The study set out to investigate the impact of the official endorsement of 'interactive whole class teaching' on the interaction and discourse styles of primary teachers while teaching the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies. In both strategies, interactive whole class teaching is seen as an 'active teaching' model promoting high quality dialogue and discussion between teachers and pupils. Pupils are expected to play an active part in discussion by asking questions, contributing ideas and explaining and demonstrating their thinking to the class. Using computerized systematic classroom observation, discourse analysis of transcripts and a questionnaire, the project looked specifically at the discourse strategies currently used by a national sample of primary teachers when teaching the literacy and numeracy strategies and their perceptions of current practices. The findings suggest that traditional patterns of whole class interaction have not been dramatically transformed by the strategies. The implications of the findings for classroom pedagogy, teachers' professional development and future research priorities are considered.

The introduction of a national 'literacy hour' as part of the National Literacy Strategy (NLS) has been seen as a major reform to improve standards of literacy in primary schools in England. A major thrust of the reform has been the concept of 'interactive whole class teaching' which has come from the school improvement literature. However, critics argue that the concept of interactive whole class teaching is not well de ned and that it mainly results in traditional whole class teaching. As a consequence of policy initiatives like the NLS, teachers are pressurised into using more directive forms of teaching with less emphasis on active learning. In order to investigate these arguments, the discourse styles of 10 teachers were intensively studied as they taught the literacy hour. The ndings suggest that the endorsement of interactive whole class teaching appears to have had little effect in providing opportunities for pupils to question or explore ideas to help them regulate their own thinking. The implications of the ndings for externally generated curriculum reforms like the NLS are considered together with the in-service needs of teachers who are charged with implementing such policy-led initiatives.

This article explores the training needs in speech and language of teachers and other early years educators in education settings. Results from the interviews demonstrate that practitioners have clear ideas about preferred training formats and they specifically want more training in identifying children with communication difficulties and opportunities to work more closely with speech and language therapists. The discussion explores the limitations on training faced by early educators and then goes on to demonstrate that there is potential within their policies and practice which could support them in their identification role. However, more explicit links need to be made between the particular needs of children with communication dfjiculties and the general documentation available to educators.

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Interviews were conducted with 50 early years practitioners, exploring their experiences with children with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). A narrative approach was taken to elicit information on the children they were working with who had these needs. This included characteristics of the children's behaviour, how they were identified and strategies used to help them. Participants identified children to discuss, many of whom had complex needs. There was large variation in how the children were identified and who the participants liaised with. Responsibilities taken on by participants when working with and devising strategies for the children did not relate to seniority of post held, or to level of relevant training.

A BSTR ACTIn an earlier study of the discourse styles of 10 teachers of post-16 E nglish from the northeast of Englan d it was found that teacher-led recitation dominated the classroom discourse thereby imposing linguistic and cognitive constraints on the students. In a follow-up study, four of the teachers were coached in the use of strategies designed to break the recitation script in order to promote wider communicative and more cognitively demandin g options for the students. The ® nding s of the current study support the use of such strategies as a means of developing the quality of classroom discourse in post-16 English teaching. The need for more extensive research into teacher/student interaction is considered, together with the need for rigorou s measures of quality.