ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the new generation of Spitalfields residents, the children who, with their families and teachers, took part in the Family Literacy History project in the mid-1990s. The study was carried out at a time of grave concern over standards in education and in particular over reading standards. Three Inner London boroughs had recently been the focus of a special investigation (Ofsted 1996),2 which demonstrated that children in these innercity areas performed less well in literacy tests than their counterparts elsewhere. Although many factors, including poverty, poorly resourced schools and large numbers of children for whom English is an additional language, must account to some extent for the disappointing results, parents’ own skills were also considered to play a crucial role in their children’s performance.
