Dr Ros Fisher, reader in literacy education at the University of Plymouth, and her colleagues Dr Maureen Lewis and Bernie Davis were commissioned by the Economic and Social Research Council to explore how teachers in small schools implemented the literacy hour.
They found that teachers of mixed age classes did not find the national literacy strategy as hard to implement as they had expected, while the children enjoyed the books read, gained in critical vocabulary, became more focused and responded well to the new routines.
While teachers with two year groups in a class found that the mixed-age groups did not present a problem, those with three or four year groups found planning to suit such a broad range of ability difficult. However, the children's progress was not affected and there were some encouraging examples of children experimenting with aspects of literacy that the older children had been working on.
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