• “If we are uncritical, we shall always find what we want: we shall look for, and find, confirmations, and we shall look away from and not see, whatever might be dangerous to our pet theories.”

    Karl Popper

    I’m indebted to yesterday’s Times’ leader article for giving me the quote above and introducing me to Karl Popper, who I think I might investigate a bit more.

    I was watching a Teacher’s TV video by Michael Rosen yesterday, in which he expounds the reading of whole books for pleasure to raise reading skills. Well, Duh! it’s a no brainer.

    Some of the comments below the video are quite vicious, this is because Michael swiftly and surely demolishes the whole synthetic phonics movement with a quiet, thoughtful, almost saintly, air that is calculated to upset the “other side”.

    I think some children probably do respond brilliantly to phonics – but some children do not. It is inconvenient for the phonics promoters to remember that the Clackmannanshire Study, that we base English children’s literacy lessons on, ran alongside a huge family support programme which must have had some benefit too. Children who do not do well with phonics need something else or they will be left behind – as we are seeing in current falling literacy levels.

    Storytelling is the one consistent habit of humans, from the stone age to the present. The learning of the art of reading needs context. Yes, we need to be able to read electricity meters and letters from the council, but who wants to spend their whole day doing that when they can learn to read Harry Potter instead?

    If reading is all about decoding, then what is the point?

    A brilliant story, well written or told, captures the imagination like nothing else. Politicians know this, religions know this, advertisers know this – education seems to have forgotten this.

    Phonics is great – but it is only one building block in the reading foundations.

    Fantastic fiction is another building block. Fiction and Phonics are not mutually exclusive. Each needs the other.

    THERE IS NO ONE RIGHT WAY TO TEACH CHILDREN TO LEARN TO READ. (Excuse me for shouting!) And anyone who tells you their system is the one and only is either a fraud or trying to sell you a new reading scheme.

    The nuts and bolts of literacy must have a context, and story is the best engine to create a desire to learn more and improve reading skills. In fact the act of reading great stories provides a virtuous circle in which the learned grammar is shown to be of beneficial use. When it comes to writing skills, what better way to learn than to read and see how other people do it? Not from sample texts taken out of context, but from a whole story where the reader can see how the writing fits into the whole.

    Sometimes I think we are scared of letting children read a whole book – as if it might exhaust them – drain them away. Maybe reading has become a health and safety issue? We don’t want them to use their eyes in case they wear them out and sue us. Perhaps they might enjoy themselves – and what place is their for enjoyment in the serious business of target attainment?

    The teaching of literacy has reached the point where I now go into classrooms and find that there are no books on display! Plenty of computers though, which have the best sites – the ones that children want to go to, that might encourage reading – blocked!

    The curriculum leaves no time for stories – the one sure-fire system that humanity has devised for the passing on of knowledge.

    I’m constantly told that children have a short attention span – it’s not true. Sit them down and tell them a story and they are quite happy for an hour.

    Phonics is not the answer on it’s own. The need to read must have a context otherwise it is a boring, useless subject – something you have to do at school. Great books are the reason to want to read – telling stories is the way to sell the need to read.

    If we believe it is important for children to learn to read, then we are fools if we rely on one system for all.

  • Flooding at Picadilly Circus
    Up to London yesterday, for the Hachette Children’s Books Christmas Party. It did feel a little early and not very seasonal. Perhaps annual get together is a better term. Seeing all the old faces and meeting a few of the new ones is so important it doesn’t rally ,matter what you call it.

    Marlene Johnson, The Managing Director, gave us a pep talk and urged us to blog and tweet and twitter. Many asked me if I blogged and when I said yes wondered what on Earth I find to blog about. Well, that, of course is the problem. There are times when I wonder why I bother, but something inside me nags away to just post that idea.

    Partly it’s a diary of ideas and thoughts that I find quite interesting to go back over. Partly it’s my only way of shouting at the world and telling it how it should be done. Partly it’s PR. Partly self-indulgent self-egrandisement, but mostly it’s because I can and something makes me keep on doing it.

    There was a lot of talk about digital. Thos of us who have been crying in the wilderness all these years, who have done have done the work and actually understand the business of online are saying don’t touch it with a bargepole. Those who are being seduced by the possibility that the world of online publishing of downloads is nearly here are getting all excited – not realising that they are about to be consigned to the scrap heap unless they can learn a whole new bag of trix.

    With the advent of Adobe Flash CS5 exporting straight to iPhone app, 2010 could turn out to be a very interesting year in the world of publishing.

    On the way home I came across a little bit of flooding at Piccadilly Circus and took the picture above. The underground was closed at Paddington which meant walking in a downpour from Edgeware Rd was not a happy bunny, but I did manage to buy one of the last remaining rolls of kitchen towel at Sainsbury’s and dry myself off.

    I’d had a terrible nights sleep with a cold and cough and woke very early. As I wandered down Oxford Street Christmas shopping, I marveled at all the new eating opportunities. Food from all over the world was available yet, hungry as I was, nothing tempted me. I wandered up to the British Museum to see the Staffordshire Hoard, and was finally seduced into an Itailian eaterie in Museum Stree, by a board outside that promised egg, bacon, sausage, chips and beans or tomato with toast and tea or coffee for £4.95. Sometime only a plate of filth hits the spot – hooray for great English cuisine!

  • I’m talking to Bernard Ashley, who might soon start his blog.