Noisy home leaves UK children ‘unable to listen or speak’

LONDON - A new survey has revealed that young British children beginning nursery school are unable to speak and listen properly because of chaotic and noisy home lives.ducation watchdog Ofsted said constantly switched on televisions, noisy siblings and raised voices at home are increasingly hampering children’s language skills, reports the Independent.

“The majority of the schools visited that had nursery classes commented that, increasingly, children joined unprepared for learning and with poor listening and speaking skills,” Ofsted said.

In some cases, children arrive at nursery without toilet training and using dummies.

“The schools attributed weak listening skills not only to poor conversation in the home but, very often, also to continuous background noise, such as constant television, the noise of siblings and raised voices, which are bound to dull sensitivity to the nuances of sounds,” said the study.

The report adds that in some cases, children’s speech was limited to phrases such as “me want …” and many of the youngsters had “been no further from home than the nearest shopping centre”.

As a result, some schools reported spending days or weeks educating parents and improving children’s social skills.

The report, ‘Reading by Six. How the best schools do it’, examines the work of 12 outstanding primary schools in England.

It says the best schools used a ’step by step’ approach to teach reading, writing and spelling through phonics, which teaches the connections between sounds and letters.

Nationally, official statistics show one in five 11-year-olds leave primary school without reaching the standard expect of their age group for reading and writing.

“Despite some major initiatives in recent years, the levels achieved by many children at the end of primary school fall stubbornly short of what is achievable,” said Ofsted chief inspector Christine Gilbert.

“These 12 schools are not a rarefied elite. The challenge is for all schools to match their achievements,” she added. (ANI)