Kent English CPD: Good to Outstanding in English

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Kent English CPDGood to Outstanding in English

• Geoff Barton
• Download free at www.geoffbarton.co.uk
• (Presentation number 84)

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What
How
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The Matthew Effect
(Robert K Merton)
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For whosoever hath, to him shall be given and he
shall have more abundance but whosoever hath
not, from him shall be taken away even that he
hath.
Matthew 1312
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The rich shall get richer and the poor shall get
poorer
Matthew 1312
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the word-rich get richer while the word-poor get
poorer in their reading skills
(CASL)
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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
(SEDL 2001)
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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
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Poor readers more likely to drop out of school
and less likely to find rewarding employment
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
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Strichts Law reading ability in children
cannot exceed their listening ability
E.D. Hirsch The Schools We Need
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Spoken language forms a constraint, a ceiling
not only on the ability to comprehend but also on
the ability to write, beyond which literacy
cannot progress
Myhill and Fisher
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The children who possess intellectual capital
when they first arrive at school have the mental
scaffolding and Velcro to catch hold of what is
going on, and they can turn the new knowledge
into still more Velcro to gain still more
knowledge.
E.D. Hirsch The Schools We Need
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Aged 7 Children in the top quartile have 7100
words children in the lowest have around 3000.
The main influence is parents.
DCSF Research Unit
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The Matthew Effect
The rich will get richer the poor will get
poorer
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Subject Reviews 2005 2009 English at the
Crossroads
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English 2005
Myhill and Fisher spoken language forms a
constraint, a ceiling not only on the ability to
comprehend but also on the ability to write,
beyond which literacy cannot progress.
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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.
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Pupils writing does not improve solely by doing
more of it.
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English 2009
All the English departments visited had schemes
of work for KS3 but, since they rarely showed
them to the students, students could not see how
individual elements linked together and supported
each other. To many students, the KS3
programme seemed a random sequence of activities
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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.
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English 2009
Many of the lessons seen during the survey
showed there was a clear need to reinvigorate the
teaching of writing. Students were not motivated
by the writing tasks they were given and saw no
real purpose to them.
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English 2009
Ofsteds previous report on English found that
schools put too little emphasis on developing
speaking and listening. Since then, the teaching
of speaking and listening has improved.
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English 2009
The last English report identified a wide gap
between the best practice and the rest in using
ICT. This gap remains indeed, some of the
evidence suggests that it has widened.
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CASE STUDIES
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Whats the latest news?
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What we know about Writing

• The standard of writing has improved in recent
  years but still lags 20 behind reading at all
  key stages (eg around 60 of students get level 4
  at KS2 in writing, compared to 80 in reading).
• Writing has improved as a result of the National
  Strategy.
• SL has a big role in writing - it allows
  students to rehearse ideas and structures and
  builds confidence.
• But SL has lower status because of assessment
  weightings.
• In teaching writing we tend to focus too much on
  end-products rather than process (eg frames). We
  should think more about composition - how ideas
  are found and framed, how choices are made, how
  to decide about the medium, how to draft and
  edit.
• We are still stuck with a narrow range of writing
  forms and need to emphasise creativity in
  non-fiction forms.
• We need to rediscover the excitement of writing.

With thanks to Professor Richard Andrews, London
Institute
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What we know about vocabulary

• Aged 7 children in the top quartile have 7100
  words children in the lowest have around 3000.
  The main influence in parents.
• Using and explaining high-level words is a key to
  expanding vocabulary. A low vocabulary has a
  negative effect throughout schooling.
• Declining reading comprehension from 8 onwards is
  largely a result of low vocabulary. Vocabulary
  aged 6 accounts for 30 of reading variance aged
  16.
• Catching up becomes very difficult. Children with
  low vocabularies would have to learn faster than
  their peers (4-5 roots words a day) to catch up
  within 5-6 years.
• Vocabulary is built via reading to children,
  getting children to read themselves, engaging in
  rich oral language, encouraging reading and
  talking at home
• In the classroom it involves defining and
  explaining word meanings, arranging frequent
  encounters with new words in different contexts,
  creating a word-rich environment, addressing
  vocabulary learning explicitly, selecting
  appropriate words for systematic
  instruction/reinforcement, teaching word-learning
  strategies

With thanks to DCSF Research Unit
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What we know about students who make slow
progress
Characteristics 2/3 boys. Generally
well-behaved. Positive in outlook. Invisible to
teachers. Keen to respond but unlikely to think
first. Persevere with tasks, especially with
tasks that are routine. Lack self-help
strategies. Stoical, patient, resigned. Reading
they over-rely on a limited range of strategies
and lack higher order reading skills Writing
struggle to combine different skills
simultaneously. Dont get much chance for oral
rehearsal, guided writing, precise feedback SL
dont see it as a key tool in thinking and
writing Targets set low-level targets overstate
functional skills infrequently review progress
With thanks to DCFS
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Demo
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Key conventions
Demonstrate writing.
Link to speech
Teach composition
Sentence variety
Importance of reading
Connectives
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Know your connectives Adding and, also, as well
as, moreover, too Cause effect because, so,
therefore, thus, consequently Sequencing next,
then, first, finally, meanwhile, before,
after Qualifying however, although, unless,
except, if, as long as, apart from,
yet Emphasising above all, in particular,
especially, significantly, indeed,
notably Illustrating for example, such as, for
instance, as revealed by, in the case
of Comparing equally, in the same way,
similarly, likewise, as with, like Contrasting
whereas, instead of, alternatively, otherwise,
unlike, on the other hand
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Reading needs teaching skimming, scanning,
analysis
Read aloud.
Demystify spelling
Use DARTs prediction, jumbled texts, pictures
and graphs
Teach and display subject-specific vocabulary
Presentation and framing can make texts more
accessible
Teach research skills, not FOFO
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Break tyranny of QA
No hands up
Thinking time
Key words / connectives.
Reflective groupings
Rehearsing responses
Get teachers watching teachers who manage SL
well
Exploratory social talk
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Whole-school literacy

• Every teacher in English
• Teach reading, not FOFO
• Demystify spelling
• Model writing
• Emphasise quality talk

and dont call it literacy!
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Kent English CPDGood to Outstanding in English

• Geoff Barton
• Download free at www.geoffbarton.co.uk
• (Presentation number 84)

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What
How
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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.
And finally
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Kent English CPDGood to Outstanding in English

• Geoff Barton
• Download free at www.geoffbarton.co.uk
• (Presentation number 84)