The BBC has reported that Zhou Youguang, the man who brought literacy to millions in China after the communist victory in 1949, died on Saturday 14thJanuary, a day after celebrating his 111th birthday. After working as a Wall Street banker, Zhou decided, in 1949, to return to China to help with rebuilding the country. In… Continue reading Zhou Youguang, inventor of Pinyin
This week’s TES is reporting that the chief inspector of Estyn (the Welsh equivalent of Ofsted) Ann Keane has just published a report claiming that 40% of pupils starting secondary school in Wales do so with a reading age of six months below their chronological age. What I would like to know is how she… Continue reading Welsh education – ‘producerism’s last hurrah’!
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 (24/02/10) BBC news and The Scotsman reported the appalling statistics from a Scottish government report on the number of children failing to achieve ‘expected standards’ in writing. The figure is a stunning 66%. The figure for reading – 60% failing to reach ‘expected standards’ – is nearly as bad.Meanwhile, the Scottish education secretary, Michael… Continue reading Report finds two thirds of Scottish children can’t write
