Learning to be Literate

Insights from research for policy and practice

Margaret M Clark

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138186958
• eBook ISBN: 9781317286202
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Winner of the prestigious UK Literacy Association Academic Book Award for 2015 in its original edition, this fully revised edition of Learning to be Literate uniquely analyses research into literacy from the 1960s through to 2015 with some surprising conclusions.

Margaret Clark explores the argument that young children growing up in a literate environment are forming hypotheses about the print around them, including environmental print, television, computer games and mobile phones. In a class where no child can yet read there is a wide range of understanding with regards to concepts of print and the critical features of written language. While to any literate adult, the relationship between spoken and written language may be obvious, young children have to be helped to discover it.

This persuasive argument demonstrates the value of research in order to make informed policy decisions about children's literacy development. Accessible and succinct, Professor Clark's writing brings into sharp focus the processes involved in becoming literate. The effect on practice of many recent government policies she claims run counter to these insights. The key five thematic sections are backed up with case studies throughout and include:

• Insights from Literacy Research: 1960s to 1980s
• Young Literacy Learners: how we can help them
• Curriculum Developments and Literacy Policies, 1988 to 1997: a comparison between England and Scotland
• Synthetic Phonics and Literacy Learning: government policy in England 2006 to 2015
• Interpretations of Literacy in the Twenty-first Century

1 Introduction

 

 

 

Rationale for the book

My publications on literacy over the years 1967 to 2015 have included conference papers, articles, chapters in books, research reports and books, either as author or editor. In making my choice of what to include in this book I have selected those publications that still have relevance today, highlighting evidence from research or lessons we could have learnt, many ignored by those making policy decisions. In some instances where I had competing publications, I selected those that most succinctly focused on my chosen themes. Where I do not hold the copyright I sought permission from the copyright holder to publish adapted and edited versions of the previous publications; this is indicated in the introduction to the various parts of the book. Chapters 1 and 21 have been written specially for this book.

My interest in literacy developed during my time as a primary school teacher, and later as a lecturer in a college of education. Having joined the United Kingdom Reading Association in 1964 I founded the West of Scotland Reading Association the following year. Together with members of the newly founded local association I undertook a study in schools in the Glasgow area of an experimental television series for backward readers, following a presentation by the producer about the programme at our first meeting. My first conference paper for the United Kingdom Reading Association in 1966 was a report of that study. I decided not to include it in this book, although it is an example of a collaborative study involving members of a newly founded association, and some of the lessons we learnt are still relevant. The published version is available in two UKRA publications in 1967 and 1972 (see publications on literacy list at the end of the book).

I was president of UKRA in 1972 and have included a shortened version of my presidential address (published in 1973). Between 1966 and 1991 I gave papers on literacy at a number of UKRA annual conferences. I also gave papers at conferences and seminars in a number of other countries, most subsequently published. Among those I have selected to adapt for inclusion here are those from Australia, Canada and Sweden.

My first major research on reading was published in 1970, a community study of children with reading difficulties. In 1976 my second major study was published, a contrasting series of case studies of young children who were already reading with understanding when they started school at 5 years of age. In 1979, on moving to Birmingham, I continued to lecture and in parallel to undertake research, encouraging my students, many of them practitioners, to undertake their own researches or collaborate in mine. As a consequence of a request from a director of education in the early 1970s to undertake research in his newly opened nursery schools, I became interested in the fascinating field of pre-school children’s differential awareness of the elements of printed language. I was able to share insights from case studies, my own and internationally known researchers, with my students. I have included reference to these developments as currently there seems to be insufficient recognition given to the wide differences in concepts of print between children on entry to school, even where none of them can yet read.

Developing the book

Having made my selection, the original publications were either scanned, or if possible, a word document was used. None of the chapters contain the publication exactly as it appeared originally. Some have been shortened, either because of the length of the original or because of overlap with other chapters. Editorial changes have been made to achieve consistency in referencing; in some instances wording has been improved. Changes have been kept to a minimum, and where comments or references have been added this is clearly indicated. Thus it is hoped that the book records changes in emphasis in research over time, insights we could have gained and lessons we should have learnt. Hopefully it might lay to rest some myths, including those perpetuated by successive governments, where they fly in the face of a wealth of research evidence.

Outline of the book

The book is in five parts and within each part and chapter the scene is set briefly to enable readers, should they wish, to focus on specific chapters or parts. Chapters 1 and 21 were written for the book and Chapters 14, 16, 17 and 18 have new material and are updated for this revised edition.

The four chapters in Part I are based on written versions of papers presented either at conferences or seminars, with the theme ‘Insights from Literacy Research from 1960s to 1980s’. Chapter 2 is a shortened version of my presidential address from 1972. I have omitted my comparison of standards of literacy between Scotland, where evidence was of rising standards, and England where at that time it was claimed they were falling, also the discussion of a newly published Edinburgh Reading Test. Chapter 3 is a shortened version of a paper I was invited to give in 1973 at a Social Science Research Council seminar on ‘Problems of Language and Reading’ where papers were also given by James Britton, Jerome Bruner, Michael Halliday and H. H. Speitel. Among those present and taking part in the discussion were leading researchers including Joan Tough, Margaret Donaldson, Marie Clay, Jessie Reid, John Merritt and Basil Bernstein.

Chapter 4 compares the evidence from my community study of children with reading difficulties and my case studies of children who could read with understanding on entry to school at 5 years of age. This chapter is based on a paper delivered in Australia in 1981. In Chapter 5 I consider insights from a further analysis of my study of young fluent readers undertaken for a seminar in Canada on literacy, convened by Frank Smith in 1983. In addition to Frank Smith, papers were given by Yetta Goodman, Jerome Bruner, Glenda Bissex and Emelia Ferreiro, all participants took part in the discussions. The papers were published in 1984 in Awakening to Literacy edited by H. Goelman, A. Oberg and F. Smith.

In Part II attention turns to ways that research can provide insights for practice, in short, ‘Young literacy learners: how we can help them’. Chapter 6 is based on a paper given in Lund in Sweden in 1987 on creative contexts for literacy learning, at a conference on the Study of Child Language. It was published in Children’s Creative Communication, Ragnhild Söderberg (ed.) in 1988.

Chapter 7 is a tribute to Marie Clay whose research into the importance of sensitive observation of young children’s early encounters with print and her development of Reading Recovery I studied both from her publications and during a visit to New Zealand. The remaining chapters in this part, Chapters 8, 9 and 10 are based on my practical work with young children published between 1994 and 2013. I worked as a volunteer in an inner city school in Birmingham, gave workshops to groups of teachers and encouraged my students to collect examples of young children’s earliest encounters with print. Illustrations from some of these children are to be found in Chapter 8. The focus in Chapter 9 is on ways of helping children to learn the hundred key words that account for about 50 per cent of the total words in written English. This is based on an article published in Reading News.

Over the years 1986 to 1988 I worked with a colleague, Wendy Dewhirst, as a consultant to a Granada television series, Time for a Story. We gave advice on the programmes and developed teachers’ booklets with suggestions for further activities based on the programmes. Twenty-eight short stories were written by well-known children’s authors specifically for the series, each the focus for one of the programmes for children aged 4 to 6 years of age. Little books with the stories and illustrations from the programmes were published. I subsequently used recordings of some of these programmes and also some of the story books to stimulate young children’s writing. The reciprocal relationship between reading and writing is the theme in Chapter 10, with examples of children’s writing and illustrations based on these stories.

In Part III attention turns to developments in government policy on literacy over the years 1988 to 1995, in England within the National Curriculum and in Scotland, during the development of National Guidelines. In Chapter 11, the National Curriculum and related assessments following the Education Reform Act in 1988 in England and Wales are discussed. It is based on extracts from a publication of mine in 1995 entitled, Language, Learning and the Urban Child. The developments in Scotland over the same period were very different, with National Guidelines 5–14 based on reports of working parties with representatives of the teaching profession, advisers and college lecturers playing an important role. Chapter 12 is based on Chapter 3, ‘Developments in primary education in Scotland’, in Education in Scotland: policy and practice from pre-school to secondary, editors M. M. Clark and P. Munn (1997).That book traces developments up to devolution in 1997. It can be seen that policies in England and Scotland were already very different even before devolution.

In Part IV the theme of policy is continued, with the focus on politics, following claims made by the government in England for one best method for teaching reading to all children, namely synthetic phonics. These claims can be traced back in England to the Rose Report of 2006. All six chapters in this part are based on articles published in the Education Journal between 2006 and 2015. Chapter 13, a critique of the Rose Report, and Chapter 15, the development of the phonics check, are little changed from the first edition of the book. Chapter 14, an analysis of research evidence for claims for one best method of teaching reading, and Chapters 16, 17 and 18 have all been revised and updated. A phonics check was introduced in 2012 which was administered to all children in Year 1 in England, aged between five and a half and six and a half. This test of 40 words, half pseudo words, had a pass mark of 32. Its development, results and effects after the first year are discussed in Chapter 15. In Chapter 16 the results of the research reports on the check from the National Foundation for Educational Research three year research, commissioned by the Department for Education, are analysed. The final report was published in June 2015 and its findings are also reported in this revised edition; the report covers the years only to 2014. In Chapter 17 the results of the phonics check up to 2015 are reported. In Chapter 18 some of the costs of the phonics check and of the commercial materials and training courses recommended by the government are reported. This information was obtained by two enquiries under the Freedom of Information Act. The discussion is widened to include relevant evidence from two books critiquing government policies in the United States. The first, added for this revised edition, published in 2002, edited by R. L. Allington, critiques the evidence base for the National Reading Panel, one of the reports cited by the DfE. The second, Whose Knowledge Counts in Government Literacy Policies? K. S. Goodman, R. C. Calfee and Y. M. Goodman (eds) (2014), critiques developments not only in the United States, but also in England, Scotland, France and Germany. It appears that commercial interests are gaining an increasingly powerful place in government policies in many parts of the world, including many developing countries. A disquieting picture is painted of the power wielded by large commercial organisations to influence government literacy policies, often falsely claiming a research basis for the policy.

Part V has three chapters; Chapter 19 is an analysis of PIRLS, an international comparison between countries based on assessment of children aged about 10 years in 35 countries. Studies such as PIRLS, and PISA on 15-year-olds, often gain publicity in the media and influence government literacy policies, with politicians either preening themselves or impetuously making major changes should their country’s ranking appear to be falling. The chapter focuses on the sampling and limitations of international studies such as PIRLS, even when such studies are carefully planned and rigorously executed. Since 2003 when these results were published there have been further studies. However, there are still lessons from this analysis, as some of the limitations identified are inevitable in such large scale studies with data from many countries. Chapter 20 is based on a paper delivered in Brussels, published in 2012 as Chapter 5, ‘Literacies in and for a changing world’ in Improving the Quality of Childhood in Europe, edited by C. Clouder, B. Heyes, M. Matthes and P. Sullivan. The discussion includes developments in Europe and adult illiteracy.

In Chapter 21, the characteristics of written language, and in particular the complexities of the English language are explored further. The focus in this book has been mainly on learning to read and write in English, to reflect the considerable amount of research on this subject. A recent publication on orthographies and literacy widens the topic to include other languages and orthographies.

Part I

Insights from literacy research

1960s to 1980s

The first two chapters are based on written versions of papers presented in 1972 and 1973; thus, the references are from researches published between 1960 and 1973; yet the issues discussed still have relevance today. Reference was made at both presentations to my then ongoing study of children who could read when they started school at 5 years of age, published in 1976 as Young Fluent Readers: what can they teach us?

Chapter 2 is a shortened version of the presidential address delivered at the 9th Conference of United Kingdom Reading Association in Glasgow in 1972 and published in the proceedings in 1973, Reading and Related Skills...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• About the author
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• Part I Insights from literacy research: 1960s to 1980s
• Part II Young literacy learners: how we can help them
• Part III Curriculum developments and literacy policies, 1988 to 1997: a comparison between England, Wales and Scotland
• Part IV Synthetic phonics and literacy learning: government policy in England, 2006 to 2015
• Part V Interpretations of literacies in the twenty-first century
• Publications on literacy by Margaret M Clark, 1957 to 2015
• Name index