Lionel Bolton, Head of English, Languages and Humanities, Oxford University Press Read the report What have we discovered? Our new report, Bridging the Word Gap at Transition, builds on our previous report from 3 years ago, Why Closing the Word Gap Matters. In that first report we highlighted that nearly half of the children in Year 1 and […]
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The Oxford Language Report: Why Closing the Word Gap Matters found evidence that an increasing number of children in UK schools have a limited vocabulary – a word gap – which is holding back their learning. The report brings together the thoughts of a number of leading academics and practitioners, based on market research with over 1,300 primary and secondary teachers. Over half of those surveyed reported […]
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I was not surprised when I finished reading ‘Why Closing the Word Gap Matters: Oxford Language Report’ , but it still made for sombre reading. The report put in black and white what teachers already know: Most of the students we teach don’t have the vocabulary they need to fulfil their full potential at school. The word gap affects students’ wider life chances. After […]
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By Jean Gross CBE, formerly the government’s Communication Champion for children and young people. Oxford University Press recently published the Oxford Language Report – a study into the effects of the word gap on children’s learning and what we can do to combat this. Here, Jean Gross CBE, offers some practical suggestions about how we […]
Read more By Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) Let’s start with what we know: language matters. There. That’s it. Vocabulary is a huge predictor of how far children from any background will succeed at school and beyond. The words they know will help them to read, understand, gain new […]
Read more The first Oxford Language Report finds evidence of a significant word gap in UK schools, a problem which is holding back children’s learning and which teachers believe is getting worse. Here Jane Harley, Strategy Director ED-UK at Oxford University Press, gives some background to the report and explains why closing the word gap matters. Why […]
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