LITERACY IMPACT!

1. LITERACY IMPACT! Literacy Across the Curriculum: Maintaining the Momentum Geoff Barton October 20, 2019 All resources can be downloaded at www.geoffbarton.co.uk

2. LITERACY IMPACT! • 1 Where are we (and where are you) with literacy? • 2 Who are your key players and what do you need to do next? • 3 Developing practical approaches … • in Humanities subjects • in Scientific subjects • in tutor time • in speaking & listening … and how will you measure IMPACT?

3. LITERACY IMPACT! The approach …

4. LITERACY IMPACT! SECTION 1: So where are we with whole-school literacy?

5. Reasonable but horrible questions … 1 - Name one child who has improved their reading or writing based on a literacy initiative at your school? 2 - If you have a literacy working party, how much money do their salaries represent? 4 - What do your best teachers do to help students read, write, think and spell better? How do you know? 5 - If literacy is important, is it part of all lesson observations? Reviews? Performance management? 3 - If I asked 3 of your staff what your whole-school policy said, what would they reply?

6. Subject Reviews 2005 & 2009 “English at the Crossroads”

7. October 2005: Key findings English is one of the best taught subjects in both primary and secondary schools.

8. Standards of writing have improved as a result of guidance from the national strategies • Some teachers give too little thought to ensuring that pupils fully consider the audience, purpose and content for their writing. October 2005: Key findings

9. Schools do not always seem to understand the importance of pupils’ talk in developing both reading and writing. • Myhill and Fisher: ‘spoken language forms a constraint, a ceiling not only on the ability to comprehend but also on the ability to write, beyond which literacy cannot progress’. • Too many teachers appear to have forgotten that speech ‘supports and propels writing forward’. • Pupils do not improve writing solely by doing more of it; good quality writing benefits from focused discussion that gives pupils a chance to talk through ideas before writing and to respond to friends’ suggestions. October 2005: Key findings

10. The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2003: although the reading skills of 10 year old pupils in England compared well with those of pupils in other countries, they read less frequently for pleasure and were less interested in reading than those elsewhere. • NFER 2003: children’s enjoyment of reading had declined significantly in recent years • A Nestlé/MORI report : ‘underclass’ of non-readers, plus cycles of non-reading ‘where teenagers from families where parents are not readers will almost always be less likely to be enthusiastic readers themselves’. October 2005: Key findings

11. October 2005: Key findings • The role of teaching assistants was described in the report as ‘increasingly effective’.

12. Despite the Strategy, weaknesses remain, including: • the stalling of developments as senior management teams focus on other initiatives • lack of robust measures to evaluate the impact of developments across a range of subjects • a focus on writing at the expense of reading, speaking and listening. October 2005: Key findings

13. June 2009: Key findings • The most effective schools understood that ‘ICT has fundamentally altered… how we think about reading and writing’. • Most teachers in the survey had an interactive whiteboard but the effectiveness with which they used it varied greatly. They tended to use it to engage pupils’ attention or make presentations and rarely exploited its interactive element

14. June 2009: Key findings • The most effective schools used speaking and listening activities successfully to help pupils to think for themselves. Too few schools, however, planned systematically for these, although primary schools had improved their work in this area. Promoting wider reading and using homework were weaknesses.

15. June 2009: Key findings • There is a tendency of secondary schools to focus support on the examination years, which was too late for students who entered school with low levels of literacy

16. June 2009: Key findings • The most effective secondary schools were working to personalise the curriculum by matching it more closely to students’ needs. • Examples included: • varying groupings so that individuals received the most appropriate support for each activity • using integrated courses or a focus on generic learning skills to increase students’ motivation • entering higher-attaining students early for Key Stage 3 tests or GCSE examinations • providing adult literacy courses for older, lower-attaining students that suited their needs better than GCSE.

17. June 2009: Key findings • In both the primary and secondary schools visited, outstanding leadership and management of English resulted from highly effective headteachers who understood the subject’s importance and placed it at the centre of their drive for improvement.

18. S&L: Does it happen systematically anywhere to develop thinking and to model writing? Implications for you …? Writing: is there an understanding across any teams of how to develop writing - eg how to get better evaluations, better essays, better scientific writing? Reading: Who is teaching reading? Has reading for pleasure slipped from your radar? Leadership: Has your leadership team lost interest in literacy? How will you reignite interest?

19. LITERACY IMPACT! What’s the latest news?

20. What we know about Writing … • The standard of writing has improved in recent years but still lags 20% behind reading at all key stages (eg around 60% of students get level 4 at KS2 in writing, compared to 80% in reading). • Writing has improved as a result of the National Strategy. • S&L has a big role in writing - it allows students to rehearse ideas and structures and builds confidence. • But S&L has lower status because of assessment weightings. • In teaching writing we tend to focus too much on end-products rather than process (eg frames). We should think more about composition - how ideas are found and framed, how choices are made, how to decide about the medium, how to draft and edit. • We are still stuck with a narrow range of writing forms and need to emphasise creativity in non-fiction forms. • We need to rediscover the excitement of writing. LITERACY LATEST! With thanks to Professor Richard Andrews, University of York

21. What we know about vocabulary … LITERACY LATEST! • Aged 7: children in the top quartile have 7100 words; children in the lowest have around 3000. The main influence in parents. • Using and explaining high-level words is a key to expanding vocabulary. A low vocabulary has a negative effect throughout schooling. • Declining reading comprehension from 8 onwards is largely a result of low vocabulary. Vocabulary aged 6 accounts for 30% of reading variance aged 16. • Catching up becomes very difficult. Children with low vocabularies would have to learn faster than their peers (4-5 roots words a day) to catch up within 5-6 years. • Vocabulary is built via reading to children, getting children to read themselves, engaging in rich oral language, encouraging reading and talking at home • In the classroom it involves: defining and explaining word meanings, arranging frequent encounters with new words in different contexts, creating a word-rich environment, addressing vocabulary learning explicitly, selecting appropriate words for systematic instruction/reinforcement, teaching word-learning strategies With thanks to DES Research Unit

22. What we know about students who make slow progress … LITERACY LATEST! Characteristics: 2/3 boys. Generally well-behaved. Positive in outlook. “Invisible” to teachers. Keen to respond but unlikely to think first. Persevere with tasks, especially with tasks that are routine. Lack self-help strategies. Stoical, patient, resigned. Reading: they over-rely on a limited range of strategies and lack higher order reading skills Writing: struggle to combine different skills simultaneously. Don’t get much chance for oral rehearsal, guided writing, precise feedback S&L: don’t see it as a key tool in thinking and writing Targets: set low-level targets; overstate functional skills; infrequently review progress With thanks to DfES

23. What we know about TALK LITERACY LATEST! Teachers are very aware that some children lack experience and skills in using talk for thinking. However, most teachers do not expressly teach children to become better at using talk for reasoning, discussing and solving problems. If they ‘teach talk’, English teachers tend to focus on developing good ‘presentational talk’, not good ‘exploratory talk’. It is still largely dominated by teachers’ closed questions and students’ brief attempts at ‘right answers’.

24. LITERACY LATEST!

25. Good Practice in Talk … LITERACY LATEST! Teachers ask open questions about texts and accept a variety of answers. Teachers teach how to read rather than teaching a text. Teachers encourage students to put the main idea into their own words. Teachers regularly reformulate and summarise what students say in the appropriate discourse. Teachers press the students to elaborate their ideas, e.g. ‘How did you know that?’ Teachers encourage thinking by asking ‘Why do you think that?’. Teachers sometimes ask the same student a series of progressively more challenging questions or prompts (while the class listens). Teachers ask students to respond to other students’ views.

26. What we know about Literacy Across the Curriculum • Good literacy skills are a key factor in raising standards across all subjects • Language is the main medium we use for teaching, learning and developing thinking, so it is at the heart of teaching and learning • Literacy is best taught as part of the subject, not as an add-on • All teachers need to give explicit attention to the literacy needed in their subject.

27. Consistencyin literacy is achieved when … • Literacy skills are taught consistently and systematically across the curriculum • Expectation of standards of accuracy and presentation are similar in all classrooms • Teachers are equipped to deal with literacy issues in their subject both generically and specifically • The same strategies are used across the school: the teaching sequence for writing; active reading strategies; planning speaking and listening for learning • Teachers use the same terminology to describe language.

28. Ofsted suggests literacy across the curriculum is good when … • Senior managers are actively involved in the planning and monitoring • Audits and action planning are rigorous • Monitoring focuses on a range of approaches, e.g. classroom observation, work scrutiny as well as formal tests • Time is given to training, its dissemination and embedding • Schools work to identified priorities.

29.  Talking Point  KS3 IMPACT! • What have been the successes in your own school? • What do you need to do next?

30. Literacy strategy: The next phase Self-evaluation: So where are you up to in your school? 0 3 5 NO PROGRESS GOOD PROGRESS

31. Literacy strategy: The next phase

32. LITERACY IMPACT! SECTION 2: Working with the key players

33. Focus relentlessly on T&L ‘Standards are raised ONLY by changes which are put into direct effect by teachers and pupils in classrooms’ Black and Wiliam, ‘Inside the Black Box’ “Schools are places where the pupils go to watch the teachers working” (John West-Burnham) “For many years, attendance at school has been required (for children and for teachers) while learning at school has been optional.” (Stoll, Fink & East)

34. Key players Librarian Strategy manager Working party Headteacher Governors Teaching assistants Subject leaders Students! Tutors

35. Key players Strategy manager • Focus, tailor, customise • See as professional development rather than delivery • Differentiate training • Emphasise monitoring more than initiatives • Use pupil surveys for learning & teaching

36. Headteacher Must be actively involved as head TEACHER Eg monitoring books, breakfast with students, feedback to staff Must be seen in lessons Must be reined in to prioritise

37. Librarian Key part in improving literacy Include in training Part of curriculum meetings Library should embody good practice - eg key words, guidance on retrieving information, visual excitement Active training for students, breaking down subject barriers Get a library commitment from every team Then sample to monitor it

38. Governors Visit library, get in classrooms, talk to students Clearly signal the “literacy” focus Emphasise s/he’s discussing consistency Sample of students and feedback Part of faculty reviews on (say) how we teach writing

39. Working party Maintain or disband? Less doing and more evaluating - questionnaires, looking at handouts, working around rooms, talking to students Asking questions: “What do teachers here do that helps you to understand long texts better?” Work sampling Creating a critical mass

40. Students Tell us how we’re doing Build into school council Small groups work with faculty teams to guide and evaluate Audit rooms for key words, etc

41. Teaching Assistants • Make them literacy experts • Let them lead training • Make their monitoring role explicit • Publish their feedback

42. Subject leaders • Help them to identify the 3 bits of literacy that will have the biggest impact • Prioritise one per term or year • Join their meetings at start and end of process • Help them to keep it simple • Provide models and sample texts • Evaluate • Build literacy into their team’s performance management

43. Tutors • Reconceptualise tutor time as creating an ethos for learning / reviewing targets • Think therefore how the environment of tutor groups could embody good practice - key words, glossaries, approaches to reading and spelling, connectives • Reject silent reading and replace with literacy-based quizzes, etc • Make the school planner a central document for literacy

44. Your role … LITERACY IMPACT! Don’t call it literacy - call it good learning & teaching, or writing, or reading Build it into lesson observation sheets Build it into performance management Keep it in the public eye Emphasise increased student motivation Talk to your Head about core skills for all teachers

45. LITERACY IMPACT! 7 Show before & after models 8 Don’t focus on grammar knowledge needed by staff 9 Show it’s part of a whole-school strategy 10 Celebrate every small-scale success 11 Quote students’ feedback 12 Be consultant, not doer

48. LITERACY IMPACT! SECTION 3: Practical approaches

49. Book sampling…