Today, yet again we see a London newspaper highlighting yet another attempt to put a tiny piece of sticking plaster on what seems to be the ever festering sore of illiteracy in schools. The London Evening Standard reports that university students are being sent in to five London secondary schools to provide ‘urgent’ help for… Continue reading Illiteracy in London secondary schools? It’s Standard practice.
Last week in the oxforddictionaries blog, professor Simon Horobin posed the question ‘Does spelling matter?’ and, in truth, it’s very hard to answer largely because it is so multidimensional. One of the most immediate and obvious of problems when dealing with correct spelling is the seemingly enormous amount of emotional investment people have in the… Continue reading Does spelling matter?
If there’s one thing The United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) never misses, it’s the opportunity to attack approaches to teaching all children to read and spell successfully and from the moment they enter school. Of course, I’m talking about good quality phonics approaches and, in particular, linguistic phonic approaches, such as Sounds-Write or Fiona Nevola’s… Continue reading The LB gives UKLA F for PSC