Catching Words
Every child loves a story, so why not use this enthusiasm to bolster their reading and writing skills? By using actors, poets, and writers to inspire struggling children to tell the stories they love, Catching Words is doing just that. After a successful pilot, SHINE is helping this project roll out into five schools: naturally we are hoping for a happy ending.
The grant recipient
The Discover centre uses stories to promote better language and literacy skills; last year it worked with more than 50,000 children and adults. It runs an award-winning 'story building centre' in Stratford town centre that uses creative methods to improve literacy in 0-12 year old children. Meanwhile, its community education programme includes exhibitions, festivals, training and schools work to help vulnerable and disadvantaged families in east London improve their literacy skills.
Catching Words
What it aims to do
Catching words uses story-telling to:
- raise primary children’s standards of reading and writing
- improve their speaking and listening
- increase the children’s aspirations
- equip teachers to continue the method themselves.
How it works
Catching Words is a story-based literacy project for primary children who are unlikely to achieve the nationally expected levels in literacy. Every week, one of the Discover staff visits the participating school, accompanied by a specialist writer, actor, poet or story teller. During a 90 minute session they work with 30 children, making use of their natural love of learning and telling stories to complete specific writing projects based around stories (for example, using cartoons, poetry or even 'script writing').
Results
Qualitative feedback from an ongoing evaluation suggests that this approach has improved children's communication and literacy skills, as well as their motivation to read. A small sample of test results shows that 6/10 students have made much faster than normal progress in their reading.
”Children’s overall progress in reading, writing, speaking and listening was clear through analysis of quantitative data from national curriculum assessment and teacher judgements on the CLPE reading and writing scales. A significant and overwhelming statistic was the higher number of children in each school, who achieved expected NC levels in 2011, compared to 2010.”
Dr Clare Kelly, Department of Educational Studies Goldsmiths, University of London
The funding
Following a successful pilot, SHINE's grant will enable the project to be rolled out into five primary schools in Newham, east London.
Funding: £77,000 to the Children's Discovery Centre, over two years (2010-12)
Visit Discover's website
