ABSTRACT
This chapter represents an attempt to provide a broader context for children’s failure to achieve a desired level in reading and writing. Some children experience such acute difficulties in reading and writing that no teacher could have the slightest doubt that they require help. It is also necessary to look briefly at approaches to the determining of relative levels of literacy ability, in the shape of some kind of measure of attainment. The teacher’s own judgment is likely to be the most valid measure of whether or nor there is a literacy problem. The child whose first language is not English naturally has particular problems in the reading and writing areas, but it is likely that the teacher will be aware of this situation. It is less easy to find any standardised criteria by which to assess children’s writing than it is for reading.
