ABSTRACT
Since its introduction in 1998, the National Literacy Strategy has had a major impact on how reading and writing are taught in English primary schools. Teachers now make regular use of practices such as shared, modelled and guided reading and writing. They work, sometimes with a whole class, sometimes with groups, pairs or individuals, to teach explicit skills of reading and writing at the level of the whole text, the sentence and the word. A clear progression of these skills was set out in the original Framework for Teaching, which gave specific teaching objectives for each year and term of the primary age range. Although the original framework made particular reference to reading and writing play scripts, and certainly offered imaginative teachers plenty of opportunities to use drama as part of their daily work, it did not include objectives for speaking and listening generally, or drama specifically.
