Lost for Words
One in five 11-year-olds cannot read properly when they leave primary school. This October, Channel 4 will broadcast a season of programmes highlighting the issue of childhood illiteracy and looking at ways to get every child in mainstream education to read.
As the programmes in this series make clear, it’s not the children’s fault that they are failing it is the system that consigns too many kids to the scrapheap before they’ve been given a proper chance.
By following the experiences of one school that has turned its poor readers around, the season will demonstrate how it is possible, given the will, to prevent children slipping through the net. Dispatches highlights the relationship between those with reading issues and society’s ills while Richard and Judy launch their Children’s Book Club with a peak-time special focusing on emerging British writing talent for kids.
The programmes:
Last Chance Kids
At the heart of the season is a moving three-part documentary series following the experiences of one primary school and their inspirational head teacher as they take the decision to eradicate illiteracy. Last Chance Kids follows the head’s determined efforts, over the course of a year, to give her pupils a chance.
Head Teacher, Lynna Thompson commented:'We want these children to have the best life chances they can have. We’re not in the business here of throwing children on the scrapheap.'
She’s gone back-to-basics, brought in a synthetic phonics expert, streamed pupils by reading ability rather than age and called on poet Benjamin Zephaniah to inspire the children. What follows is as unexpected as it is dramatic. The series exposes the national disgrace of kids who never learn to read. Why is the education system failing them so badly, and could the experiences of this school point the way forward?
Dispatches
Channel 4 News Chief Correspondent Alex Thompson investigates standards of children’s literacy in Britain. Focusing on the effectiveness of the various methods currently employed to teach children to read, Thompson also explores the wider social impact of poor literacy rates. Richard & Judy’s Best Kids’ Books
Richard and Judy aim to inspire children to read, whatever their ability, with a peak-time special featuring some of Britain’s top emerging children’s authors. Young people across the country will help Richard and Judy select eight books that will be promoted in book shops and libraries nationwide. The books selected by the programme will be banded into ability groups defined by starting ages to give children and parents guidance:
5+ Early, 7+ Developing, 9+ Confident, and lastly Fluent. Publishers have agreed to label the selected books with these bands in a radical move for the industry and will be touring the country with an author-driven road-show based on the ability categories.
Staggered through the show, Richard and Judy will interview major children’s authors including Philip Pullman, Jacqueline Wilson and Anthony Horowitz with the help of some of their young fans.
Judy said: We are delighted our book club has encouraged so many more adults to enjoy reading, and we are really hoping that this book list for children will be a big success. It’s really important that, in this DVD age, kids are encouraged to read as well as watch. Richard added: Judy and I really enjoy our literary items and programmes. We know that they are hugely popular with our viewers too, and we are hoping kids will like this programme that we are making especially for them.
Shortlisted books
Early (5+) Aliens Love Underpants by Claire Freedman & Ben Cort Simon & Schuster Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae, illust. Guy Parker-Rees Orchard Books A Very Fishy Battle by Jeremy Strong - Puffin Someone Bigger by Jonathan Emmett, illust. Adrian Reynolds Oxford University Press Poppy and Max and the Fashion Show by Sally Grindley, illust. Lisa Gardiner Orchard Books
Developing (7+) Spy Dogs by Andrew Cope Puffin You're a Bad Man Mr Gum! by Andy Stanton Egmont Books The World According To Humphrey by Betty G. Birney Faber & Faber The Girl with the Broken Wing by Heather Dyer, illust. Peter Bailey - Chicken House
Confident (9+) Septimus Heap Book One: Magyk by Angie Sage Bloomsbury Sundae Girl by Cathy Cassidy Puffin H.I.V.E.: Higher Institute of Villainous Education by Mark Walden - Bloomsbury The Killer Underpants by Michael Lawrence - Orchard House Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy - Harper Collins Children's books Tunnels by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams - Chicken House
Fluent Girl, Missing by Sophie McKenzie - Simon & Schuster The Recruit by Robert Muchamore - Hodder Children's Books Finding Violet Park by Jenny Valentine - Harper Collins Children's books Lucas by Kevin Brooks - Chicken House The Lost for Words website issues a call for action that every child in mainstream school is taught to read no matter how long it takes.
It aims to provide parents and professionals with clear, uncluttered advice on how they can help change the way children are taught as well as providing tips on how to check a child’s reading age, pointers for helping them learn and links to professional help.
Articles from the documentary series by director Suzanne Lynch and head teacher Lynna Thompson detail how Monteagle taught ALL of its pupils to read. Literacy experts suggest how it can be done in all schools, what changes we need to make to stop children losing out and being left behind. Teachers can access articles and links to best practice, previous research and cost analysis.