A new skirmish in the so-called ‘reading wars’ has once again broken out. This time in Australia! A group of reading experts has written to the Education Minister Julia Gillard to complain that draft recommendations on the shape of the new English curriculum have omitted significant elements from previous recommendations made in an initial advice… Continue reading Reading experts go in to bat for phonics in Australia
What has been the result of the introduction of the National Strategies, ask the authors of the Policy Exchange report Tom Richmond and Sam Freedman? Despite claims that major improvements have taken place, they claim that ‘… in retrospect it is clear that much of this success was a cruel illusion.’ This is because many… Continue reading The Cruel Illusion
You may have noticed that in the previous posting, I created a link to the work of Betty Hart and Todd Risley. This link takes you to the website Children of the Code. As Cartwheel says in a posting on the Reading Reform Foundation, the website is ‘a combination of a book/periodical and a documentary’.… Continue reading Children of the Code
The recently published Rose Report into the primary curriculum draws praise from Vicky Tuck, principal of Cheltenham Ladies College. She believes it highlights a problem educationists have been grappling with for years: ‘word poverty’.‘Word poverty’ refers to the huge deficit in some children’s language skills in comparison with other children. Why would this be? In… Continue reading Now let us praise Jim Rose
While some of you are pondering the expenses claims put forward by Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, School and Families, and his ‘chippy defence of the SATs fiasco‘, you may want to know what the Policy Exchange report I posted about the other day had to say about Government policy during the… Continue reading Billions wasted on literacy strategy says Policy Exchange report
More news from npr. The recession in the the USA is causing huge anxiety for those whose reading skills are less than adequate. Apparently, the unemployed are filling up adult literacy programmes. It’s a particularly desperate time for those with only basic language (for which read ‘elementary reading’) and maths skills. One ‘Friends of Literacy’… Continue reading Can’t Read? No job!
Thanks to Susan Godsland of the RRF for the heads-up on a new report that launches a blistering attack on the Government’s education policy. It’s by the Policy Exchange, ‘an independent, non-partisan educational charity’, and it’s called: ‘Rising Marks, Falling Standards: an investigation into literacy, numeracy and science in primary and secondary schools’ by Tom… Continue reading ‘Rising Marks, Falling Standards’ – a report from Policy Exchange
Here’s an interesting success story from npr news station in the USA – ‘Child Spelling Prodigy Takes to World Stage’ . Fourteen-year-old Yulkendy Valdez went to live in the United States less than four years ago. At the time, she had no English. Her interviewer Michel Martin describes her as having learnt English faster than… Continue reading ‘Child Spelling Prodigy Takes to World Stage’
I wrote about cause and effect on a previous post. Here are some further thoughts. Every teaching approach to literacy used in schools that doesn’t work still probably ends up with about the same 50% of the pupil population being able to read. The practitioners who are trying to teach by these approaches can ALL… Continue reading More thoughts on cause and effect