General Overview
Having had the privilege of working with many hundreds of schools in the UK and abroad over a period of more than 50 years, I remain disappointed at the lack of a national focus given to improving children’s oracy. For example, when we compare the time dedicated to phonics, oracy seems to be a poor afterthought. Oracy has received nothing like the same attention or resources as dedicated to phonics, and I think we are really selling ourselves short by not doing so.
I accept there have been many initiatives in this area, including Voice 21, but they have not had the necessary impact on children’s talk. I would like to see far more research dedicated to investigating the link between the ‘code of talk’ in texts compared to the everyday ‘code of talk’ used by vast numbers of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. It is my concern that this is a major inhibiting factor regarding the reading proficiency of many of those children.
It is no surprise that the relatively recent subject-specific Ofsted report on the teaching of English, ‘Telling the Story’, pinpoints the issue:
• “Schools (often) do not consider spoken language well in their English curriculum, although they understand that spoken language underpins pupils’ reading and writing development.”
• “Few schools design or follow a curriculum to develop pupils’ spoken language.
Schools are not always clear about how to teach the conventions of spoken language that enable pupils to speak competently in a range of contexts. Teachers often attribute pupils’ weaknesses in speaking to a lack of confidence rather than realising that they have not been taught what they need to know about the topic under discussion to be able to form and articulate worthwhile contributions.”
The report states that most primary do not have an explicit curriculum for developing spoken language. There are opportunities for debate and discussion in different subjects and for speaking in assemblies and annual productions, but not all pupils can take advantage of these experiences. The components which underpin effective spoken language, such as knowledge of the difference between spoken and written language, are not taught. Therefore, some pupils do not develop the confidence that comes from having the knowledge they need to speak clearly and express their ideas.
My contention is that whilst schools give prominence to the teaching of phonics, often driven by government initiatives, including the phonics screening check in Year 1, they do not give equal cognisance to the development of children’s oracy skills, especially improving the use of Standard English. This can lead to many children who have ‘cracked’ word reading, not making the expected progress in reading comprehension, which leads to many not having a ‘lifelong love for reading.’
My argument is that most early literacy texts follow the conventions of Standard English and, from the beginning, books require children to have a ‘code of talk’ that many will not be familiar with when they start school. It is therefore imperative that we bridge the gap between the codes of talk used by children daily and the code of talk used in most texts.
It is therefore important that enriching children’s vocabulary, providing them with time to improve their spoken English and helping them to present their findings more confidently should be a major part of our English curriculum. Currently, many would argue that these are already important components in the curriculum. I would counter this with, ‘whilst acknowledging that schools genuinely recognise the importance of these components, the level of consistency of the delivery of these components across schools and within schools is not as it should be.’
The impact on children from disadvantaged areas is therefore quite profound, and I contend that many find it difficult to navigate their way through the code of talk used in texts and struggle with reading thereafter. A well-taught phonics programme can often disguise the extent of the problem. Children are supported to pass the screening test at 6 or 7, but too many of them do not develop a love of reading.
As part of my work to support schools, I am aware of some excellent resources available, including ‘The Development of Oracy Skills in School-aged Learners’, which is part of the Cambridge Papers in ELT series (November 2018). This publication focuses on the physical, linguistic, cognitive, and social and emotional aspect of developing children’s talk. However, this does not go far enough in considering the impact that oracy potentially has on reading. Similarly, The National Literacy Trust’s ‘Creating Confident Communicators’ and the excellent publication ‘Evidence Base for Positioning Oracy at the Heart of the School Curriculum’ by Dr Johnathon Doherty (Autumn 2023) whilst being extremely informative about the need to give oracy a greater profile, do not, in my view, focus enough on the link between oracy and reading.
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) through their Voice 21 resources: Oracy Curriculum, Culture and Assessment Toolkit goes some way in supporting schools with the creation of sentence stems to enable pupil voice to be more effective. However, they do not look specifically at issues associated with oracy and reading development.
I have tried in Focus Education’s publication, ‘Focus on Talk’, to work with my colleague, Alex Neophitou to use four strands to help schools engage with the issues I mention. I hope you will find these helpful
In the meantime, here are some of the key questions that we may need to consider:
• To what extent does a child’s oracy milieu impact on their reading comprehension?
• What is the impact of local dialect on ‘codes of talk’ and, therefore, on reading comprehension?
• How effectively can children recognise different codes of talk, and can they adjust accordingly?
• Does an over-dependence on phonics create an inaccurate picture in relation to reading comprehension and enjoyment?
• What are the main inhibitors for some children’s lifelong love of reading?
Continue the Conversation
Focus has put together a speaking and listening framework for schools to use. You can find out more about it here
Available to buy as an eBook and there are additional support options available to buy in to if you want help introducing and embedding the practice.
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