‘Let’s Teach Reading’

‘Let’s Teach Reading’ … and place the library at the heart of the process

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Why reading (and school libraries) matter more than ever

Theory Practice

The Literacy Club

The Matthew Effect (Robert K Merton)

The rich shall get richer and the poor shall get poorer Matthew 13:12

“the word-rich get richer while the word-poor get poorer” in their reading skills The Matthew Effect Daniel Rigney

“While good readers gain new skills very rapidly, and quickly move from learning to read to reading to learn, poor readers become increasingly frustrated with the act of reading, and try to avoid reading where possible” The Matthew Effect Daniel Rigney

“Students who begin with high verbal aptitudes and find themselves in verbally enriched social environments are at a double advantage.” The Matthew Effect Daniel Rigney

“Good readers may choose friends who also read avidly while poor readers seek friends with whom they share other enjoyments” The Matthew Effect Daniel Rigney The Matthew Effect Daniel Rigney

Subject Reviews 2009: “English at the Crossroads”

English 2009: • Some schools persevered with ‘library lessons’ where the students read silently. These sessions rarely included time to discuss or promote books and other written material and therefore did not help to develop a reading community within the school.

5 Modest proposals

1: Libraries matter more now. They should be full of books

2: Reading is a social activity: our libraries should be the hub of reading clubs, visiting authors, newspapers, 1:1 support

3: We need to be teaching research, not FOFO

4: Whole-school literacy matters more than ever … … just don’t call it literacy

5: Let’s read aloud more

Wendy Cope: 'Reading Scheme’ Here is Peter. Here is Jane. They like fun. Jane has a big doll. Peter has a ball. Look, Jane, look! Look at the dog! See him run! Here is mummy. She has baked a bun. Here is the milkman. He has come to call. Here is Peter. Here is Jane. They like fun. Go Peter! Go Jane! Come, milkman, come! The milkman likes mummy. She likes them all. Look, Jane, look! Look at the dog! See him run! Here are the curtains. They shut out the sun. Let us peep! On tiptoe Jane! You are small! Here is Peter. Here is Jane. They like fun. I hear a car, Jane. The milkman looks glum. Here is Daddy in his car. Daddy is tall. Look, Jane, look! Look at the dog! See him run! Daddy looks very cross. Has he a gun? Up milkman! Up milkman! Over the wall! Here is Peter. Here is Jane. They like fun. Look, Jane, look! Look at the dog! See him run!

Brian Patten: Portrait of a Young Girl Raped at a Suburban Party And after this quick bash in the dark You will rise and go Thinking of how empty you have grown And of whether all the evening's care in front of mirrors And the younger boys disowned Led simply to this. Confined to what you are expected to be By what you are Out in the frozen garden You shiver and vomit - Frightened, drunk among trees, You wonder at how those acts that called for tenderness Were far from tender. …

Now you have left your titterings about love And your childishness behind you Yet still far from being old You spew up among flowers And in the warm stale rooms The party continues. It seems you saw some use in moving away From that group of drunken lives Yet already ten minutes pregnant In twenty thousand you might remember This party This dull Saturday night When planets rolled out of your eyes And splashed down in suburban grasses.

Brian Cox: ‘English Teacher’ Petite, white-haired Miss Cartwright Knew Shakespeare off by heart, Or so we pupils thought. Once in the stalls at the Old Vic She prompted Lear when he forgot his part. Ignorant of Scrutiny and Leavis, She taught Romantic poetry, Dreamt of gossip with dead poets. To an amazed sixth form once said:‘How good to spend a night with Shelley.’ In long war years she fed us plays, Sophocles to Shaw’s St Joan. Her reading nights we named our Courting Club, Yet always through the blacked-out streets One boy left the girls and saw her home. When she closed her eyes and chanted ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ We laughed yet honoured her devotion. We knew the man she should have married Was killed at Passchendaele.

A Modest Proposal … Geoff Barton Head, King Edward VI School, Suffolk Download this presentation at www.geoffbarton.co.uk (Number 89)

‘Let’s Teach Reading’