More literacy money being provided
The government is developing its literacy funding so that newly qualified teachers get stronger training in the use of phonics from this year. At the same time more local authorities in England have been offered £9m extra if they run phonics programmes for young children.The programme is the one that Sir Jim Rose likes, where children learn the sounds of letters and how they blend into words. It helps most children but there are suggestions that it is of little or no benefit to many children who are dyslexic, thus removing them further from the mainstream of classroom literacy.
The £9m is aimed at training teachers to run phonics programmes in primary schools and will help those authorities not running the Communication, Language and Literacy Development (CLLD) programme, to join in the programme.
As a result every area in England should have a specialist adviser training and supporting primary school teachers – while secondary teachers should see an improvement in the literacy levels and a unity of approach in primary schools.
Rose in his latest report has said that there had been “considerable, though uneven, improvements in the provision for, and teaching of, beginner readers over this reporting period…More schools are teaching reading well and taking a robust approach to teaching high-quality phonic work systematically
However “schools, headteachers, local authorities, initial teacher training providers and the national strategies need to evaluate rigorously the effectiveness of their roles in promoting high-quality teaching of reading, and (should) drive hard to establish and sustain such teaching on a consistent basis with the aim of children becoming fluent readers by the end of key stage 1 at the latest.”
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