Month: October 2009

Maurice Sendak · The Fantastic Mr Fox · Where the Wild Things Are

Sendak tells parents worried about the film of his book to go to Where the Wild Things Are!

John2 Comments

Controversy has flared over the launch of Spike Jonze’s adaptation of the Maurice Sendak’s book Where the Wild Things Are.Like the book, first published in 1963, the row, or rumpus as the book might have it, has erupted because some parents are worried that the images in the film will frighten the bejesus out of… Continue reading Sendak tells parents worried about the film of his book to go to Where the Wild Things Are!

linguistic phonics · Sounds-Write · test results

Sounds-Write study on 1607 Key Stage 1 pupils in state primary school across the country.

John

The Sounds~Write linguistic phonic teaching programme was conceived and written in 2002/3. An essential component of the authors’ thinking about literacy tuition is that all teachers of literacy deserve high quality training. This is needed to help dispel the many myths and inaccuracies pervading teaching practices that stem from a variety of sources including: personal… Continue reading Sounds-Write study on 1607 Key Stage 1 pupils in state primary school across the country.

Low standards in education. Terry Leahy · Tesco

Standards in education ‘woefully low’, says Tesco boss Terry Leahy

John

The Guardian and The Independent are today both reporting Terry Leahy’s attack on Gordon Brown’s ‘woefully low’ standards in education.It’s the usual complaint – huge amounts of money spent for a very poor return – though for the UK’s largest private employer (Tesco) to voice such an outspoken attack is highly significant.Leahy claims that standards… Continue reading Standards in education ‘woefully low’, says Tesco boss Terry Leahy

David Crystal's blog · English Language Day · The English Language Project · Winchester

English Language Day

John

David Crystal is proposing that we give every language its ‘special day’. As he reminds us, we already have two: the European Day of Languages on 26th September and the World Mother-Tongue day on 21st February.Crystal’s posting on his blog has drawn attention to work done by the Winchester English Language Project, which will celebrate… Continue reading English Language Day

falling standards · professor Bernard Lamb

Lamb’s linguistic lament

John

In a report due to be published next month in the Queen’s English Society’s journal Quest, professor Bernard Lamb of Imperial College London claims that his British undergraduates made ‘three times as many grammatical, punctuation and spelling mistakes’ as his overseas students.The figures Lamb refers to are taken from a class of twenty-eight final-year undergraduates… Continue reading Lamb’s linguistic lament

Evidence-based practice

Personal beliefs or evidence-based practice?

John6 Comments

When I come into contact with practising teachers and teaching assistants on the Sounds-Write literacy training courses, I am constantly coming up against people who think that their personal opinion, based on nothing but their practice and beliefs, has the same validity as research in the field of teaching reading and spelling.According to Caroline Cox*,… Continue reading Personal beliefs or evidence-based practice?