Lost Girls: The overlooked children struggling to understand the written word
Unlike the majority of other reports on children’s reading, ‘Lost Girls: The overlooked children struggling to understand the written word’ shines a light on the girls who are struggling to read. The main premise is that a silent army of ‘lost girls’ is being overlooked because they are better at hiding their difficulties than boys. The report is based on analysis of NGRT data across England and Wales, and includes contributions from one of our Centres of Assessment Excellence and SEN specialist, Lorraine Petersen.
Read the report here
Sky News covers our Lost Girls report.
In the report:
The weight of research, however, has tended to obscure another vital nding: the significant minority of girls who have problems with reading. This report attempts to rectify that neglect. It too finds that boys are weaker readers on average than girls. But it also finds that substantial numbers of girls – 11% of 10 year olds and 12% of 12 year olds – have significant literacy problems, and many more have diffculty with some aspect of reading, though not with all.
To put those percentages in a national context, our findings suggest that approximately more than 40,000 girls in each year group have severe trouble with reading. The even larger number of boys with similar problems has tended to overshadow the real difficulties reading presents for this substantial minority of girls and the challenge that presents for their schools.
Indeed, the situation could be worse than generally thought because a growing body of academic evidence indicates that girls with learning difficulties are far better at masking their condition and less likely to express frustration than boys.
A recent TES article says a new UK report reveals a “Silent army of 40,000 ‘lost girls’ struggling with reading”.
Great, attention-grabbing headline. Shades of Boko Haram. But we already know that many girls can’t decode, or can’t comprehend language very well, or have both problems.
There are fewer struggling girls than struggling boys, and girls are more likely to shrink into themselves than attract attention by behaving badly when they’re struggling. But struggling girls exist in schools everywhere, which should already be identifying and assisting them.
An over-reliance on phonics?
What made me sit up and pay attention in the TES article was its statement that the report it discusses “suggests that an ‘over-reliance on phonics’ is obscuring deeper problems with reading in primary schools – where children can read words but may not understand them”.
A senior publisher and a charity director (but no researchers) say things supporting this statement, and suggest a greater focus on teaching comprehension. An independent education consultant elaborates on how boys (still!) get more teacher attention than girls, as though this is just a fact of life, beyond teachers’ control.
The report itself looks a lot more like a test marketing campaign than scientific research. But teachers who don’t read scientific research might not realise this.
Do read the whole post - it's very important and thought-provoking! Alison's posts are always worth reading.
