Reading: A Simple View

Published: August 5th, 2024

My last blog (Lust for Learning) focused on the need to improve children’s engagement with school lessons. According to the news and other media, our education system is in crisis, with attendance and achievements at an all time low. Something must be done! And we can only hope that our  newly-appointed Minister for Education gets stuck in. 

Reading is just one major area of learning in dire need of government attention. For too long we have seen standards fall, as children have turned to screens instead of books. For too long, we have observed children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) being made to wait far too long for a diagnosis of their learning difficulties – some of which relate to reading. Also, for far too long, children and their parents have been let down by a National Curriculum that does not work for every child. Finally, is the teaching profession falling on its knees in its efforts to provide for every child under its wing? End of rant! Key question: what can be done to improve our education system – and enable every child to succeed according to potential? Reading is only one answer – but because reading and literacy form the foundations of all learning – it has the power (as the TESCO advert shouts out). Reading also defines humanity. Who are we, without reading? 

So, for these reasons and more, I am beginning to feel excited about the launch of my booklet: A Simple View of Reading, and am calling through loud speakers, to all those interested in raising reading standards in our struggling schools. Reading is fast losing ground in the struggle for interest and enjoyment in our school curriculum. So something must be done – urgently. But what? That is the question, as Shakespeare would say. But sadly, Shakespeare is not the answer. Not now – when the world has moved on, and it seems, young people need something more stimulating to whet their appetite for all learning, including learning to read. 

Of course, reading can never be simple – but my enlightening booklet attempts to simplify the skills involved, in a way that every person interested in helping young people to become accomplished readers, can actually understand and benefit from. This guide examines the three basic requirements for becoming a reader – word, sentence and text level. Three levels of reading that characterise what reading involves at every key stage of learning. 

But reading is not simply a subject learned at school: to be forgotten and dispensed with at the close of the school day as children run to escape through the gates. On the contrary, becoming an efficient and effective (I have used this phrase a lot) reader affects our whole lives – post-school learning, employment and how we feel about ourselves as people – our wellbeing. 

Why is my booklet called A Simple View of Reading? Reading itself is anything but simple. If it was, far more children would arrive at their secondary school with reading ages (RAs) of at least 11 years. Sadly, RAs are quite severely delayed for far too many children. There can be no more excuses for this sad state of affairs. 

So my booklet is a starting point towards helping all staff who are interested in, and taxed with the job of, helping more children to become accomplished readers. The booklet is also aimed at interested parents, and students undergoing their teacher training. Its ‘simplicity’ reflects the way in which I have attempted to organise and present this hugely difficult process of becoming readers as a working model that is simple for those who are untrained to understand – as a starting point for further development. A problematic area of learning for children – simplified in a way that teachers/trainers can move forward with.

Future blogs aim to focus and expand on parts of the booklet – at each of the assigned levels. What do I mean by word, sentence or text level comprehension? Join me and find out! 

You have nothing to lose – and everything to gain! 

PS. Sylvia Edwards is author of fourteen books on education, mainly on literacy and Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), plus a further five for parents. Now retired, she remains interested in, and passionate about, improving the educational outcomes for all young people, especially those with SEND. 

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