IMPROVING READING

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IMPROVING READING

• Geoff Barton
• Saturday, October 10, 2020

www.geoffbarton.co.uk
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1. Where are we with English?
2. What are the key issues relating to reading?
3. So what can we do to improve our pupils reading
   skills and pleasure in reading?

www.geoffbarton.co.uk
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Welcome to the Literacy Club
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Language Oddities
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DOGS MUST BE CARRIED ON THE ESCALATOR
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Please don't smoke and live a more healthy life
PSE Poster
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Sign at Suffolk hospital Criminals operate in
this area
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ICI FIBRES
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Would the congregation please note that the bowl
at the back of the church labelled for the sick
is for monetary donations only
Churchdown parish magazine
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So where are we with English?
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• Literacy today is different from when we were
  younger
• Multi-media dominates
• Most classic texts are known through film
• Reading extended writing is rare
• A visual culture dominates
• The notion of accuracy is being challenged

• None of this is a bad thing

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The literacy context ...

• Nearly 40 of pupils make a loss and no progress
  in the year following transfer, related to a
  decline in motivation
• Pupils characterise work in Years 7 and 8 as
  repetitive, unchallenging and lacking in
  purpose
• Year 7 adds so little value that actually
  missing the year would not disadvantage some
  children (Prof John West-Burnham)

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The literacy context ...

• A 1997 survey showed that of 12 European
  countries, only Poland and Ireland had lower
  levels of adult literacy
• 1-in-16 adults cannot identify a concert venue on
  a poster that contains name of band, price, date,
  time and venue
• 7 million UK adults cannot locate the page
  reference for plumbers in the Yellow Pages

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BBC NEWS ONLINE More than half of British
motorists cannot interpret road signs properly,
according to a survey by the Royal Automobile
Club. The survey of 500 motorists highlighted
just how many people are still grappling with it.

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According to the survey, three in five motorists
thought a "be aware of cattle" warning sign
indicated
an area infected with foot-and-mouth disease.
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• Common mistakes
• No motor vehicles - Beware of fast motorbikes

• Wild fowl - Puddles in the road
• Riding school close by - "Marlborough country"
   advert

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English Review 2000-05
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October 2005 Key findings

• The Progress in International Reading Literacy
  Study (PIRLS), published in 2003, found that,
  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.
• An NFER reading survey (2003), conducted by
  Marian Sainsbury, concluded that childrens
  enjoyment of reading had declined significantly
  in recent years.
• A Nestlé/MORI report highlighted the existence
  of a small core of children who do not read at
  all, described as an underclass of non-readers,
  together with cycles of non-reading where
  teenagers from families where parents are not
  readers will almost always be less likely to be
  enthusiastic readers themselves

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October 2005 Key findings

• There has been a marked improvement in the
  reading standards achieved but there remains a
  significant and continuing variability in
  performance across sometimes very similar
  schools.
• In addition, too few schools have given
  sufficient time and thought to how to promote
  pupils independent reading and there is evidence
  that many pupils are reading less widely for
  pleasure than previously.
• Many teachers struggle to keep up-to-date with
  good quality texts for their pupils to read.

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October 2005 Key findings

• The Progress in International Reading Literacy
  Study (PIRLS), published in 2003, found that,
  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.
• An NFER reading survey (2003), conducted by
  Marian Sainsbury, concluded that childrens
  enjoyment of reading had declined significantly
  in recent years.
• A Nestlé/MORI report highlighted the existence
  of a small core of children who do not read at
  all, described as an underclass of non-readers,
  together with cycles of non-reading where
  teenagers from families where parents are not
  readers will almost always be less likely to be
  enthusiastic readers themselves.

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October 2005 Key findings

• Strategies for promoting individual reading do
  not always sit easily alongside whole-class and
  group approaches to teaching reading. Most
  schools expect pupils to keep a record or journal
  of their reading, but the quality of these is
  mostly very poor.
• Pupils do not understand why they are expected
  to maintain them since most teachers do nothing
  with them.
• The Bullock report noted that the teacher who
  knows books well, who is aware of pupils
  interests and reading background and who
  discusses reading with them will have a
  significant impact on whether the pupils continue
  to read for pleasure and the effectiveness of
  their reading.

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October 2005 Key findings

• Some teachers tell inspectors that teaching
  reading has lost its fun.
• Is it appropriate or not any longer simply to
  read and share stories with their class do they
  always need to analyse the text and set
  exercises? Is time for silent, independent
  reading regarded as good practice or not? Should
  teachers read whole novels with a class or is
  this a waste of valuable teaching time?
• In fact, Ofsteds evidence is that all these
  approaches, deployed appropriately, have
  potential, particularly as part of a systematic
  and balanced policy on reading.

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So what should we do

• across the school?
• and in our English lessons?

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WHOLE-SCHOOL LITERACY IMPACT!
Subject-specific vocabulary
Varied approaches to reading
READING
Active research process, not FOFO
Using DARTs
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• Subject-specific vocabulary
• Identifying
• Playing with context
• Actively exploring
• Linking to spelling
• Providing glossaries, etc.

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• Approaches to reading
• Scanning
• Skimming
• Continuous reading
• Close reading
• Research skills, not FOFO.

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• Using DARTs
• Cloze
• Sequencing
• Diagram completion
• Disordered text
• Prediction
• Avoiding Glombots

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The Glombots, who looked durly and lurkish, were
fond of wooning, which they usually did in the
grebble.
1 What did the Glombots look like? 2 What were
they fond of doing? 3 Where did they like to do
it?
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So what should we do

• across the school?
• and in our English lessons?

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As English teachers, lets

1. Approach text from the point of view of being a
   writer
2. Use class readers as symbolic texts and to make
   connections with other texts
3. Use more non-fiction but broaden the genres
4. Read texts aloud but not around the class
5. Teach students about non-fiction conventions -
   eg interrupting, long subjects, connectives,
   agent-avoidance!

and maintain a rich, lively, enjoyable
commitment to celebrating reading
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1 Teaching the linguistic conventions of
non-fiction texts
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LITERACY FOR LEARNING

• Fiction is more personal. Non-fiction has fewer
  agents
• Holidays were taken at resorts
• During the 17th century roads became straighter

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LITERACY FOR LEARNING
Childrens fiction tends to be chronological.
Fiction becomes easier to read non-fiction
presents difficulties all the way through
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LITERACY FOR LEARNING
Non-fiction texts rely on linguistic signposts -
moreover, therefore, on the other hand. Children
who are unfamiliar with these will not read with
the same predictive power as they can with fiction
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LITERACY FOR LEARNING
Non-fiction tends to have more interrupting
constructions The agouti, a nervous 20-inch
rodent from South America, can leap twenty feet
from a sitting position Asteroids are lumps of
rock and metal whose paths round the sun lie
mainly between Jupiter and Mars
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LITERACY FOR LEARNING
Fiction uses more active verbs. Non-fiction
relies more on the copula (Oxygen is a gas) and
use of the passive Some plastics are made by
rather than We make plastics by
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LITERACY FOR LEARNING
Non-fiction texts have more complex noun
phrases The remains and shapes of animals and
plants are lost in the myriad caves of the region
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2 Use starters to immerse pupils in lots of texts
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GUESS THE TEXT TYPE
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What kind of text is this?What is its
purpose?Who is it aimed at?What do you notice
about its language?
It was on a bright day of midwinter, in New York.
The little girl who eventually became me, but as
yet was neither me nor anybody else in
particular, but merely a soft anonymous morsel of
humanity this little girl, who bore my name,
was going for a walk with her father. The episode
is literally the first thing I can remember about
her, and therefore I date the birth of her
humanity from that day.
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What kind of text is this?What is its
purpose?Who is it aimed at?What do you notice
about its language?
Urquhart castle is probably one of the most
picturesquely situated castles in the Scottish
Highlands. Located 16 miles south-west of
Inverness, the castle, one of the largest in
Scotland, overlooks much of Loch Ness. Visitors
come to stroll through the ruins of the
13th-century castle because Urquhart has earned
the reputation of being one of the best spots for
sighting Loch Nesss most famous inhabitant
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What kind of text is this?What is its
purpose?Who is it aimed at?What do you notice
about its language?
Jake began to dial the number slowly as he had
done every evening at six oclock ever since his
father had passed away. For the next fifteen
minutes he settled back to listen to what his
mother had done that day
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What kind of text is this?What is its
purpose?Who is it aimed at?What do you notice
about its language?
Seville is voluptuous and evocative. It has to be
seen, tasted and touched. The old quarter is
Seville as it was and is. Walk in its narrow
cobbled streets, with cascades of geraniums
tumbling from balconies and the past shouts so
loudly that one can almost glimpse dark-cloaked
figures disappearing silently through carved
portals.
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What kind of text is this?What is its
purpose?Who is it aimed at?What do you notice
about its language?
Thirty years ago, Neil Armstrong was preparing
for the most momentous step made by a human being
in the twentieth century. But first he had to get
there, wiggling his way out of the lunar module
that had brought him and Aldrin this far.
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What kind of text is this?What is its
purpose?Who is it aimed at?What do you notice
about its language?
There was a double eclipse in the early autumn of
1605 a lunar eclipse on 19 September followed
by an eclipse of the sun in early October. Such
celestial phenomena were traditional held to
portend no good.
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What kind of text is this?What is its
purpose?Who is it aimed at?What do you notice
about its language?
Proud mum in a million Natalie Brown hugged her
beautiful baby daughter Casey yesterday and said
Shes my double miracle.
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What kind of text is this?What is its
purpose?Who is it aimed at?What do you notice
about its language?
2wentys Flights are ready to blast off again for
summer 99. Its a new concept in flying where we
give you what you want (not what some old gipper
wants). Lets face it, if youre flying to Ibiza
its Sasha and Digweed not Mozart and Bach youre
after.
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3 Explore texts actively, as if you were a writer
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How would YOU start a biography of a famous
writer?
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The Life of Charles Dickens Chapter 1 CHARLES
DICKENS, the most popular novelist of the
century, and one of the greatest humorists that
England has produced, was born at Lanport, in
Portsea, on Friday, the seventh of February,
1812. His father, John Dickens, a clerk in the
navy pay-office, was at this time stationed in
the Portsmouth Dockyard. He had made
acquaintance with the lady, Elizabeth Barrow, who
became afterwards his wife, through her elder
brother, Thomas Barrow, also engaged on the
establishment at Somerset House, and she bore him
in all a family of eight children, of whom two
died in infancy. The eldest, Fanny (born 1810),
was followed by Charles (entered in the baptismal
register of Portsea as Charles John Huffham,
though on the very rare occasions when he
subscribed that name he wrote Huffam) by another
son, named Alfred, who died in childhood by
Letitia (born 1816) by another daughter,
Harriet, who died also in childhood by Frederick
(born 1820) by Alfred Lamert (born 1822) and by
Augustus (born 1827).
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DICKENS CHARLES DICKENS was dead. He lay on a
narrow green sofa but there was room enough for
him, so spare had he become in the dining room
of Gads Hill Place. He had died in the house
which he had first seen as a small boy and which
his father had pointed out to him as a suitable
object of his ambitions so great was his
fathers hold upon his life that, forty years
later, he had bought it. Now he had gone. It
was customary to close the blinds and curtains,
thus enshrouding the corpse in darkness before
its last journey to the tomb but in the dining
room of Gads Hill the curtains were pulled apart
and on this June day the bright sunshine streamed
in, glittering on the large mirrors around the
room. The family beside him knew how he enjoyed
the light, how he needed the light and they
understood, too, that none of the conventional
sombreness of the late Victorian period the
year was 1870 had ever touched him. All the
lines and wrinkles which marked the passage of
his life were new erased in the stillness of
death. He was not old he died in his
fifty-eighth year but there had been signs of
premature ageing on a visage so marked and worn
he had acquired, it was said, a sarcastic look.
But now all that was gone and his daughter,
Katey, who watched him as he lay dead, noticed
how there once more emerged upon his face beauty
and pathos.
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EXPLORING SUSPENSE Write the opening of a
mystery story. Set it at a funeral in a wintery
churchyard.
v v v
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bad
Using models
Before . It was a bitterly cold day. Everyone
was in black. The cars were black too. There were
people standing around in a group waiting for the
coffin. Crows were flying in the sky. It was
really eerie.
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After . The undertaker's men were like crows,
stiff and black, and the cars were black, lined
up beside the path that led to the church and
we, we too were black, as we stood in our
pathetic, awkward group waiting for them to lift
out the coffin and shoulder it, and for the
clergyman to arrange himself and he was another
black crow in his long cloak. And then the real
crows rose suddenly from the trees and from the
fields, whirled up like scraps of blackened paper
from a bonfire, and circled, caw-caw-ing above
our heads.
Susan Hill
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BUILDING TENSION

• Brian Moore, Cold Heaven

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1

• The wooden seats of the little pedal boat were
  angled so that Marie looked up at the sky. There
  were no clouds. In the vastness above her a gull
  calligraphed its flight. Marie and Alex pedalled
  in unison, the revolving paddles making a
  slapping sound against the waves as the pedal
  boat treadmilled away from the beach, passing
  through ranks of bathers to move into the deeper,
  more solitary waters of the Baie des Anges. Marie
  slackened her efforts but Alex continued
  determinedly, steering the pedalo straight out
  into the Mediterranean.

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2

• Lets not go too far, she said.
• I want to get away from the crowd. Im going to
  swim.
• It was like him to have some plan of his own, to
  translate idleness into activity even in these
  few days of vacation. She now noted his every
  fault. It was as though, having decided to leave
  him, she had withdrawn his credit. She looked
  back at the sweep of hotels along the Promenade
  des Anglais. Today was the day she had hoped to
  tell him. She had planned to announce it at
  breakfast and leave, first for New York, then on
  to Los Angeles to join Daniel. But at breakfast
  she lacked all courage. Now, with half the day
  gone, she decided to postpone it until tomorrow.

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3

• Far out from shore, the paddles stopped. The
  pedalo rocked on its twin pontoons as Alex eased
  himself up from his seat. He handed her his
  sunglasses. This should do, he said and,
  rocking the boat even more, dived into the
  ultramarine waters. She watched him surface. He
  called out Just follow along, okay? He was not
  a good swimmer, but thrashed about in an
  energetic, erratic freestyle. Marie began to
  pedal again, her hand on the tiller, steering the
  little boat so that she followed close. Watching
  him, she knew he could not keep up this pace for
  long. She saw his flailing arms and for a moment
  thought of those arms hitting her. He had never
  hit her. He was not the sort of man who would hit
  you. He would be hurt, and cold, and possibly
  vindictive. But he was not violent.

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4

• She heard a motorboat, the sound becoming louder.
  She looked back but did not see a boat behind
  her. Then she looked to the right where Alex was
  swimming and saw a big boat with an outboard
  motor coming right at them, coming very fast.

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5

• Of course they see us, she thought, alarmed, and
  then as though she were watching a film, as
  though this were happening to someone else, she
  saw there was a man in the motorboat, a young man
  wearing a green shirt he was not at the tiller,
  he was standing in the middle of the boat with
  his back to her and as she watched he bent down
  and picked up a child who had fallen on the
  floorboards. Hey? she called. Hey? for he
  must turn around, the motorboat was coming right
  at Alex, right at her. But the man in the boat
  did not hear. He carried the child across to the
  far side of the boat the boat was only yards
  away now.

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6

• Alex, she called. Alex, look out. But Alex
  flailed on and then the prow of the motorboat,
  slicing up water like a knife, hit Alex with a
  sickening thump, went over him and smashed into
  the pontoons of the little pedal boat, upending
  it, and she found herself in the water, going
  under, coming up. She looked and saw the
  motorboat churning off, the pedal boat hanging
  from its prow like a tangle of branches. She
  heard the motorboat engine cut to silence, then
  start up again as the boat veered around in a
  semicircle and came back to her. Alex?

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7

• She looked saw his body near her just under the
  water. She swam toward him, breastroke, it was
  all she knew. He was floating face down,
  spread-eagle. She caught hold of his wrist and
  pulled him towards her. The motorboat came
  alongside, the man in the green shirt reaching
  down for her, but, No, no, she called and tried
  to push Alex toward him. The man caught Alex by
  the hair of his head and pulled him up, she
  pushing, Alex falling back twice into the water,
  before the man, with a great effort, lifted him
  like a sack across the side of the boat, tugging
  and heaving until Alex disappeared into the boat.
  The man shouted, Un instant, madame, un instant
  and reappeared, putting a little steel ladder
  over the side. She climbed up onto the motorboat
  as the man went out onto the prow to disentangle
  the wreckage of the pedalo.

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8

• A small child was sitting at the back of the
  boat, staring at Alexs body, which lay face-down
  on the floorboards. She went to Alex and saw
  blood from a wound, a gash in the side of his
  head, blood matting his hair. He was breathing
  but unconscious. She lifted him and cradled him
  in her arms, his blood trickling onto her
  breasts. She saw the boat owners bare legs go
  past her as he went to the rear of the boat to
  restart the engine. The child began to bawl but
  the man leaned over, silenced it with an angry
  slap, the man turned to her, his face sick with
  fear. Nous y serons dans un instant, he
  shouted, opening the motor to full throttle. She
  hugged Alex to her, a rivulet of blood dripping
  off her forearm onto the floorboards as the boat
  raced to the beach.

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BUILDING TENSION

• Brian Moore, Cold Heaven

65
WHOLE-SCHOOL LITERACY IMPACT!
Subject-specific vocabulary
Varied approaches to reading
READING
Active research process, not FOFO
Using DARTs
66
As English teachers, lets

1. Approach text from the point of view of being a
   writer
2. Use class readers as symbolic texts and to make
   connections with other texts
3. Use more non-fiction but broaden the genres
4. Read texts aloud but not around the class
5. Teach students about non-fiction conventions -
   eg interrupting, long subjects, connectives,
   agent-avoidance!

and maintain a rich, lively, enjoyable
commitment to celebrating reading
67
Final thoughts on reading
Richard Steele Reading is to the mind what
exercise is to the body Woody Allen I took a
speed reading course and read 'War and Peace' in
twenty minutes. It involves Russia.
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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
saidHow good to spend a night with
Shelley. In long war years she fed us
plays, Sophocles to Shaws 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. Brian
Cox From Collected Poems, Carcanet Press 1993.
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IMPROVING READING

• Geoff Barton
• Saturday, October 10, 2020

www.geoffbarton.co.uk