Y176 Tma 2

This essay will describe the role of adults in the development of children’s reading and healthy lifestyles.                                               Reading standards will be discussed, how/why the phonics approach is being encouraged. Possible differences in the reading styles and achievements of both boys and girls, and the role adult’s play will be explored.                                                                                               Lastly we will focus on possible factors that impact on healthy lifestyle, exploring the evidence of issues primary school children face and the role adults play to encourage healthy eating, considering the difficulties/challenges for families, illustrating these with module case study examples.

Reading standards have significantly been reported in the media stating English primary school children have weaker reading and literacy skills in comparison to children in other western countries. This is supported by a publication of reading competence tests in 2006. The publication revealed that England’s 10-year-olds were ranked fifteenth out of 40 countries down from third out of 36 countries, 5 years prior.                                                                                           In an attempt to halt the dip in literacy standards the government published the Rose review in 2006. It concluded that phonics should be enforced within the national curriculum in an effort to increase literacy levels.                                                                                     Phonics can be taught in two ways: The Analytical approach, which looks at the whole word and then breaks it into component parts. And you have the Synthetic approach. This starts with individual letter sounds and some combined to build up the word. This is the government’s favoured approach. However critics have criticised this. They believe that although children may have the ability to read a word they possible fail to...