The news that Ofsted is recommending that children should be able to start formal schooling aged 2 in an attempt to close the attainment gap between children from wealthier and poorer families caused me more than a little bit of a jaw drop.
It is true that there is a significant attainment gap between some children from poorer families and some children from wealthier families, which can lead to a difference of up to 18 months at age 5. Of course there are other factors that play into this, and I think the average gap is more like 9 months. However, it has been demonstrated that it's better for a child's educational success to be born rich than clever, as many intelligent children from poor families are overtaken by less intelligent children from rich families between ages 8 and 11.
This situation is shocking and totally unacceptable. It speaks of an unfair society where wealth determines educational levels and the one route out of poverty, education, effectively is not a route at all, but actually favours the wealthy.
In comes Ofsted and suggests that rather than tackling the causes of this sorry situation (poverty and inequality), the sticking plaster of sending kids to school early in the hope to make up for all the damage our unequal society does through a few hours of early education.
This is wrong for so many reasons. Baroness Morgan claims that many deprived children have “low social skills”, poor
standards of reading and an inability to communicate adequately, which apparently translates to being “not ready to learn” when they start school.
1. Children are always ready to learn. Children are wired to learn. The reason they fall behind is that they do not have a wide range of learning environments and experiences which isn't going to be helped by sticking them into a classroom.
2. Children up to the age of 6 learn through play rather than formal education. They need free play, active play, develop motor skills, and play with other children and adults to develop their language and social skills. A classroom setting is not conducive to being the best environment to achieve this. I read somewhere that children need to learn to skip before they can learn to read, which summarises how motor skills come before language and literacy.
3. School readiness in the sense of ability to become literate depends on passive vocabulary. In fact, as a parent who raises her children bilingually, I've researched this a fair bit and I know that there's a critical number of words that children have to be able to use before they are able to learn how to read and write (which in our case made me decide to delay literacy development in the weaker language). There is no point in developing letter/word recognition or writing skills before this critical mass of words has been developed. Now one could say that this is to be done through the school setting, however:
4. Any schooling only accounts for a minor part of a child's life and the best case scenario is that schooling can influence between 10 and 25% of the total attainment difference between children (the rest is due to home learning environment, community environment, innate ability). This means that any effort to narrow the attainment gap between richer and poorer kids through formal education can at best be a sticking plaster but not make a real difference.
So what can make a difference? Well, ideally, and excuse me for being political, we need to reduce income inequalities, as these are the root causes for the attainment gap in a complex interplay of factors. Great wealth disparities in a rich nation leads to people feeling they have no control over their lives, people who don't feel they have control over their lives have low self esteem and are stressed in a existential kind of way, which in turn leads to poor health and having to focus on the day to day survival, making it much harder to plan ahead or even manage to move out of the low income bracket. Stress leads to family conflict, family conflict stresses the child, a stressed child cannot learn. Sending the stressed child to school is at best tokenistic and at worst futile (in fact, the attainment gap between rich and poor kids increases during the years of formal education, schooling does not narrow it!).
I'm a realist though and in the current political climate I don't see a change to a more equal society any time soon (although I'm still hoping/waiting for a little more outrage and anger by the general public about this ridiculous situation that the 5th richest country in the world is happy to be leading the way on income inequalities). In the short to medium term, we need to support parents to be their children's first educator, in an empowering way that is based on true partnership rather than the deficit model that some parenting programmes are happy to portray. Fact is that parents want the best for their child, but circumstances mean they are unable to be the parent they want to be (and that doesn't just apply to "poorer" families!)
But if we're really serious about our children's future, this isn't enough because the vicious cycle of poverty (or rather income inequality, because it's not the absolute income that matters but the relative status and difference between the richest and the poorest) undermines healthy child development in so many ways that even the parent with the best intentions and abilities will struggle to make up for the disastrous effects of poverty on child development.
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
Mummy do that!
Showing posts with label literacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label literacy. Show all posts
Wednesday, 6 November 2013
Saturday, 19 March 2011
Early literacy, bilingualism and different scripts
My recent post on how to best support early literacy in bilingual children brought about a few comments on the topic of different scripts.
This is an interesting one because it adds a new dimension to literacy; a new worry about potentially confusing the child. I'm sure it is a worry we all have - whether it's between the two languages spoken, the two languages read and written, or the two scripts used.
Therefore, as a starting point, my gut feeling is that there's no difference between spoken bilingualism or written bilingualism with two scripts. Yes, it's more to learn. Yes, children will mix. Yes, children will end up being proficient in both.
When I was a young child (maybe 8 years of age - I'm not sure) I got interested in the Greek alphabet. I'm not sure where I saw it, but I saw it, and wanted to learn it. I didn't give my dad peace until he taught me the whole Greek alphabet (I can still recite it now!). Considering I only learned to read and write at 7 (which is normal in Germany), it was close to acquiring literacy. Did it confuse me? Not at all. I remember that I found it reasonably easy to learn because the script was similar in principle and shape. Many years later, when I learned Russian (which has a script based on the Greek alphabet), it helped me learn to read Russian and enabled me to skip a full term of tuition (the script is usually taught first) through a mere 2 weeks of self study.
From the anecdotal example of how I felt about these scripts, learning a second script in early childhood, like learning a second language, is an asset rather than a hinderance. So I wouldn't worry about confusion - there may be some at the start, but it'll be so worth it.
Cubling's nursery is lucky to have some speech and language support and they actively support bilingualism. Part of their early literacy development is actually showing other scripts and letting all children be creative and "write" in that script. So for Chinese New Year, they drew Chinese characters that they made up. There are also a few other bilingual children in Cubling's room, with at least 4 language pairs. The teachers have produced books with images of everyday objects and asked the parents to write the word in their language underneath. These booklets are on display for all children to see. This way, the bilingual children realise there are others like them (the realisation for Cubling has had a positive impact on her attitude towards German), they feel recognised and the monolingual children develop an interest in other languages. All of which is good, everybody wins. I think it's good practice because early literacy is not just about learning your letters, sounding out and reading - it's about the letter as a sign, the realisation that we can represent speech and use these representations in enhancing ways, and creating an awareness of literacy which will then result in a motivation to become literate.
And this can happen in as many scripts as you want I would think.
This is an interesting one because it adds a new dimension to literacy; a new worry about potentially confusing the child. I'm sure it is a worry we all have - whether it's between the two languages spoken, the two languages read and written, or the two scripts used.
Therefore, as a starting point, my gut feeling is that there's no difference between spoken bilingualism or written bilingualism with two scripts. Yes, it's more to learn. Yes, children will mix. Yes, children will end up being proficient in both.
When I was a young child (maybe 8 years of age - I'm not sure) I got interested in the Greek alphabet. I'm not sure where I saw it, but I saw it, and wanted to learn it. I didn't give my dad peace until he taught me the whole Greek alphabet (I can still recite it now!). Considering I only learned to read and write at 7 (which is normal in Germany), it was close to acquiring literacy. Did it confuse me? Not at all. I remember that I found it reasonably easy to learn because the script was similar in principle and shape. Many years later, when I learned Russian (which has a script based on the Greek alphabet), it helped me learn to read Russian and enabled me to skip a full term of tuition (the script is usually taught first) through a mere 2 weeks of self study.
From the anecdotal example of how I felt about these scripts, learning a second script in early childhood, like learning a second language, is an asset rather than a hinderance. So I wouldn't worry about confusion - there may be some at the start, but it'll be so worth it.
Cubling's nursery is lucky to have some speech and language support and they actively support bilingualism. Part of their early literacy development is actually showing other scripts and letting all children be creative and "write" in that script. So for Chinese New Year, they drew Chinese characters that they made up. There are also a few other bilingual children in Cubling's room, with at least 4 language pairs. The teachers have produced books with images of everyday objects and asked the parents to write the word in their language underneath. These booklets are on display for all children to see. This way, the bilingual children realise there are others like them (the realisation for Cubling has had a positive impact on her attitude towards German), they feel recognised and the monolingual children develop an interest in other languages. All of which is good, everybody wins. I think it's good practice because early literacy is not just about learning your letters, sounding out and reading - it's about the letter as a sign, the realisation that we can represent speech and use these representations in enhancing ways, and creating an awareness of literacy which will then result in a motivation to become literate.
And this can happen in as many scripts as you want I would think.
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Supporting early literacy in bilingual children
Cubling has reached the point where her interest in all things letters and words is well established. I blame the pre-school personally, as I find it terribly early. Nevermind, my approach has always been to look at signs of interest and then support it.
But how do you do it if the language you use exclusively, in spoken and in writing, is one other than the community language, i.e. the language that she will learn to read and write in?
I don't want to confuse my child, but I also don't want to give her more reason to think that it's a nuisance to talk German when everything around her is English. Being a linguist, I also know that the written word gives a lot of power to any language, in fact, often makes a language in the mind of speakers of that language. A language without a written form is often dismissed as a dialect, as not a real language because it lacks the authority of the written word.
Therefore, considering that Cubling's is an at-risk bilingual (that's a bilingual child who grows up in a bilingual home but in whose community only one of the two languages is spoken. This may lead to refusal to speak the non-community language or even a total loss of the minority language, see Neuman/Dickinson, p.161), it's crucial that we support her early literacy without forgetting about German.
There is some information on the lovely internet, but often, the information relates to different settings to ours. Usually the setting relates to migrants who have one language at home and are now entering the UK/English language community. The typical child is one who speaks one language and now enters pre-school not speaking English. Of course our situation is far from this - English is the stronger language and one that is used at home and in the community. My interest is not how to support Cubling's developing literacy in English (because I know roughly how to go about this) but how and when to support it in, and using, German. My aim in this endeavour is not for her to write perfect German, but to be able to read German and use some writing in German, both of which should ideally support her English literacy as well.
More than her actual proficiency in writing and reading German, the reason to support her literacy in German is to give German some equality of relevance and usefulness, which in turn will help her maintain it, but also open up the world of the German written word to her.
We have already had interesting situations where she tried to decipher words on a wall chart. The words were in English, but she spoke to me, so "read" Katze instead of cat. Now this behaviour, while understandable, is bound to cause confusion - c-a-t does not read Katze after all. The nursery suggested to add the German word, which is probably a quick solution but won't help with all the signs we come across during the day.
There seems to be very little research evidence as to how achieve biliteracy. It appears that for children who have a home language and subsequently learn a second language (migrant children speaking one language at home who then enter pre-school and are only there exposed to, say, English) it is better if they learn literacy in their home language first because, in order to learn reading and writing, they need to have a decent range of vocabulary to work with and be able to distinguish phonemes.
For a child like Cubling, who is an at risk bilingual, it is on the one hand important to support the at risk, minority, language by introducing literacy in that language, as otherwise the weaker language may be at even greater risk of being lost. However, it's not clear if her German is proficient enough for her to acquire literacy in German just yet as her productive abilities in German are rather weak. She may be a borderline case and early literacy development is considered to be a mostly transferrable skill so that it may be best to introduce literacy in both languages at the same time.
Interestingly, what started being a question of curiosity appears to point towards a question that hasn't been appropriately answered in research, and one where the level of language in the weaker language may carry the answer. Cubling is definitely a borderline case - her German is beyond the formulaic stage but not yet at the productive stage. It's not clear if passive knowledge of vocabulary is sufficient to lead to fluent literacy or if productive use of a complex range of vocabulary and syntax is a prerequisite for literacy development.
The available research does point towards the importance of supporting literacy development at home, ideally in both languages. The emphasis is on the quality of language interaction and literacy activities in either language to be more important than what language this occurs in. It's just not clear as to whether it's better to introduce literacy in both langauges simultaneously or subsequently.
Bilingual children, regardless of how their proficiency in each language is distributed, benefit from additional support in literacy development. This is because their vocabulary in each language is smaller than that of a monolingual (though the accumulative vocabulary is greater than that of a monolingual) and size of vocabulary has been shown to be directly related to success in acquiring literacy. This means that bilingual children may find it more difficult to acquire literacy.
This means for us that maybe we should change our approach of letting things flow and become a bit more proactive with pre-literacy activities, while keeping in touch with Cubling's educators to spot any possible difficulties she may experience. I'm still none the wiser if it'll be best to focus on English literacy first and introducing German literacy later, or if it may be too late by then and it would in fact be better to introduce both simultaneously.
Sources:
Susan B. Neuman, David K. Dickinson: Handbook of Early Literacy Research vol. 1.
Ellen Bialystok: Acquisition of Early Literacy in Bilingual Children: A Framework for Research. Language Learning 52:1, p. 159-199.
But how do you do it if the language you use exclusively, in spoken and in writing, is one other than the community language, i.e. the language that she will learn to read and write in?
I don't want to confuse my child, but I also don't want to give her more reason to think that it's a nuisance to talk German when everything around her is English. Being a linguist, I also know that the written word gives a lot of power to any language, in fact, often makes a language in the mind of speakers of that language. A language without a written form is often dismissed as a dialect, as not a real language because it lacks the authority of the written word.
Therefore, considering that Cubling's is an at-risk bilingual (that's a bilingual child who grows up in a bilingual home but in whose community only one of the two languages is spoken. This may lead to refusal to speak the non-community language or even a total loss of the minority language, see Neuman/Dickinson, p.161), it's crucial that we support her early literacy without forgetting about German.
There is some information on the lovely internet, but often, the information relates to different settings to ours. Usually the setting relates to migrants who have one language at home and are now entering the UK/English language community. The typical child is one who speaks one language and now enters pre-school not speaking English. Of course our situation is far from this - English is the stronger language and one that is used at home and in the community. My interest is not how to support Cubling's developing literacy in English (because I know roughly how to go about this) but how and when to support it in, and using, German. My aim in this endeavour is not for her to write perfect German, but to be able to read German and use some writing in German, both of which should ideally support her English literacy as well.
More than her actual proficiency in writing and reading German, the reason to support her literacy in German is to give German some equality of relevance and usefulness, which in turn will help her maintain it, but also open up the world of the German written word to her.
We have already had interesting situations where she tried to decipher words on a wall chart. The words were in English, but she spoke to me, so "read" Katze instead of cat. Now this behaviour, while understandable, is bound to cause confusion - c-a-t does not read Katze after all. The nursery suggested to add the German word, which is probably a quick solution but won't help with all the signs we come across during the day.
There seems to be very little research evidence as to how achieve biliteracy. It appears that for children who have a home language and subsequently learn a second language (migrant children speaking one language at home who then enter pre-school and are only there exposed to, say, English) it is better if they learn literacy in their home language first because, in order to learn reading and writing, they need to have a decent range of vocabulary to work with and be able to distinguish phonemes.
For a child like Cubling, who is an at risk bilingual, it is on the one hand important to support the at risk, minority, language by introducing literacy in that language, as otherwise the weaker language may be at even greater risk of being lost. However, it's not clear if her German is proficient enough for her to acquire literacy in German just yet as her productive abilities in German are rather weak. She may be a borderline case and early literacy development is considered to be a mostly transferrable skill so that it may be best to introduce literacy in both languages at the same time.
Interestingly, what started being a question of curiosity appears to point towards a question that hasn't been appropriately answered in research, and one where the level of language in the weaker language may carry the answer. Cubling is definitely a borderline case - her German is beyond the formulaic stage but not yet at the productive stage. It's not clear if passive knowledge of vocabulary is sufficient to lead to fluent literacy or if productive use of a complex range of vocabulary and syntax is a prerequisite for literacy development.
The available research does point towards the importance of supporting literacy development at home, ideally in both languages. The emphasis is on the quality of language interaction and literacy activities in either language to be more important than what language this occurs in. It's just not clear as to whether it's better to introduce literacy in both langauges simultaneously or subsequently.
Bilingual children, regardless of how their proficiency in each language is distributed, benefit from additional support in literacy development. This is because their vocabulary in each language is smaller than that of a monolingual (though the accumulative vocabulary is greater than that of a monolingual) and size of vocabulary has been shown to be directly related to success in acquiring literacy. This means that bilingual children may find it more difficult to acquire literacy.
This means for us that maybe we should change our approach of letting things flow and become a bit more proactive with pre-literacy activities, while keeping in touch with Cubling's educators to spot any possible difficulties she may experience. I'm still none the wiser if it'll be best to focus on English literacy first and introducing German literacy later, or if it may be too late by then and it would in fact be better to introduce both simultaneously.
Sources:
Susan B. Neuman, David K. Dickinson: Handbook of Early Literacy Research vol. 1.
Ellen Bialystok: Acquisition of Early Literacy in Bilingual Children: A Framework for Research. Language Learning 52:1, p. 159-199.
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
What should our children learn?
There's been a lot of discussion around the "subjects that matter" in our children's education, clearly with the aim to prioritise educational spending. Even the debate about tuition fees was caught up in this, and I found myself at one point agreeing that students should bear the main burden of the cost of their education (though my view comes from the point of view that it is creating more equality to invest more in the younger years of education to the expense of third level education, and to value education available to all appropriately rather than having a bias towards third level education which not everybody will enjoy). But hold your breath, after lots of soul searching I changed my mind, realising that if at all possible, any education one would like to undergo should be available for free or at least be affordable to everyone.
What do you think schools should teach? Or, asked in another way, what of my school learning has proven useful in my life? What did I miss out on? There's been a fabulous exchange on Radio 5, which I read about this rather articulate take on it and more (how do you link education to ageism? Read for yourself!).
My starting point would be that there are life skills that every child should learn, and that learning takes place not just at school. So these skills can be learned at school, at home, or in the community. I would say that the no brainers are literacy, numeracy and "survival" skills. A latter is a terrible term, I know, but like the other two they allow for interpretation as to what it means, it is adaptable to an ever changing society. Take for instance "home economics" - I think it's a great idea that every child should learn how to cook. Look at it from a health perspective, it empowers you to have a healthy diet. It empowers you to feed yourself. Cooking skills haven't been passed on so well in the last generation and we're left with rather a lot of people unable to live on a diet other than fast food, processed and ready made. Cooking would definitely be on my curriculum, and not just the "baking" variety.
So what about the rest? Is science more important than humanities? Is it the wrong comparison because really they go hand in hand? The school system I grew up in made sure you had choice within a range of areas (after the compulsory years) - so I had to take one science and one language at the very least, one social science and one subject out of either art or sports. Maths was optional and could be replaced by two sciences. As someone who loved languages, I had to make tough choices - I didn't like maths but loved chemistry and physics, but to keep my languages, I had to take maths.
The above discussion is of course a philosophical one, and one that has repercussions on our parenting styles too. Do you go with your child and foster his/her talents and let society develop out of the summative talent of our children, thus reaching the best possible outcome for all of us? Or do you foster a broad education in all areas that you, as the adult, have identified as being important?
I'm intrigued by both arguments, and as usual would opt for a middle way. For one, I do believe that anyone does best when they are motivated to do something, and motivation comes with free choice, liking and being good at something. However, I still think literacy, numeracy and some sort of life skills are important. As a parent I make choices about what I teach/show my daughters and these choices are based on what I consider important. At the same time we do respond very much to their lead. Still, our decision to send them to the outdoors kindergarten was ours, not my daughter's, there are many choices I make for the kids, and I'm happiest when Cubling tells me how she looks forward to the outdoors, how she wants to learn how to knit, and when she colours in a blue tit print out with a blue head, while I've failed to instil any interest in gardening in her at all so far, so she's voting with her feet! Yet I consider knowing how to grow food to be an essential life skill.
Suddenly I wonder if my speaking to the nursery key worker about my worries that she attaches to adults rather children was the wrong thing because now she'll be actively encouraged to play with children. Should I not leave the choice to her, and rejoice that she has bonded with some children and these children happen to be the ones I really love to see her bond with? Is she not, simply put, making the right choices anyway?
What is our role, to offer options and let the child lead the way? How can we ensure we offer all the options in this complex world? Are there essential life skills that are non negotiable? And, will I have to let her go to ballet classes?
What do you think schools should teach? Or, asked in another way, what of my school learning has proven useful in my life? What did I miss out on? There's been a fabulous exchange on Radio 5, which I read about this rather articulate take on it and more (how do you link education to ageism? Read for yourself!).
My starting point would be that there are life skills that every child should learn, and that learning takes place not just at school. So these skills can be learned at school, at home, or in the community. I would say that the no brainers are literacy, numeracy and "survival" skills. A latter is a terrible term, I know, but like the other two they allow for interpretation as to what it means, it is adaptable to an ever changing society. Take for instance "home economics" - I think it's a great idea that every child should learn how to cook. Look at it from a health perspective, it empowers you to have a healthy diet. It empowers you to feed yourself. Cooking skills haven't been passed on so well in the last generation and we're left with rather a lot of people unable to live on a diet other than fast food, processed and ready made. Cooking would definitely be on my curriculum, and not just the "baking" variety.
So what about the rest? Is science more important than humanities? Is it the wrong comparison because really they go hand in hand? The school system I grew up in made sure you had choice within a range of areas (after the compulsory years) - so I had to take one science and one language at the very least, one social science and one subject out of either art or sports. Maths was optional and could be replaced by two sciences. As someone who loved languages, I had to make tough choices - I didn't like maths but loved chemistry and physics, but to keep my languages, I had to take maths.
The above discussion is of course a philosophical one, and one that has repercussions on our parenting styles too. Do you go with your child and foster his/her talents and let society develop out of the summative talent of our children, thus reaching the best possible outcome for all of us? Or do you foster a broad education in all areas that you, as the adult, have identified as being important?
I'm intrigued by both arguments, and as usual would opt for a middle way. For one, I do believe that anyone does best when they are motivated to do something, and motivation comes with free choice, liking and being good at something. However, I still think literacy, numeracy and some sort of life skills are important. As a parent I make choices about what I teach/show my daughters and these choices are based on what I consider important. At the same time we do respond very much to their lead. Still, our decision to send them to the outdoors kindergarten was ours, not my daughter's, there are many choices I make for the kids, and I'm happiest when Cubling tells me how she looks forward to the outdoors, how she wants to learn how to knit, and when she colours in a blue tit print out with a blue head, while I've failed to instil any interest in gardening in her at all so far, so she's voting with her feet! Yet I consider knowing how to grow food to be an essential life skill.
Suddenly I wonder if my speaking to the nursery key worker about my worries that she attaches to adults rather children was the wrong thing because now she'll be actively encouraged to play with children. Should I not leave the choice to her, and rejoice that she has bonded with some children and these children happen to be the ones I really love to see her bond with? Is she not, simply put, making the right choices anyway?
What is our role, to offer options and let the child lead the way? How can we ensure we offer all the options in this complex world? Are there essential life skills that are non negotiable? And, will I have to let her go to ballet classes?
Thursday, 8 October 2009
Play Talk Read
It was with great interest that I got word of the new parenting campaign launched by the Scottish Government. Mindful Mum had been contacted and offered to come to the launch, and forwarded the invite on to me in case I was free as she was not. I wasn't either but followed it up requesting further information. I'm still waiting. It seems to me that possibly the launch was a media event and they were short of a few mums (and maybe even, just imagine, dads!) for the photoshoot. Or did they really try and target mummy bloggers who could get the message out about this campaign? If so, why didn't anyone get back to me?
Thankfully, I know how to use my eyesight and google. When I came across this picture I thought it may be related to the ominious parenting campaign. So I googled and found out that thi mysterious campaign was launched on 25th September and is called Play Talk Read. You can find the news release, read what the Herald has to say about it, and it's also been featured as a news story on Children in Scotland.
And the campaign even has a fabulous website, where parents can get bucket loads of advice, information. More than that, if you sign up, you can find local activities for your child, a forum to ask questions, you can find parents near you and even submit ideas for activities with young children. All good stuff, and really something that us Scottish Mummy/Daddy Bloggers should blog about to spread the message. In fact, check it out whereever you are, you don't even have to live in Scotland to get some good ideas from this great resource.
What I'm a bit worried about is that as with similar initiatives to get parents to read with their kids, it assumes parental literacy and access to the internet. Have another look at the advert that decorates Scottish billboards: great image, sharp message - but to find out more you need to search online for "playtalkread". Honestly, who is going to be bothered to do this unless they have a specific interest in this?
The message, though, is a really important one. To give your child the best start in life, play with him/her, talk to him/her, read to him/her. Simple but it makes a massive difference. It's the recipe to tackling inequalities in education and in later life, the recipe to transform society, no less, to make it a more equal and more just society.
Yet my worry is that an advertising campaign (only 14% of people take in advertising and act upon it) and a fancy website will contribute to further increasing the divide, a divide which is increasingly a digital one. I've blogged about this before. If you want to improve educational outcomes/experiences and life chances for children growing up in poverty and disadvantaged communities (and let's be clear, this is what this campaign is about) you need to consider access. Or rather lack thereof. Because many parents don't have the dosh to have broadband access, a computer, even a landline or a bank account needed to get a phone line. That's what poverty means in reality. Add to that parents who themselves didn't have a positive experience of education, may not have great literacy and who will certainly struggle with a very text heavy internet site.
So, just like bookstart, bounce and rhyme and rhyme time, I fear it'll be only those mums who'd be reading to their kids anyway who turn up at sessions, or use this lovely website.
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