You’ve got to give credit to Graeme Paton. He is nothing if not dogged. When it comes to trying to get something done about the numbers of children being unable to read and write, persistence is a key attribute. Yesterday, he revealed that around ‘15 per cent of children in England have reading skills no… Continue reading Paton – tly obvious!
In an interview for a BBC news item about phonics with Reeta Chakrabarti, Christine Richmond, from Cannon Lane First School, said that, ‘anything that comes into schools that is going to allow children who are not achieving to be picked up by schools has got to be a good thing.’ Now, it’s not that I… Continue reading Why are advocates of phonics so defensive?
Yesterday’s Radio 4 programme carried a fascinating little piece on the work of Dr Paul Tench, a retired linguist from Cardiff University. Paul has been helping the Shanjo people of Zambia to develop a writing system for the first time. The twenty thousand or so Shanjo people are but one group in a country of 13.5 million… Continue reading They used to hunt animals
National Public Radio (npr) in the USA are currently running a piece on recommended ‘Freshmen common reads’. These are books many colleges and universities ask their new intake of students to read over the summer and be prepared to talk about in the first week of the first semester on campus. Npr have been asking… Continue reading Freshmen common reads
Talking of cognitive connections, my friend Ginny has just directed me to this! Looks as if some of the kids are not making the kind of cognitive connections we’d want!
David Crystal has posted a couple of noteworthy pieces on his blog just lately. One is ‘On linguistic apps’, in which he points readers in the direction of a grammar app from the Survey of English Usage at University College London. According to David, ‘it’s called iGE, the interactive Grammar of English, and it’s available… Continue reading Crystal clear
I have to admit that it’s a bit nerdy of me to return from holiday – not really! I was doing an intensive course in Spanish – and direct readers to Diacritics, a blog I discovered through Mr Verb. The latest posting by John Stokes asks the question: ‘Why are humans smart? Language and LEGOs’.… Continue reading Language and LEGO? Where’s the connection?