Once again it is the boys’ fault. Again, national test results show that if only boys would knuckle down and get better at writing, standards of literacy would soar.
Has it never occurred to the gurus at the Department for Education and Skills to consider that, particularly in primary schools, boys mature more slowly than girls? And the younger the child, the more difference maturity makes.
As all teachers of reception classes know, four and five-year-old girls are generally much better equipped to learn literacy skills than boys. So starting them early on formal literacy work doesn’t do most girls that much damage.
Many boys, however, can be months, sometimes years, behind in the development stakes. The requirement to sit still, listen for individual sounds in language, relate these sounds to abstract symbols, and then manipulate a pencil to draw the symbols is beyond their capacity. They just aren’t ready for it. Sitting still is anathema; manoeuvring a pencil hurts.
This is not to say that boys are “inferior” or naughtier, just that genetically they are programmed to develop more slowly than girls. But if we ask them to do things they hate, that make them feel bad, we can turn them off literacy, and perhaps education, for the rest of their lives.
This is why, in sensible countries, formal teaching of literacy skills doesn’t start until children are six. Until then, teachers use child-centred methods to develop readiness for formal learning, so that when formal teaching begins, all children progress rapidly and successfully. It is also why education chiefs in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland are considering revising their early-years curriculum in line with the rest of Europe.
So now it is just England that is out of step. We are the country that asks little children to do the impossible, and tests them on it. Then, when they fail, we blame the boys.
