Reading Skills Fall for Second Year in a Row

Image by Karenwithak

This was the headline from The London Evening Standard on the 3rd August 2010. To put this into context this referred to the results from The Department for Education Sats reading tests for 11 year olds. Figures from the last three years for Level 4 attainment (the standard expected for this age) show that in 2008 87% of pupils reached the expected level, compared to 86% in 2009 and 84% this year.

The Standard article attributed this decline to doubts over the effectiveness of using the "back-to-basics" phonics method of teaching children to read. The Government, it seems, has no qualms about phonics as an effective method. They foreground teaching, with no reference to school libraries or the importance of instilling a love of reading. I can hear Michael Rosen, a long time advocate for whole books and not reducing reading to literacy, shouting "I told you so."

What should we be doing, as school librarians, to respond to this?