Teach-Primary-Issue-19.1

assumes that if pupils can, for example, answer a question requiring them to summarise, then this must mean they have acquired a discrete, transferable skill. Put another way, as long as we teach pupils how to answer questions that require summarising, then surely this is a step towards better comprehension capabilities. Or so the theory goes. The problem is that this theory is utterly bogus. A reader’s aptitude in answering questions that require summarising is primarily based on their ability to read fluently and on their understanding of the written language specific to the text in front of them. And the same is true of every other supposed comprehension skill. Pupils can answer prediction questions, retrieval questions, explanation questions, etc, because their fluency and understanding of relevant written language allows them to comprehend the text, not because they have acquired some discrete, transferable skill. Of course, preparing pupils for assessments is always likely to give a small boost to results, and a little SATs practice in Y6 O ver the past half-decade, my working life has been almost entirely focused on the mountain of evidence relating to reading instruction and the day-to-day teaching of reading occurring in English schools. Having spoken to countless teachers and school leaders, I have come to the following conclusion: far too many schools in England – perhaps even the majority of them – are teaching reading in ways that are founded on a misconception, leading to lessons that are both ineffective and stultifying. Such a claim requires considerable explanation. For once, this is not an attempt to rehash arguments about the obvious importance of explicitly and systematically introducing pupils to the alphabetic code so that they can begin recognising words for themselves. Instead, my concern is with what comes after phonics. Testing, testing... Many schools – through a mixture of inertia, poor advice and understandable fears about accountability – currently teach reading in KS2 in ways that have been reverse-engineered from the end-of-school assessments, commonly called SATs. The content domains of the reading assessment have come to be seen as types of reading skill that pupils need to practise if they are to become capable of comprehending texts. This that ensures children feel confident when the time comes is entirely justifiable. But structuring the teaching of reading for months and years around this assessment preparation is profoundly counterproductive, even when judged against the cynical goal of maximising test scores at all costs. 50 | www.teachwire.net PHONICS? What comes after Too many schools are teaching reading based on a foundation of misconceptions, says Christopher Such , but there’s a way to fix that... Read all about it Due to this common misunderstanding about the nature of reading comprehension, thousands of schools teach reading lessons in which precious little actual reading takes place. Most of each lesson is spent instead in the modelling and practising of how to identify and answer particular types of SATs-style questions. And frequently the texts that are placed in front of pupils are brief, disconnected extracts, selected not for the language and experiences that they offer to young minds, but “The theory of supposed discrete comprehension skills is utterly bogus”