Editorial 196: September 2012

Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove claims that a new Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling test for England’s 11-year-olds will raise the writing standards of children in England’s primary schools. Gove is quoted as saying: ‘I believe that we can only overcome the corrosive culture of low expectations which still persists in too many of our schools by setting a higher bar, with harder exams for all students.’ The United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) argues, however, that Gove’s tests may be ‘hard’ but that ‘the real problem is that they are likely to be counter-productive’.

In a recent press release (16 July 2012) UKLA point out that:‘Substantial research evidence shows us that the most effective way of learning both the secretarial and the compositional aspects of learning to write is through approaches that integrate communicative purpose and technical skills from the earliest stages (Knapp et al., 1995; Medwell et al., 1998; Louden et al., 2010). Analyses of numerous studies of the teaching of grammatical features outside a writing context have failed to show any significant improvement in children’s writing (Hillocks, 1986; Andrews et al., 2006). No research study has shown any improvement in the writing of primary children through grammar teaching, in or out of a writing context (Myhill et al., 2012).’

Of course children who are learning to write need to master spelling, handwriting, punctuation, effective vocabulary choice and apt sentence construction. But, as UKLA say, ‘they also need to learn:

* to interest a reader and address different audiences,

* to write for a range of purposes in a range of genres,

* the power of language as a creative instrument,

* to use writing as a tool to aid memory and thinking,

* to engage productively with the many forms of digital writing, including multimodal texts.

These less easily testable compositional aspects cannot wait until the secretarial and grammatical features have been mastered.’

Meanwhile headteachers at their National Association conference in May voted in favour of refusing to cooperate with the new test which is set to be introduced next year.

Maurice Sendak appreciation

This issue of Books for Keeps carries a major article by Brian Alderson on the remarkable career of the illustrator Maurice Sendak who died in May. As Brian says, the fundamental features of Sendak’s output were ‘his profound critical understanding of the art of illustration and the stunning versatility of his response to a range of commissioned or collaborative ventures’.

Naturally, this celebratory article was planned to include examples of this ‘stunning versatility’ and permission to reproduce the Sendak illustrations discussed was sought in June this year from the copyright holders. While the application was courteously received and it initially appeared that permission would be given, no positive answer or paperwork have been received despite reminders. We are therefore, sadly, unable to publish our Sendak appreciation as we would have wished it to be – a real homage to the memory of a great illustrator.

It appears that Books for Keeps is not alone in finding it difficult to gain permission to reproduce in-copyright illustrations. Not only is this incredibly frustrating for all of us who want to introduce and educate young readers in the delights of graphic art and the enjoyment of illustrated books but is it not also ultimately counter-productive for the artists themselves?