�500m literacy scheme a waste?

[AB Asks]

Half a billion pounds was spent on raising the reading abilities of young children has seen little impact apparently. The scheme by ministers has apparently taken the joy out of reading for children. Despite the money spent over a period of seven years reading standards have barely improved since the 1950s. It appears as though staff at schools have been coaching too hard to get students through tests instead of focusing on the joys that reading can bring to children. What do you think? Do you know many children who love a good book? Is there too much emphasis on tests rather than the idea that a book can be an enjoyable hobby whilst teaching children spelling and grammar rules?

[vehelpfulguy]

I am shocked !!!

The government spent millions on a scheme that did not work !.

That is so unusual, normally government schemes like this are hugely successful.

Lets find out whose fault it was was and sack them!

Of course I am being sarcastic.

This is a day after it was found we spent �384 million last year on drug rehabilitation, but with very little success.

http://news.independent.co.uk/health/article31 12796.ece

Maybe if the government were a little more careful at spending our money they could reducd the overall tax burden.

[Gromit]

Literacy levels have never been better.
Amongst children, more children than ever before are able to reading. Unfortunately, reading books for pleasure has a lot of competition in how much time a child spends on that activity. Computer games etc.

At the bottom of the scale of reading ability however, we are still failing a lot of children.Unfortunately, there is a stubborn group of underachievers which seems impervious to improvement no matter which government attempts to help them.

[jake-the-peg]

That is sadly true Gromit.

Normally we call these under achievers resisting government attempts to help them Tories

[sandbach99]

Too many teachers refuse to consider a child may have dyslexia which can prevent a child reading.

35 years ago my daughter went to school able to read some words, at 8 she still could not read more than a line, she said all the words jumbled up and odd letters flew out like fireworks.
I read an article about dyslexia and went and saw her teacher, he said 'one child in a million is dyslexic why should it be yours she is just lazy'. She spent most of her time at secondary school in remedial english and still couldn't read
When she was 21 I saw a programme on TV which said coloured lenses could help some children to read, within a week she had glasses with bright orange lenses and could read. Shortly after she didn't need the glasses.

Her son 15 years ago was the same but the school insisted that they had had experts in to test him and he was not dyslexic until it came to the STATS then he was classed as a special needs child due to dyslexia but coloured sheets didn't help so he had a different form of dyslexia than his mother.

The help he was to get at secondary school failed to materialise so in desperation he went to the opticians and was given purple glasses, he did not use these at school until the remedial teacher asked his mother to explain why his reading age had shot up 3 years in about 6 weeks.

In them days you believed a teacher but I woudn't now .

[Lucy Thomas]

One sure way to completely f**k anything up is to let this government 'improve' it.

[fletcher.5]

One possible way to solve the problem, is to let children read what they like & not what they are told. It does not matter about a higher content, its about them learing the basics & enjoying the content, which is relevant to them. Comprehension should come later having first grasped the basic tools for the job to come.
It may also be benificial for parents to take time out to listen to their children reading to them instead of putting the onus/blame on the school.
After all if you want the best for your kids remember, Education is not a one way street.

[kwicky]

There may have been a problem in the past but the government are now firmly behind the use of 'Synthetic Phonics' which should be rolled out across the country. This has proved to work!

The main problem is if so called trendy teachers refuse to teach these principles and prefer to stick to look and learn techniques by rote.

[kwicky]

There are many links to synthetic phonics websites but thttp://www.synthetic-phonics.com/his is a sample.

http://www.synthetic-phonics.com/