timetabled reading times, as well as many schools fitting in reading first thing in the morning, often alternating with ‘mental maths’.

It’s a well-oiled machine by now, and both pupils and teachers only have to say, “Right – we’ve about ten minutes left, so...” and by that time, 50 per cent of books would be out and on the tables.

As someone who has recently taught in the primary sector, it’s something the pupils enjoy – boys as well as girls.

But how does this all start? Well, once the letters and simple words have been taught in Foundation and Key Stage 1, a hugely successful monitoring tool (‘Accelerated Reader’) kicks in.

This computer-based management system gives pupils the freedom to read their own books, appropriate to their ability level, which are all organised in the school library.

This means, a pupil can lift any book within their ability section. Once they have finished reading the book, children can take quizzes which outline their progress – or not – and helps move them forward into other categories.

For those who love reading, it’s a marvellous gateway into fiction and non-fiction, and such children often read way and beyond their recommended accelerated readers.

For reluctant readers, well, they can start with books that are more illustration-based before moving on to more ‘wordy’ books.

Underpinning all this is the NI Curriculum’s literacy strategy, which clearly states that, when reading, pupils should be ‘enabled’ to read a range of texts for information, ideas, enjoyment and from that, to select and use information from a range of sources.

In simple terms, this means that by the time they have left primary school, pupils should have the skills to pick up a piece of writing, and whether that is a novel, story, instructions, newspaper or a note from their mum telling them to tidy their bedroom before she gets back from shopping, to be able to read and interpret it.

Although the objective looks like a load of waffle, they are cleverly worded, because what you will find is that a great deal of pupils are relative experts at reading what is in front of them without having the faintest notion what it means. The curriculum addresses this.

This opens another door: phonics. Phonics, or ‘linguistic phonics’ as it is oddly called, has been another success story, enabling pupils to read quite complex words, and disciples of it are evangelical in their praise of it.

Phonics basically breaks words by helping children to understand how to decode words based on their sounds. For example, the sound, ‘k’, can be spelled as c, k, ck or ch.

This also helps with writing, as children develop the skills of distinguishing and building up words as each word is taught by looking at the individual sounds before their reconstruction.

The downside of this is that children can develop literacy skills suggesting they are much more literate than they actually are; its main criticism.

Using a phonetic approach may mean that students don’t look at the comprehension of a complete sentence, only its individual phonemes.

Of course, literacy isn’t taught in a straight line – it can’t be.

Accelerated reading is backed up by grammar drills such as those covered in the very popular Hayden Richards books 1 – 4, and other commercial and teacher-prepared resources.

In addition to this, there are reading groups, where pupils read to a teacher or classroom assistant on a rota basis of usually once or more per week.

This takes quite a bit of time, but to be fair, is something that teachers view as being the most essential part of the school day.

No matter what mayhem or randomness happens, reading is always done, and so it should be.

If pupils can’t read, they can’t access their learning, and if they can’t learn, they can’t pass exams. ‘Simples’!

If this seems like a bit of a maze, it is. Every pupil needs to be assessed and is given work according to their ability, and it never ceases to amaze me how many teachers have an in-depth knowledge of their pupils’ reading ability.

So what’s the journey? When pupils arrive at four or five years old, it’s about learning letters of the alphabet, an introduction to phonics, and reading simple words. Books are huge, and highly-illustrated.

By the time pupils reach primary 3, they have a fairly good understanding of most simple words, with the top band of children knowing around 7,000 words, and the lowest set, half of that.

Generally speaking, the ratio of expressive vocabulary words (words they use) to receptive language (words they understand), is 1:3 or 1:4.

Take such indicators with a huge dollop of common sense though, as these things are very difficult to monitor, especially when, around here, young people use the word ‘like’, every five words!

By the time children come to the end of their primary education, they should have a fairly good grasp of the English language, and be able to explain complex scenarios.

With the amount of reading happening in schools, it’s very encouraging when talking to primary 7s and, at 10 or 11 years old, you’d be encouraged by how much they can have a conversation with you.

So what’s the silver bullet? Despite all that schools do fantastically well, read to your children daily if you want to see real progress; it may be old-fashioned, but it works.