Many years ago, I developed a taste for the novels of Graham Greene and, although I didn’t find his tale The Quiet American (1955) as enthralling as some of his others, nevertheless, a phrase from the book has always reverberated in my mind. It’s a complex meditation on the changing order of power relations in, particularly… Continue reading Meaning no harm…?
A question that comes up repeatedly in regard to adult readers’ fluent reading is whether such fluent readers recognise whole words as ‘sight words’ or process through words so fast that it falls below the level of their conscious attention, rendering them unaware of what’s going on. In short, the answer is the latter! Just… Continue reading Do fluent, adult readers read whole words as ‘sight words’? Nooooooooooooo
I know that many teachers will not appreciate me starting this hare, especially when we, at Sounds-Write, have coded lots of words with split spellings and, to boot, we also have a terrific lesson for teaching them, but I wanted to give us something to think about. Having said that, I want to state firmly… Continue reading Why the split spelling cracks me up
Did you listen to Michael Rosen’s Radio 4 programme ‘Word of Mouth’ on Tuesday afternoon? This one in the series was about the alphabet and, as is usual in these programmes, Michael had invited two academics – Dr Laura Wright and Professor Nils Langer – to talk about the subject. Langer got the ball rolling by making… Continue reading By word of mouth to the alphabet