Severe reading difficulties

After a good start, results from the Government's enforced daily literacy hour have reached a plateau. Moreover, reading standards have begun to fall back. Nicholas Pyke meets a teacher who says flexibility is the key

What is biography? What, then, is autobiography and what is its etmyology? These demanding questions are being asked by Liz Tennant, a year six teacher at Clapham Manor primary school in south London, who is addressing a semi-circle of 10-and 11-year-olds. Gathered in a first-floor Victorian classroom overlooking Clapham Common, they are embarking on yet another literacy hour, the daily English lesson that has become a staple of every primary school diet in the country.

Devised in the run-up to the 1997 general election, the literacy hour brought dramatic results at first. But now the favourite tool of the Department for Education and Skills, is under fire. First it failed to deliver the Government's target – that 80 per cent of 11-year-olds would be hitting level 4 in reading and writing by 2002.

Then last week Ofsted weighed in, calling for a "review" of the strategy and revealing that standards in reading had actually fallen for the past two years – although children's writing had improved slightly. So, despite the rapid early progress, the proportion of children reaching the target has stayed at 75 per cent for the past three years.

In addition there is plenty of criticism from inside the classroom. The literacy hour was introduced with unrealistic expectations, say teachers. It is inflexible. And worse still, it can leave struggling pupils further behind than ever.

Sheila Dainton, the education policy adviser with the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, says her union has been warning about design flaws in the literacy hour for the past five years. "Teachers know that, as things stand, the national strategies do not best serve the needs of the slowest learners," she says.

John Paul, for example, is a primary school teacher in mid Kent with 20 years experience. "I've been teaching the literacy hour since it came in," he says. "But however hard you try, it just goes over the heads of the lower achievers. You can find yourself teaching complex sentences with active and passive moods to some children, while you're trying to get six sentences in total out of others. I think we're putting off some of the weaker ones. I'm sure they're picking up some bits, but there are better things we could be doing." There is also concern that the literacy hour was based on inadequate research.

Professor David Reynolds of Exeter University was in charge of the team that devised the numeracy strategy, the parallel scheme for maths teaching in primary schools (which has met with less criticism overall). He is confident that the basis of the literacy strategy as a whole remains correct. But he believes that the existing structure has not made the best use of the available research. "The whole-class interactive teaching and the three or four-part lesson is less appropriate for literacy than numeracy and judged by the research may never have been appropriate in the first place," he says. "We should investigate seriously whether there should be a different approach to teaching."

This sort of criticism is the more telling because it comes from supporters of the strategy. Sue Palmer, an independent reading consultant who has worked closely with the strategy from the outset believes that the main problem has been the drive for test results, and the rigid approach to enforcing the strategy initially taken by Ofsted. "They wanted quick-fix solutions because of the political agenda. They want things to happen fast, and it can't be done," she says.

"Then, as time passed, it ossified. Once you get the hang of it, you have to change, adapt it for your children's needs. There can't be any single strategy that meets the needs of every child in every class in every age group in every part of the country every day, for ever. You have got to find the strategy that suits your children's needs. Otherwise it becomes ineffective."

In fact, she believes that the strategy is only now beginning to come of age. "It's only now that teachers are getting to grips with phonics in the early stages," she says. "It's beginning to embed itself. But it just takes ages. You can't do it over night."

What then of the initial, rapid progress in its early years? That was less to do with the literacy hour itself than the frenzy of activity surrounding its implementation, she thinks. Increasingly, moreover, teachers have been coaching for the tests.

Professor Ted Wragg, also at Exeter, takes a similar view. "This should never, never have been a mass prescription from the centre," he says. "I'm all in favour of having a literacy hour and a big national push on literacy. But why should you have to be told that whether you have five-year-olds or 11-year-olds, Monday or Friday, boiling sunshine or pouring rain, that you have to do the same thing every day? With a four-part structure that someone dreamed up for no reason?

"It's wanting to say to Daily Mail readers, 'we're returning primary teaching to traditional methods'. It was not based on research. I kept saying, show me the research. Where's the research saying that every lesson should be based on whole class teaching and end with a review?"

If standards really have risen, he says, why is it that independent monitoring of national reading standards by Durham University has demonstrated no improvement? And why is is that the reading tests set by the National Foundation for Educational Research have not required recalibrating?

Meanwhile, back at Clapham Manor, they are crossing their fingers that there will not be yet another shake-up of the primary curriculum. Head teacher, Brian Hazell, wants to see a more realistic view of the tests and targets that have governed so much of the primary curriculum for the past five years. "It's like asking everyone to jump six feet then, when they've done it, saying you have to jump seven. Sooner or later, you reach a limit. We don't need a complete overhaul, just a bit of tinkering around the edges."

Liz Tennant, his Year Six colleague, is similarly confident that the literacy hour can meet all its objectives without major surgery. Her 10-and 11-year-olds can look forward to an entertaining week writing their own autobiographies, and the biographies of their friends. But then, she has two important advantages. The first is a classroom assistant, who looks after the children with learning difficulties for part of the hour, giving them closer individual attention. The second is the confidence to vary the literacy hour when she thinks it is worthwhile.

Monday's lesson, for example, did not break down into four rigid parts on a strict timetable. And, when she is in the mood, she is quite happy to teach the whole strategy through a single text such as Alice in Wonderland. She has the sort of staffing that many believe necessary, and the sort of flexibility that ought to be encouraged. With literacy scores showing little sign of rising, the question is whether Ofsted and ministers will reach the same conclusion.

education@independent.co.uk