Every maths teacher recognises the language of their subject is unique. Each teacher of history recognises that they teach pupils reading and writing moves that are different to maths teachers. Primary school teachers must teach the shifting language of subjects and topics from different corners of the curriculum on a daily basis. 

This habitual approach to teaching the unique ways of knowing and communicating in a subject – and, crucially, the differences between subject disciplines – can be captured under the umbrella term, ‘disciplinary literacy’. 

This is nothing wholly new to teachers of course. The 2014 National curriculum states that teachers should pay attention to “develop pupils’ spoken language, reading, writing, and vocabulary as integral aspects of the teaching of every subject”. 

In fact, the issues of helping pupils access the tricky language of different academic disciplines is much longer in the tooth. Back in 1975, The Bullock Report stated:  

‘We strongly recommend that whatever the means chosen to implement it, a policy for language across the curriculum should be adopted by every secondary school. We are convinced that the benefits would be out of all proportion to the effort it would demand, considerable though this would undoubtedly be.’
The Bullock Report (1975)

And yet, though we have made progress on many fronts with teaching, I don’t think we could claim we have cracked disciplinary literacy. There are few policies for ‘language across the curriculum’, nor sustained practices that ensures teachers can best support struggling readers and writers.

The recent report by the 'Oracy Commission' states that, "Teachers of these subjects, attentive to their subject’s purposes, explain things, provide resources and set tasks which foster practice in the subject’s discourse, whether that is correct use of a disciplinary vocabulary, encounter with a rich subject- specific text...". Whether it is primary or secondary, in maths or geography, disciplinary literacy plays out in reading, writing, vocabulary, and talk.

Year after year, pupils advance through their schooling, but the increasing complexity of reading, writing, vocabulary, and talk, continues to catch out far too many. 

 Why 50 years of disciplinary literacy failure? 

Why has disciplinary literacy not proven consistently successful in schools for over 50 years? We can anticipate some common barriers have beset attempts to teach the tricky language of subjects with sustained success. 

1.        Too little time

A lack of time – for teacher planning, curriculum design, and for teacher development – is a likely culprit. Without teacher development, curriculum development is compromised. Without curriculum being twinned with teaching strategies that address the complexities of academic language, we routinely drop disciplinary literacy as some extraneous extra. 

 2.        Complex teacher training on language development and language barriers

There is a difficult challenge to support every teacher to understand how to best teach reading approaches, writing strategies, learn vocabulary, and to talk productively. They are at once everything we need to do, made harder by pupils having varied starting points and problematic literacy barriers (such as weak reading skills or handwriting issues). 

National professional qualifications about leading literacy may be a help, but there is still a big jump to translate the literacy differences across a range of subject disciplines. This requires subject expertise, subject specific tools, and more. 

3.        An ever-changing curriculum

Various curriculum updates over the last 50 years have paid too little heed to the difficulty of mediating the complex reading, writing, and talk moves undertaken in the different disciplines. For instance, in the last curriculum update at GCSE, the attempt to make English literature more – well, English, and hard – has meant that even the GCSEs taught with language at their heart, have proven beyond the reach of many pupils. 

We focus on the ‘what’ of curriculum, invariably stuffing in more and more content, but the ‘how’ of disciplinary literacy, and communicating through subject disciplines, can sometimes get too little attention. 

4.        Different things to teachers in different phases

One key issue to recognise is that disciplinary literacy becomes increasingly relevant – integral even – in secondary school. For primary school teachers, particularly at KS2, it is still relevant, but it is less integral. When children are still learning to read, then ‘reading like a scientist’ feels something quite distant as a goal. 

Understanding the roots of disciplinary literacy, and how to grow it at each key stage requires a yet more sensitive knowledge and understanding, with intelligent adaptation. The time and support to do this is lacking. Bridges at transition need to be built.

5.        What is it anyway? 

One issue we cannot overlook that may account for 50 years of failure, is a lack of clarity about what disciplinary literacy is for subject teachers. Is it a glossy new label, or an explainer of simply how to teach? When you recognise the potential fuzziness of the thing – along with a dearth of available resources for a range of teachers and subjects – it makes sense that disciplinary literacy hasn’t cut through to enough teachers in enough schools. 

The reality of 50 years of failure should give us pause. 

Is it any surprise that time-poor literacy coordinators have made little ground with disciplinary literacy across the years? The reality is that subject teachers, middle leaders, and curriculum developers, need to lead the disciplinary literacy charge. They require more time, more sustained support and training, to do this challenging job. You cannot merely inspect it without the means to improve it.


As the Bullock Report stated over 50 years ago, if we were to get disciplinary literacy right, for a huge number of pupils, the benefits would be out of all proportion to the collective effort it would demand. 

The solutions to the challenge don't fit into this blog, but the EEF guidance on for 'Improving Literacy in Secondary School' is an excellent start.

The EEF Literacy Content and Engagement Specialist, Chloe Butlin, has also developed these helpful resources on the 'Disciplinary Literacy Tree'.

There is also a wealth of expert practitioners tackling the challenge - see here for more: