Children now so used to technology they ‘swipe’ their books like iPads
CHILDREN are so hooked on iPads and smartphones that they are trying to ‘swipe’ when given books to read, teachers say.
School staff said many pupils are so unfamiliar with books that they have no idea how to turn pages.
Instead, they assume they are used in the same manner as phones or tablet computers – and pass a finger across the page as if it were a screen.
Members of the National Union of Teachers said the disturbing development was emerging in children in nursery and reception classes.
They said it was likely to be a result of youngsters being given parents’ iPads at an early age rather than traditional children’s books.
Jennifer Bhambri- Lyte, a union member from North Somerset, said: ‘Sharing a book brings parents together for precious moments.
‘I’ve taught both nursery and reception and I personally still find it disturbing to see a child pick up a book and try to swipe left.’
She told the NUT’s annual conference that the trend may be robbing families of valuable quality time together.
Many of her teacher friends had ‘ happy childhood memolibraries ries’ of ‘ running into a library, snuggling in a corner with a book, cuddling up to mum, turning the pages and gazing at the pictures’, she said.
Mrs Bhambri- Lyte added: ‘Kindles and iPads are wonderful things, but many of my friends talked about the smell of a book, finding tickets and receipts that someone had left as a bookmark, echoes of all the people that had been there before.’
She said many parents are not buying books because they do not have enough money: ‘In a world of food banks ... books are a luxury that many families just cannot afford.’
The claims were made during a debate on saving local libraries at the conference in Brighton.
A motion was passed for the union to campaign to keep
‘Families can’t afford books’
for less- privileged communities. Jonathan Reddiford, also from North Somerset, said the number of libraries has fallen by almost 900 in the last ten years, with more expected to go.
Mrs Bhambri-Lyte said: ‘When you simply can’t even afford to heat your own home, take your child to the library,’ she said. ‘It is warm and ... you might even read a book.’ The debate comes amid growing concerns that children’s literacy is being harmed as they shun books in favour of social media.
A recent survey of 214 headteachers by Booked magazine found 70 per cent believed Facebook and Twitter were ‘bad for literacy’.
Excessive use of such sites means youngsters’ spelling and grammar have deteriorated, they said. For example, some were writing ‘l8’ instead of ‘late’. A Department for Education spokesman said it had unveiled a multi-million-pound fund to boost literacy and added: ‘Thanks to our reforms and the hard work of teachers, academic standards are rising, with 1.9 million more children in good or outstanding schools than in 2010, and our young readers now rank among the world’s best.’
ExTREME poverty is getting worse across the UK with schools increasingly being forced to fill in the gaps left by council and social service budget cuts.
This was the startling claim of members of a Left-leaning teachers’ trade union during its annual get-together over the Easter weekend. Imagine the hush falling over the conference hall as delegates heard appalling horror stories from Theresa May’s Britain.
They cited a survey of 900 teachers, of whom 60 per cent said that child poverty in schools has deteriorated since 2015. A third claimed it had got significantly worse.
Teachers were said to be offering basic services such as washing uniforms. They are apparently providing sanitary products, such as tampons for pupils, buying shoes and coats in winter, and giving emergency cash loans to families.
Wailing
Among countless bloodcurdling tales, school leaders reported having to clean pupils’ school uniforms, especially after weekends, because some children from poor households have no way of washing their own clothes.
Did you know things had got so bad so quickly? Meanwhile, the British Medical Association — another powerful, Leftwardly inclined pressure group given to demanding oodles of extra cash — declared that the NHS is in permanent crisis.
It would, of course, be foolish to deny that there are examples of hardship and deprivation in some schools. Equally, no one doubts — least of all the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt — that the NHS needs more money.
But these hysterical interventions must be put in perspective. I refuse to believe, for example, there has been such a sharp deterioration in the wellbeing of pupils over the past three years, as was alleged by teachers at their conference.
All this wailing and gnashing of teeth from politicised teachers and doctors comes straight from the Jeremy Corbyn playbook. His constant cry, and that of his sidekick John McDonnell, is of public services in terminal meltdown.
The Labour leader repeatedly asserts that inequality has risen under the Tories. He is always banging on about austerity too, and paints a picture of the NHS starved of resources. More money, and lots of it, is his unvarying recipe.
But the facts make a nonsense of his rabid claims. Contrary to what the Left would have you think, the rich have not enjoyed massive tax cuts. Inequality is falling, not rising, according to official figures. And spending on the NHS has risen in real terms — i.e. discounting inflation — since 2010 despite ‘austerity’.
To judge by the caterwauling of Leftist critics, you would not credit that there are now 32.3 million people in work — an all-time record — which is a million more than the 2015 figure, itself then a record.
It’s true not all new jobs are well-paid. Even families with two working parents may struggle. Nonetheless, increasing employment is very likely to lead to falling rates of poverty — the opposite of the lurid picture painted by these ideologically-minded teachers.
The Department for Work and Pensions recently produced figures showing that a million fewer people are living in ‘absolute’ poverty than when the Conservatives replaced Labour in 2010.
Poverty is defined as earning less than 60 per cent of what the average wage was in 2010, adjusted for inflation. In 2010, 9.9 million people were classified as impoverished. Today that figure has fallen to 8.9 million. In particular — teachers, please note — the number of children living in such conditions has dropped by 300,000.
It is not only higher employment that is reducing poverty. The poorest have benefited from a higher income tax threshold introduced by the Tory-led Coalition after 2010. For people paying the basic rate, there has been a tax cut, while a growing number of low earners don’t pay tax at all.
Figures released last year by the Office for National Statistics show that since 2008 — not so long before the Tories took over government — the average disposable income of the poorest fifth of UK households has risen by 15 per cent, while that of the richest fifth has grown by just 0.4 per cent.
I don’t dispute there are still far too many people living in poverty, but these figures give a lie to the widely-held view, so energetically propagated by Corbyn and friends, that poverty has got worse since 2010.
So how is it that the teachers can allege it has markedly deteriorated in the past three years? They couldn’t possibly be falsifying the evidence or exaggerating the true position to make a political point, could they? I am afraid they could.
One teacher let the cat out of the bag when he said: ‘Poverty on paper seems to be getting better, our number of free school meals seems to be going down, but the reality is completely the reverse — poverty is becoming more and more extreme.’
Bogus
In other words, if the facts don’t bear out the Leftist propaganda of ever worsening poverty under the wicked Tories, they should be set aside. I’m afraid some teachers are unscrupulously ‘weaponising’ schools as they spread myths about increasing poverty.
Another egregious example of twisting the truth is reported in today’s Mail. A Left-wing GP in Morecambe, Lancashire, declared on an ITV documentary last November that people in the town were suffering from rickets because of poverty.
The sensationalist programme alleged that Morecambe was riddled with shocking deprivation and child starvation. Teachers asserted that poverty in the town was so bad that they were having to wash children’s uniforms as parents couldn’t afford the electricity. Sounds familiar?
Now it has emerged that there were only nine cases of rickets in the wider Lancaster area including Morecambe in 2015/16. The number of cases of rickets nationwide almost halved from 994 in 2011/12 — not long after the hated Conservatives took over — to 558 in 2016/17.
In short, here is another instance of ideologically driven people preposterously fiddling the facts. Although the scourge of rickets has dramatically declined in the country, and there were only a tiny handful of cases in Morecambe, a bogus storm is whipped up for political reasons.
Crisis
A similar process is visible in the NHS. Of course it needs more resources. The fact remains that spending on the NHS rose by 1.3 per cent a year between 2010 and 2015/ 16, admittedly less than during the previous decade, but creditable at a time when most departments were suffering cutbacks.
Moreover, Jeremy Hunt has now indicated that, following improvement in the nation’s finances, there may be an extra injection of £4 billion, as well as a ten-year funding deal.
Mightn’t one have expected a temporary truce until the Government’s announcement? No. Up pops the British Medical Association with wearying predictability. Its council chairman Dr Chaand Nagpaul says ‘the winter crisis has truly been replaced by a year-round crisis . . . We cannot accept that this is the new normal for the NHS.’
I realise that in our political system claims and counter claims fly about. What is so depressing about Corbyn’s Labour Party and his cheerleaders is their shameless disregard of the truth and ruthless manipulation of the facts
The truth is poverty has declined. The poor have gained more from tax cuts than the rich. The NHS is not being starved. The Tories have a great story to tell about increasing employment. Yet despite all this, we are treated to the Corbynistas’ misguided and usually baseless sob stories.