THE British government’s ￡500 million ($744 million) drive to improve literacy in schools destroyed English as a subject and left a generation lacking the stamina to read whole books, a teacher has claimed, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The UK National Literacy Strategy was introduced in primary schools in 1998, enshrining a daily “literacy hour” in schools and setting down detailed requirements on the teaching of reading and writing. Mary Bousted, general secretary of the UK Association of Teachers and Lecturers, criticized that, saying the daily literacy lessons had forced pupils to study short extracts from works of literature instead of the full text. Youngsters were losing the art of reading for pleasure as a result. “Literacy as a subject is based on the naming of parts. These extracts are mined for adjectives and adverbs, and active verbs and nouns,” Bousted said in a speech to the association’s annual conference. “Where has the concept of pleasure gone? Where has the personal response to a book or a poem disappeared to?”
She is not the first to question the effectiveness of the literacy strategy. In 2007, a report by the University of Cambridge showed the drive had made a “barely noticeable” impression on reading standards, which had hardly improved since the 1950s.
Bousted also said the Ofsted (Office of the Qualifications and Examinations Regulator) had encouraged a literacy strategy without speaking and listening, because the former chief inspector of schools, Chris Woodhead, had convinced ministers that these were not needed. It turned out that a whole generation of children had lost the opportunity to learn how to talk, listen and write creatively.
A spokeswoman for the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families denied that children do not read whole books in school: “The government is firmly committed to making reading a daily part of children’s lives and we have a range of initiatives to encourage all young people to take an interest in reading for pleasure.”
