The development of literacy skills is vital for pupils, not only for their English lessons, but for success across the school curriculum and beyond. Supporting pupils to become skilled and confident speakers, listeners, readers and writers is a key goal for primary teachers.
So, when the Department of Education in Northern Ireland released their new Primary Literacy Framework, we were delighted to see Cognitive Science and the Science of Learning as central drivers. Let’s take a look at 7 key areas that caught our eye…
1. The impact of prior knowledge
“Hart and Risley highlighted wide disparities in early language exposure between children from different socio-economic backgrounds, suggesting a “30-million-word-gap” by age three.”
(p. 21)
A useful reminder to educators of children’s experiences prior to starting school. In the Baseball Study, perhaps the most famous research on the topic, the researchers explored how children’s prior knowledge impacts their reading comprehension. One of their more surprising findings was that prior knowledge predicted reading comprehension more powerfully than reading ability did. Becoming a skilled reader is more than just the ability to decode the words; when students have relevant prior knowledge, they process new information more efficiently, reducing the burden on working memory and resulting in stronger comprehension. However, prior knowledge is not evenly distributed. Researchers Logan et al highlighted this disparity in 2019 whilst investigating the association between how much parents read to their child and the number of words the child had heard by age 5.
The inclusion of prior knowledge in the new framework serves as a helpful prompt to educators; it’s important to be alert to both the potential disparities in pupils’ prior knowledge and the value of pupils accessing that knowledge during learning.
2. Oracy is a core aspect of literacy
“Traditional ‘hands up’ methods can unintentionally limit pupil voice and restrict oracy development.”
(p.29)
Promoting inclusion and supporting pupils to become confident speakers and listeners are threads woven consistently throughout the report. This was reflected in recent research that identified pupil voice as a key factor in student learning.
Here at InnerDrive, we passionately believe in voice equity and ensuring everyone is thinking hard. The opportunities and benefits of oracy for teaching and learning are broad and varied. On our dedicated Teacher CPD Academy online course, we reflect on:
- Oracy for learning
- Oracy and improving attention
- Oracy and enabling hard thinking
- How oracy can maximise memory
- Oracy, metacognition and reflection
3. Becoming a skilled reader
“Scarborough’s Reading Rope builds on the Simple View of Reading by showing how fluent reading and deep comprehension develop through the integration of two strands: word recognition and language comprehension. Each strand contains multiple sub-skills that work together to support skilled reading.”
(p.39)
A wonderful reminder of the complex, nuanced process of learning to read. This is so easy for us to forget as, once you know how to read, it feels intuitive. This is the curse of expertise. Scarborough’s Reading Rope provides a rationale for adopting a holistic approach to the teaching of reading. It also indicates that most students will not learn naturally how to read – it needs to be taught, nurtured and practised.
4. Fluency and working memory
“Fluent readers decode words quickly and accurately, allowing them to focus on meaning”
(p.57)
“Reading strategies require attention and space in working memory. Pupils who are still learning to decode fluently do not have enough working memory space available to implement strategies.”
(p.60)
This acknowledges the importance of explicit teaching and deliberate practice of fluency throughout the primary age range – not just for early readers. Professor Timothy Rasinski describes fluency as the ‘bridge between effortful decoding and comprehension’. From a Cognitive Science perspective, given that working memory is so limited, we can think of fluency as enabling a student’s mental resources to be redirected from focusing on decoding to comprehending a text.
5. The Matthew Effect
“Pupils are more likely to read when they feel competent, have access to engaging texts and see reading modelled by adults.”
(p. 61)
This is known as the Matthew Effect, which describes how the rich get richer. The seminal study on it highlighted how the more you know, the easier learning is and the more motivated you are likely to be. This seems especially true for reading, where children who start out as good readers progress at a fast rate, motivated by their early success. Conversely, children who initially struggle are less inclined to read, so they can miss opportunities to strengthen their skills.
6. Handwriting remains relevant, even in the age of AI
“Writing remains essential in a world increasingly shaped by AI.”
(p.73)
“Handwriting is not just an important motor skill; it is also a cognitive tool that supports literacy more broadly.” (p.77)
We couldn’t agree more with this! AI is the single biggest threat and opportunity facing education right now: a real double-edged sword. Researchers have found that writing by hand does more than just typing.
This is highlighted in a fascinating neuroscience study in which pupils either wrote, drew or typed a word. The researchers found that the regions of the brain associated with memory and encoding new information were synchronised when participants undertook writing or drawing but were desynchronised when the participants used a keyboard.
The researchers concluded that “children, from an early age, must be exposed to handwriting and drawing activities in school to establish the neuronal oscillation patterns that are beneficial for learning.”
7. Apply Cognitive Science principles to teach spelling
“Pupils may avoid richer vocabulary due to spelling uncertainty, limiting expression and reducing quality.”
(p. 83)
Research suggests that the Cognitive Science principles of retrieval, Spacing and Interleaving can be helpful approaches to spelling teaching and learning. For example, Retrieval Practice was found to be more effective for spelling accuracy than rainbow writing:
When students engage in Retrieval Practice, they are essentially training their brains to access and apply knowledge efficiently. This process helps to solidify the information in their long-term memory. In contrast, passive learning methods tend to focus on short-term memorisation, which often leads to forgetting the material soon after.
Interleaving – where different problem types are mixed together during practice, rather than studied one at a time (known as Blocking) – has also been shown to be very useful for spelling as it promotes discrimination learning. This would mean instead of practising ten words with the same spelling rule in a row, pupils might rotate between several rules within a single session. Spacing – the distributed study of spelling words, such as daily teaching and practice as opposed to weekly spelling tests – has been found to be an effective strategy for spelling
Final Thoughts
The framework provides comprehensive and thoughtful guidance for all primary schools. We are delighted to see the influence of Cognitive Science and the promotion of an evidence-informed approach to teaching literacy. Even more exciting is the alignment with our Teacher CPD Academy online courses, such as:
- Literacy: Phonics and Prior Knowledge
- Developing Independent Readers
- Handwriting
- Learning to Spell
- Oracy
These training areas are also available as an in-person ‘Science of Literacy’ workshop – please contact us if you’d like to explore this training further.
