UK early reading

In response to reports that many children—20% of boys and 13% of girls—are leaving United Kingdom primary schools (about age 11 yrs) with inadequate reading skills, educators in the UK will adopt intensive, synthetic phonics methods for promoting early literacy, according to James Meikle, education correspondent for Guardian Unlimited. Apparently, previously improving rates of literacy have stalled, especially among children who have fewer advantages. The recommendations are based on pilot studies.

A pilot scheme involving 5,000 children from the most disadvantaged areas suggested that, with intensive help, children at the age of six could gain 21 months in reading age in just four to five months of teaching – well over four times the normal rate of progress.

The success of the £10m three-year experiment in inner-city schools, which was half funded by the government and half by charitable trusts, has prompted the chancellor to extend the Every Child A Reader programme to more than 30,000 pupils by 2011.

I hope the UK government has a means for assessing the longer-term outcomes of these efforts. I’d like to know more about this pilot study, too. Any readers who can point me to the report of the research? By the way, Mr. Miekle refers to “reading recovery” program in his story, but he apparently does not mean this to be a reference to the methods associated with the term as it is used in the New Zealand and the US.

Link to Mr. Meikle’s story.