Research School Network: Awareness: the first step to improving literacy Literacy is key to unlocking success in secondary and awareness is the first step


Awareness: the first step to improving literacy

Literacy is key to unlocking success in secondary and awareness is the first step

by Shotton Hall Research School
on the

Emma Whillis explains why developing our vocabulary awareness is the first step to improving literacy in secondary school and how this may help narrow the attainment gap between disadvantaged students and their peers.


It was only last year, that I truly realised the impact of the knowledge rich, rigorous’ science curriculum on the attainment of some of our learners. There is much to be celebrated in the cohesive nature of the GCSE specifications, where ideas are built upon and links between topics are clear and explicit. There was, however, an issue that I had previously overlooked.

Last year I taught a lower attaining group in Year 11. When marking their autumn term mock exams, I noticed that students grasped the concepts but were losing marks due to their limited use of specialist vocabulary. The new’ GCSE question papers have a high disciplinary (subject specific) and academic literacy demand. For instance, the first page of a foundation tier Chemistry paper from 2018 includes the terms: diatomic, lattice, ion, polymer, fullerene.

Many of the students from this lower attaining group were part of the pupil premium cohort. Historically the attainment gap between disadvantaged (pupil premium students) and their peers has been slowly narrowing (EEF, 2018). However, since the introduction of the new GCSEs in 2017 (English and Maths) and 2018 (Science) the attainment gap has increased (EPI, 2019). While not conclusive, the issue merits closer examination.

So why assume that vocabulary and disciplinary literacy is an influential factor?

Hart and Risley’s (2003) research in Chicago with 42 families identified a gap of 30 million words that are heard by children from families with parents in professional occupations and children from families where parents were unemployed by the age of three. This translates into a working vocabulary of 1,100 words against 500 words by the time a child reaches school. E.D. Hirsch (2016) refers to the implication of this on success at school as the Matthew Effect – those that have more, will get more. The work of Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron (1990) provides more detail, theorising that the type of words known by students can form a type of capital: Educationally Profitable Literacy Capital (EPLC). Students from families with professional backgrounds will hear more words and grammatical structures that are valued by the educational system and are more likely to achieve at school. Students with a low EPLC will struggle and even self-exclude from education through resistance against learning. The first step for us, as teachers, in approaching this issue is awareness, then we can consider potential strategies to support our students.

The next blog in our series will look at strategies to support the development of students’ vocabulary to support the accessing of scientific texts.

References

Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J. (1990) Reproduction in education, society and culture (2nd Edition). London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

EEF (2018) Attainment gap 2017. Available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Annual_Reports/EEF_Attainment_Gap_Report_2018.pdf
(last accessed 11/02/20).

EPI (2019) Education in England: Annual report 2019. Available at: https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/annual-report-2019/
(last accessed 11/02/20).

Hart, B. and Risley, T. (2003) The early catastrophe: The 30-million-word gap by age 3, American Educator, Spring. pp 4 – 9.

Hirsch, E.D. (2016) Why knowledge matters: Rescuing our children from failed educational theories. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Education Press.

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