ABSTRACT
The Literacy Strategy introduced into Key Stages 1 and 2 in 1998 was heavily criticised because it lacked the essential elements of speaking and listening in its training and planning programmes. Literacy was viewed, in a disturbingly reductionist capacity, as being a matter of reading and writing, and valuable language learning opportunities were lost as a result. The QCA did, in time, produce an excellently supportive document Teaching Speaking and Listening in Key Stages 1 and 2 (QCA 1999c), but the centrality of the importance of these language areas had been somewhat lost in the intervening time. Yet, of course, speaking and listening was constantly being employed in every classroom to bring about better reading study, and to establish and 'frame' writing activities.
