Research School Network: Reflections on Literacy Recommendations in Post-16 Education Reflections on Literacy Recommendations in Post-16 Education

‘Literacy is one of the most researched topics on the planet’ (Quigley, 2018, p.30) although 16.4% of adults in England still have very ​‘poor literacy skills’ (National Literacy Trust). Poor literacy is an on-going worldwide problem in society and as teachers, we understand the impact that poor literacy can have on adults’ future life prospects. Therefore, reports like the EEF Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools report are essential to joining up the research about literacy and identifying what works in the classroom within our context in the UK. Within a post-16 context, all of the recommendations from the report are key to a student’s success in studies and future employment prospects.

However, there are three of the six recommendations which are worth focusing on at post-16 than others. For example, the first recommendation, disciplinary literacy. In post-16 studies, subject terminology becomes more complex, and students find themselves having to learn new words and apply them within a subject which perhaps, they are studying for the first time as they were not available at GCSE? For example, Health and Social Care, Engineering, Culinary Arts, Politics and Economics. With subjects which are new to post-16 students it is important to allow them a range of ways to encounter the new words. One method is to not only say the new word in class multiple times to ensure students can hear the pronunciation of the new term, but also provide opportunities for the students to use it verbally within ​‘structured talk’ with peers. It can be tempting to miss this step out as the focus can be on defining the new word and ensuring recall from students of the meaning in writing rather than focusing on the verbal application of the term first. Dialogic teaching is a valued strategy at primary and secondary since the introduction of the term by Robin Alexander in the early 2000’s Dialogic Teaching – Robin Alexander and the implementation of dialogic teaching can be overlooked with post-16 students due to the focus of teaching content. Dialogic teaching at post-16 would involve providing extended opportunities for students to take an active part in structured discussions using subject terminology so they can hear how ideas are linked and applied to a subject rather than rely on the commonly used question and answer framework between teacher and students to ascertain understanding and application.

The second recommendation, provide targeted vocabulary instruction is relevant for post-16 students as it is important to deconstruct new terms into their etymology and morphology origins. However, this can take confidence from subject staff although having taught English Language A Level for several years, I found the etymology of words one of the most fascinating and interesting aspects of the English language. For staff who are not confident about etymology, the online etymology dictionary is one of the best places to start Etymonline – Online Etymology Dictionary as it reveals a plethora of historical and contextual explanations of how our language has developed. Viewing subject specific words through the lens of etymology can support post-16 students to understand the origin, evolution and semantic meaning over time of subject specific words which is essential for developing students’ academic scholarship in their chosen subjects.

Reading academic texts is challenging for students at any stage and at post-16 it can become more difficult as the complexity of the texts, students are expected to engage with increases. Developing students’ ability to read complex academic texts, as outlined in the third recommendation of the report, so students can actively summarise, de-code and evaluate long texts becomes increasingly demanding when we know that our students are not used to engaging with reading material for any length of time. For example, as outlined in the journalist Johann Hari’s book Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention. In this book Anne Mangen who is a professor of literacy at Stavanger University in Norway has studied how reading has changed since the internet for two decades. She says reading used to train us to read in a linear way but reading from screens has trained us to read in a different way, ​‘in a manic skip and jump from one thing to another as we run our eyes rapidly over the information to extract what we need’ (p.77). This style of reading influences how we read on paper and it stops reading from becoming a pleasurable immersion in another world and more like dashing around a supermarket to grab what you need and then get out again (p.77).

Despite this change in reading habits at post-16 education, we should not avoid encouraging our students to engage with complex academic texts but provide steps to help them engage with the material rather than just assuming that because they are studying at post-16 they have the necessary schema to be successful at academic reading. Fluent readers can disguise a lack of comprehension of a tricky text if they are not able to initiate the skills of prediction, questioning and summary and position these skills within a schema of deep vocabulary and prior learning of key terms. There is a growing tendency in education to provide students with videos or visual summaries of long texts in order to motivate students to engage with complex written concepts. This an obvious solution to the predicament that Hari outlines in his book about the impact of the internet on reading skills but perhaps it is a strategy to use with caution or at least a clear intention which is shared with students? As ultimately, students in their adult life will have to understand written complicated texts eg mortgage or loan agreements or academic texts at university and employment contracts in their working life and we need to prepare them with reading strategies so they have the schema to draw upon to read complex texts which will be essential to success in their future adult lives.

Written by Kate Sida-Nicholls Group Director of Teacher Development, Professional Learning and Research and Evidence Lead in Education with Ipswich Associate Research School – with thanks to Rob Pollard, Head of English at Suffolk One Sixth Form for his help in discussing the ideas for this blog.

References

Hari, J (2022) Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention London:Bloomsbury

Quigley, A. 2018, Closing the Vocabulary Gap London: Routledge

Online reference

EEF Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools report

‘Information on adult literacy in the UK and our Books Unlocked Programme’ accessed online 13 November 2022 at Adult literacy | National Literacy Trust

​‘Dialogic teaching’ accessed online 13 November 2022 at Dialogic Teaching – Robin Alexander