Toddler literacy, superheroes teaching reading and the “gender gap”
There’s a lot going on the literacy realm this week. Hope you enjoy this edition of Literacy Voices Roundup.
Authors unite against drive for toddler literacy
“A powerful lobby of leading authors and educationists accuse the [British] Government today of setting children up for failure. In a letter to The Times, they say that ambitious education targets are unrealistic and risk harming pre-school children by setting back their development.”
The targets suggest that children should “write their own names . . . and begin to form simple sentences, sometimes using punctuation” and “use phonic knowledge to write simple regular words and make phonetically plausible attempts at more complex words.”
Thanks to Reading Rocket for this link.
“There’s no denying that kids, especially little boys, love their superheroes, and the whole point of early readers is to get kids excited about reading. But do you really want the Hulk teaching your kid to read?”
Check out the slide show of the future of early-reader books from Slate.com.
The Myth of the Math Gender Gap
According to this article from Time.com, researchers found little difference between girls’ and boys’ average math scores. But will that be enough to close the gap in math and science professions?