It’s compulsory for children to participate in English Literature as the skills that they will develop are needed throughout school and in everyday life. They are taught how to read for example and not only that, draw deeper meanings, make inferences, and create solid arguments using them. Here are some more interesting points about English Literature and its importance in schools.
This post is in collaboration with an alternative school in London.
Life Skills
There are a lot of valuable life skills that children can pick up in their English Literature lessons as mentioned earlier. They can learn to read, write, and formulate better sentences when communicating orally with others. They are also able to understand more when reading as they will have a greater vocabulary. Primary schools usually have set spellings which they issue every week so that their students can improve their overall SPAG and expand their vocabulary.
Essay Writing Skills
If you remember doing English Literature at school, you will be familiar with PEE. English is an essay based subject where children are taught how to write convincing arguments with evidence that they have found. They will need to do a lot of this in their other subjects too. They will likely have essay questions in their exams so this can serve as good exam practice for the future.
History
There are a range of texts that they will cover in their lessons, both modern and historic. They will learn about the likes of Shakespeare and the times that he wrote about so descriptively which can help them to learn about the past and improve on their history knowledge.
These are just some of the benefits and there are of course many more. For example, it can help children to create effect with the words that they use as they learn how to write to persuade etc. They are also taught how to write formally – a skill that they will need when they are older and need to write their own letters.
