Literacy at Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1

d. Context and controversial issues

Introducing literacy to student teachers is challenging; it is not only an area of recent and diverse curriculum changes, but also one in which many of the approaches are contested:

• The centrality of speaking and listening to learning has only recently been acknowledged.

• Approaches to the initial teaching of reading continue to be a major issue Student teachers will need to think about whether young learners should attend to what the text has to say as well as to the code. They need to consider the kind of balanced approach, based on sound evidence, that is the key to success (Pressley, 1998; Allington, 2001). As well as code-breaking, they need to see learning to be literate as involving confident awareness and experience of the language of the written word, of the purposes reading and writing can serve and of the pleasures that they can yield .

• Rather more technically, they also need to think about what phonics teaching should consist of. (See also 3b. Phonics , 6d. Phonics – developing a sense of progression in children’s phonic learning and 6e. Phonics – planning to use resources for phonics.) The spelling patterns of English compromise the usefulness of synthetic phonics, so student teachers will need to discuss whether it is possible or desirable to have a balance between synthetic and analytic phonics, and other approaches to word identification in early reading. They will need to be aware of the Rose report, Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading, (DfES 2006), Letters and Sounds: Principles and Practice of High Quality, ( DfES 2007 ) and of the recent changes made to the literacy Framework, and of surveys of relevant research.

• The teaching of writing is also a contentious area. Student teachers will need to be aware of the different demands made of young writers where the correct presentation of writing may sometimes seem more important than the process of composition.

• Children’s spoken language is a further issue, whether it is a first or second language. The National Curriculum requires children to speak clearly, correctly and in Standard English. (See also 2d. English as an Additional Language.) Student teachers will become aware of a general feeling that children come to school unable to speak confidently; there is a prevalent notion of language deficit.

• Student teachers will need to become aware of and develop strategies for the particular requirements of children with a wide range of special needs: Gifted and Talented; those with Special Educational Needs; those with English as an Additional Language; all under the ever-present scrutiny of OfSTED.