Poor reading instruction the culprit
…in this study from England. From the Telegraph:
Poor boys ‘turned into criminals’ at school
A generation of working class boys are being transformed into “misfits and criminals” by the education system, according to research.
By Graeme Paton, Education Editor
Published: 8:01AM GMT 27 Nov 2009
According to figures, white boys eligible for free school meals, the standard measure of deprivation, are the worst performers at school Photo: GETTY
In a damning report, it was claimed thousands of white British and black Caribbean boys from the poorest backgrounds were being consigned to a “lifetime of crime, drugs and prison” after being failed at school.
The report blamed the “ideological fads” of the left-wing educational establishment.
Sats for 11 year-olds may be scrapped This included a hardcore of teachers who believed proper discipline “belonged to the Dark Age” and allowed pupils to run amok in classrooms and corridors.
It also identified the failure to teach reading effectively in primary schools, which led to large numbers of boys starting secondary school with poor literacy skills, fuelling a culture of frustration and resentment.
The conclusions - in a study published by the Centre for Policy Studies, a think-tank - come just days after Ofsted levelled a series of criticisms at English schools.
In its annual report, the watchdog said that a “stubborn core” of poor teaching was holding back progress at thousands of schools and warned of a persistent gap between rich and deprived pupils.
The latest study, by the author Harriet Sergeant, said: “The cause of the crisis is clear - the capture of our schools and teacher training colleges by the current education orthodoxy.
“Effective ways of teaching children to read have been replaced by a system which completely fails those who find reading most difficult. Teachers, who were once proud to be considered as professionals, are now treated as operatives.
“Standards of discipline have collapsed. The curriculum has been destroyed. Competitive sports have been run down. An acceptance of failure and a lack of aspiration is found in too many schools.”
It added: “The tragedy is that we are turning large numbers of potentially decent young men into misfits and criminals… The failure in our schools falls hardest on them. It condemns them to a life time of crime, drugs and prison and to seeing their own children also fail.”
According to figures, white boys eligible for free school meals - the standard measure of deprivation - are the worst performers at school.
Fewer than half started secondary education with a decent grounding in English and maths last summer, compared with 72 per cent of other pupils. Poor boys with a black Caribbean heritage were the second worst performers.
The CPS report - “Wasted: The betrayal of white working class and black Caribbean boys” - said boys were naturally at a disadvantage because of early developmental delays. Problems for the poorest were fuelled by chaotic family backgrounds, such as the large number of children born into single-parent families because of the “perverse incentives” of the benefits system. It meant many boys lacked strong male role-models.
The study said disadvantage was exaggerated by the education system. It claimed many schools had abandoned synthetic phonics - the back-to-basics reading method which breaks words down into sounds. Previous research showed pupils taught using phonics were more than three years ahead by the time they left primary school.
“A lack of literacy drives angry and resentful boys out of school and into trouble,” it said.
The study also criticised Ofsted for focusing on issues such as healthy eating and citizenship instead of basic subjects, a lack of competition in the classroom and teachers’ focus on average pupils instead of the very best or worst to boost league table rankings.
It added: “Discipline in schools matters more for disadvantaged boys than their middle-class counterparts. Unfortunately, many educators view discipline with the same distaste as synthetic phonics. It belongs in the Dark Age.
“The attitude towards discipline is clear from teacher training itself. When the teaching union NASUWT researched the experiences of newly-qualified teachers, many complained their training had not prepared them to deal with disruptive pupil behaviour. Sixty per cent were worried about behaviour even before they took up their first teaching post
Tags: blue collar british
November 27th, 2009 at 9:52 am
They do not seem to be saying that poor reading is the exclusive culprit, only that it is one of a group. They seem to have at least as much criticism for lack of discipline.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:00 am
I have to admit that I have some reservations about the content and conclusions of this study because the Centre for Policy Studies is a right-wing think-tank, and their output typically reflects that.
However, I do think the point they make about literacy - or lack thereof - being closely linked to social problems is undeniable: levels of illiteracy in the prison population are far higher than they are in the general population.
That being said, I am surprised by their claim that schools have “abandoned” synthetic phonics, because they don’t really have the autonomy to do that: synthetic phonics is part of the national curriculum. So it’s not the case that some children fail to learn to read because they are not being taught synthetic phonics, but rather - in my opinion - because they are not being taught synthetic phonics in the way that best suits the way they learn.
An awful lot of children who can’t read are highly visual learners: they learn to “read” by sight-memorising words. This technique works at first, when the texts they are exposed to contain a very limited number of words; but as texts get longer and more complex, the method fails. It is only by really emphasising the phonic decoding process that children like this can be taught to read. Of course discipline etc plays a role; but if teachers were given access to a wider range of ways of presenting synthetic phonics, I think that the success rate of all children - not just boys - in the literacy stakes would start to rise.