Why, at Sounds-Write, do we begin our teaching with word-building? There are three main reasons: we are teaching children that spellings stand for sounds in the language; we are teaching them specifically which particular spellings stand for the particular sounds in the words we are going to be using; and, we are teaching the skill… Continue reading Why do we emphasise segmenting skills more than blending in learning to read and write?

    Just over a week ago on the Today programme ( 22/10/18), the BBC ran a piece on an up-and-coming rugby union star (Christian Wade) in England who has decided to pull up stakes and try his hand at American Football. Presumably, because they couldn’t interview the man himself, they spoke instead to someone… Continue reading The Switch

This post is a reprise of a post I wrote in February 2016. As its subject matter seems to crop up all the time in discussions about phonics teaching, I thought it would be helpful to re-post it. What do people mean when they talk about ‘regular’ and ‘irregular’ spellings? ‘Regular’, as the dictionary definition… Continue reading The ill-conceived idea of ‘regular’ and ‘irregular’ spelling – a reprise

  There has been much talk recently about how successful various approaches to the teaching of reading are. At Sounds-Write, we encourage schools using our programme to give their pupils a spelling test. The reason for this is that spelling is highly likely to give a much more accurate picture of a pupil’s literacy than… Continue reading A class act – St George’s Church of England Primary School.

Having been round the literacy block a few times, I did permit myself a smile when I read the title of the paper by Anne Castles et al ‘Ending the Reading Wars: Reading Acquisition from Novice to Expert.’ Good luck with that, I thought. And, sure enough, who should pop up with an anti-phonics/anti-Phonics Screening… Continue reading Exploding myths – imploding arguments