Children's Early Literacy

Today the National Literacy Trust has published its second annual survey of parents and practitioners from early years settings. The report is very detailed, covering a range of literacy issues, but has made headlines for its claim that touch screen technology can prove to be beneficial in helping young disadvantaged boys to read.

The full text of Children's Early Literacy Practices at Home and in Early Years Settings is available here. A summary of the key findings is also available.

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EYFS Results

Today sees the release of the latest set of results for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Profile. The data covers the 2013-4 academic year, and some of the headline claims include a 60% score for children achieving a good level of development (up 8% on last year), and 58% of children achieving the expected level in all 17 Early Learning Goals. The results and various supporting documents can be accessed here.

Also out today are the latest results for the Phonics Screening Check & Key Stage 1 Assessments - the reports and supporting documents are available here.

National Literacy Trust Annual Survey

Children’s and Young People’s Reading in 2013 is the title of the latest annual survey from the National Literacy Trust. The latest report was compiled after a survey of 30,000 8 to 16 year olds, with the charity claiming that reading enjoyment has reached its highest level for eight years.

To view the report, click here.

Baby Bonds

Baby Bonds is the title of a new piece of research from the Sutton Trust. This latest report reviews various previous studies on attachment, and investigates how emotional bonds between babies and parents can affect the child's future outcomes. Already the research has made headlines for its claim that 40% of children are at risk of developing literacy problems because of a failure to bond with their parents.

The full text of the report is available from this link. Other recent items with similar themes from the Sutton Trust include Sound Foundations (Jan 2014) and The Reading Gap (July 2013).

Technology in the Early Years

The National Literacy Trust has today published a pair of reports which look at the role that technology can play in helping children to read. The new research also argues that children from more disadvantaged backgrounds benefit more from using both books and touch-screens for sharing stories, than books alone. The first report examines parent perspectives on these issues, while the second one is all about practitioner perspectives.

Children and Young People's Writing

The National Literacy Trust has just published Children and Young People's Writing, a new report which looks at data from its annual literacy survey - overall almost 35,000 children aged 8 to 16 took part. As you might expect it's quite a detailed document, though it mainly seems to have made headlines for its claim that boys are more than twice as likely as girls to say they hate writing.

You can read the full report by clicking here. Also new today from the Trust  is Transforming Writing, the final report of a project which developed a model for the teaching and learning of writing with a greater focus on formative assessment.

Universally Speaking

The Communication Trust has just released a really useful set of booklets which outline where children should be with their communication skills at any given age. Each booklet covers a different age range, and is written in simple, accessible language - they are designed for use by anyone who works with children and young people. To see a full list of the series and the relevant download links, click here.

Something for Everyone

I've been away for a week, during which time a number of useful items have been published, so today's post is a quick summary of what's new:

• The DfE has issued new guidance on Teachers Standards for Early Years; these are applicable from September
• On a similar note, new guidance is also available for Early Years Educators (Level 3)
• The Family and Childcare Trust has just released a Holiday Childcare Costs Survey 2013
• The National Day Nurseries Association has recently published a UK Nursery Insight Report
• The Sutton Trust has published The Reading Gap, which looks at how children's socio-economic status impacts on their reading skills
• And if I've missed anything, it's probably covered by the latest issue of On the Web, which rounds up education reports from around the world

Phonics Screening Check

Some research for you literacy buffs today... The Department of Education has just released a series of documents evaluating the impact of the Phonics Screening Check. These include qualitative information about the check, as well as plenty of detailed statistics and tables which analyse its effectiveness. You can read all of the relevant reports from this link.

New Research

A quick round-up of various new reports:

• The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: a Study of Legal Implementation in 12 Countries is a new publication from UNICEF which examines how the UK compares to other countries in providing for children's rights at national level.
• First Steps is a report from the CBI which sets out an agenda for education reform from a business perspective.
• Facing the Screen Dilemma: Young Children, Technology and Early Education examines how new technologies could be having an effect on children's development.
• Pupils not Claiming Free School Meals has just been published by the Department of Education, and attempts to establish how many children who are entitled to free school dinners are not taking advantage.
• What is the Research Evidence on Writing? gathers together literature on pupils' writing ability, with the authors claiming that this is an area which receives less attention than reading ability.

Children's Reading Today

The National Literacy Trust has just published the findings from it's latest annual survey. The report explores children's attitudes towards reading, what they read, the different media they read on and the amount of time they spend reading, while issues such as gender and ethnicity are also considered. One of the headline findings from this year's survey is the suggestion that children are reading less due to time spent on other activities.

To read the full text of the report, entitled Children's Reading Today, click here.

Literacy / Language

First post in nearly a month! Well it is the summer...

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment in Ireland (a rough equivalent of our DfE) has recently published two reports which site users may find useful. The reports are entitled Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education (3-8 years) and Oral Language in Early Childhood and Primary Education (3-8 years), and contain in-depth information on their respective topics.

Latest Research

There have been a number of useful publications from various sources in the last couple of weeks, so today's post is simply a brief roundup of all the reports that users of this site may find interesting:

• The National Literacy Trust has just published a report by the Boys' Reading Commission, which investigates why boys' reading skills often lags behind girls'. You can access the full report here, and a summary of the background research is also available.

•  Those interested in outdoor learning may want to take a look at a new publication entitled The Outdoor Environment: How can our Children Learn to Care About their Futures?

•  The latest report on child poverty is from Save the Children and is entitled Ending Child Poverty: The Importance of Income in Measuring and Tackling Child Poverty.

•  The DfE has released it's latest batch of monthly publications - among the highlights are:

          Exploring the Flexibility of the Free Entitlement to Early Education: Research among Parents
          The Impact of Sure Start Local Programmes on Seven Year Olds and their Families
          Childcare and Early Years Survey of Parents 2010 (despite the title, it is new!
          Pupil Behaviour in Schools in England

Young People's Writing

The National Literacy Trust has recently published Young People's Writing in 2011. This contains the results of the Trust's annual literacy survey, which gathered data from almost 21,000 young people aged 8 to 16. Among the topics explored are how much young people enjoy writing, how good they think they are, how often they write and what types of materials they write, and how they feel about writing. Issues such as gender and ethnic differences are also explored.

To read the report, click here.

Setting the Baseline: Reading Report

Yesterday saw the publication of Setting the Baseline, a new publication from the National Literacy Trust which reports on the findings of an online survey conducted with over 18000 8-17 year olds in November and December of last year. The authors regard the results as portraying children as read and read-nots, with many children saying that they barely read books at all, while others get through more than ten a month. Other findings included the preference of many children to read online information rather than traditional comics.

National Literacy Trust First Annual Survey

The National Literacy Trust has just released the results of its first annual online survey, which was carried out during November / December of last year with young people aged 8-17. The survey focused on young people’s attitudes towards reading, writing and communication skills as well as technology use, and also included a question about book ownership.

Among the key findings were a strong link between literacy skills and educational attainment, and the statistic that three in ten UK children do not own a book of their own. To read the survey in full, click here.

New DfE Research

The Department for Education tends to release a batch of research reports at the end of each month, and the latest ones have just been published. There are too many to list all of them here, but some of the new material which seems particularly useful is linked below. Remember that if the prospect of reading a 100+ pages report is too daunting, then the executive summary will give you a quick flavour of the content!

• Evaluation of Every Child a Writer: Report 1
• Evaluation of Every Child a Writer: Report 2
  
• Evaluation of Every Child a Reader
• Parenting Early Intervention Programme Evaluation

The complete Publications section of the DfE website can be found here.

Excellence in English

A new report from Ofsted argues that creativity in the classroom allows for better teaching of English. The publication, entitled Excellence in English, examines 12 primary and secondary schools which are rated outstanding in their teaching of English, to explore how their approaches to the subject can be adopted by other institutions. Arranging for theatre trips and setting up reading groups are just two of the initiatives which impressed inspectors.

To access both the full report and a summary version, click here.

All the News that's Fit to Print...

Today's update is something of a mish-mash, with details of various new items of interest...

• Removing Barriers to Literacy is an Ofsted report which investigates approaches that can improve practice in literacy. To compile the report, inspectors visited a range of different settings with a track record in enabling children and learners to make good practice.

• The Home Front is a new publication from Demos which argues that the challenge of living on a low income can have a negative impact on parenting, and suggests policies to improve the support for such families.

• Ten Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them is an NSPCC booklet aiming to provide those who work in children's services with a summary of research which is relevant to assessing children's circumstances.

• The Right Stuff is a new magazine published by the Children's Rights Alliance for England. The title is described as 'by and for young people in the UK', with the aim of promoting young people's interest in human rights issues.
  

Reading By Six

Ofsted's latest report highlights the success of using phonics as a tool to teach children how to read. Reading by Six: how the Best Schools Do It uses 12 infant and primary schools dotted around England as case studies, and concludes that systematic synthetic phonics should be regarded as an "indispensable tool" in developing young children's literacy.

To access both the full report and a summary version, click here.