Parents' smartphones harming children's ability to hold conversation, say teachers
One head teacher said: “There is limited parent/child interaction. Four year-olds know how to swipe a phone but haven't a clue about conversations”.
Another primary school leader warned: “We are having more and more children entering our early years stage with delayed speech and a lack of school readiness.
“I feel much of this is down to challenging family circumstances alongside the rise of mobile phones and other mobile technology, which means parents are more often to be seen on the phone than talking to their children.”
The survey of more than 1,100 senior primary staff carried out by The Key, an information and advice service for head teachers, estimates at least 194,000 children could be ill-prepared to start school in September.
The State of Education report found four-fifths of teachers were worried about poor social skills or children having speech problems. More than two-thirds had seen children lacking “self-help skills”.
Teachers also reported levels of reading, writing and numeracy were lower than they should be.
Fergal Roche, The Key chief ｅxecutive, said: "School leaders are already struggling to retain staff and manage their teachers' workload, so add thousands more pupils arriving ill-prepared for the classroom to the equation, and the burden placed on our schools will be huge.
"An agreed definition of what 'school-readiness' means, could be the first step to helping schools, parents and early years practitioners identify what national or localised support is required to meet this growing issue."
Gareth Jenkins director of poverty policy at Save The Children said the report "provides yet further evidence that too many children are not getting the support they need to thrive in their early years".
He said: "Research for Save The Children has shown that falling behind in their early years can drastically limit a child's chances of success later on, affecting results throughout school, and even earnings as adults.”
Last year, a leading child psychiatrist suggested parents enforce a “talk not tap” rule at the dinner table to stop smartphones and tablets taking over children’s lives.
Dr Hayley Van Zwanenberg, of the Priory clinics, warned that children “transfixed” by social media and messaging risk growing up emotionally stunted and unable to cope properly with the real world.
Today’s research comes after the Department for Education halted its controversial attempts to measure the abilities of four- and five year-olds as soon as they start school.
Teachers and ｕnions had said children starting school were too young for the baseline tests designed to see how pupils developed through primary school.
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Vocabulary Words:
1. Interaction - (noun) the act of communicating with somebody, especially while you work, play or spend time with them
2. Ill-prepared - (adj.) not ready, especially because you were not expecting something to happen
3. Evidence - (noun) the facts, signs or objects that make you believe that something is true
4. Thrive - (verb) to become, and continue to be, successful, strong, healthy, etc.
5. Drastic - (adj.) extreme in a way that has a sudden, serious or violent effect on something
6. Take over - (phrasal verb) to begin to have control of or responsibility for something, especially in place of somebody else
7. Transfix - (verb) to make somebody unable to move because they are afraid, surprised, etc.
8. Cope - (verb) to deal successfully with something difficult
9. Halt - (verb) to stop to make somebody/something stop
10. Baseline - (noun) a line or measurement that is used as a starting point when comparing facts
Discussion Questions:
1. Is modern technology getting in the way of young kids' learning process? Why?
2. In your opinion, is it right to let young children use gadgets? Why do you think so?
3. Aside from technology, what other factors do you think affect children's learning?
4. How would you teach your kids to interact with other people?
5. Should learning always start in school or should it start at home? Why?
