Schools 'are wasting their time teaching grammar'

Schools 'are wasting their time teaching grammar'
By Sarah Cassidy, Education Correspondent
19 January 2005


Schools are wasting their time teaching children the rules of English grammar because there is no evidence that it has any impact on pupils' writing skills, a government-funded study has concluded.

Ministers should cut back the teaching of formal grammar and let children "learn to write by writing", academics from the University of York said.

They called for a review of the national curriculum, arguing that there was little evidence that grammar teaching was "worth the time" spent on it.

The findings were dismissed by traditionalists as "absolute nonsense" and an attempt by academics to reintroduce the "trendy" teaching methods of the 1960s.

Education