The announcement of this year’s SATs results has generated the usual furore over how to interpret them. The DfE’s‘First Statistical Release’ states that: The percentage of pupils achieving the expected level, level 4 or above, in the 2012 Key Stage 2 reading tests in all schools increased by 3 percentage points from 84 per cent… Continue reading SATs stats
Susan Godsland’s eagle eye in detecting references to the teaching of reading has spotted one buried inside a podcast by Mark Henderson and published in theguardian online, which she’s posted as a new thread on the RRF here. The podcast, ‘The Geek Manifesto: why science matters’, is based on Henderson’s recently published book (2012) of… Continue reading Ballad of a thin-king man. We’re the geeks on this one!
There’s an opinion piece published in the TES today (20 04 2012) in the ‘What keeps me awake at night’ column, imploring Mr Gibb to ‘read up on phonics’. Sadly, it’s yet another witless little anti-phonics diatribe from another benighted simpleton who advertises his ignorance of what phonics is from the start. He tells us… Continue reading What keeps the anti-phonics lobby awake at night
In large part this new report has been motivated by the need to respond to a growing tide of complaints from employers’ organisations and from higher education institutions about the standards of literacy of school leavers. There is also a growing awareness that, in the globalised world in which this country operates, other countries have… Continue reading That Ofsted report – ‘Moving English forward’
Reflections on the statement by the DfE that only 27% of schools use phonics systematically:Peter Crome, professor of geriatric medicine at Keele University and chair of the National Audit of Dementia, was talking on Radio 4 this morning about the Audit’s findings. As I listened, I heard him say that the ‘policies were in place,… Continue reading Policy in place, practice not undertaken!
I quite like Rod Liddle’s column every week in the Spectator. He usually makes me laugh. Sometimes out loud! This week began as no exception. In ‘My daughter’s end-of-term report confirms that she is being taught by alien reptiles‘, he got the ball rolling by deprecating the ‘vacuous propaganda’ emitted by teacher training institutions before… Continue reading A Liddle knowledge is a dangerous thing!
Last week I criticised the reporting in the TES of the government-commissioned Tickell report for its zeal in attempting to discredit phonics as an approach to teaching young children to read. The latest offering from the TES (Friday 8th April) is more subtle in its disingenuousness. It plays cleverly on what it senses – I… Continue reading Embedded phonics? What embedded phonics?
Not content with traducing phonics on its front page, the TES also decided to devote their ‘Insight’ section of Friday’s paper (page 25) to Olivia O’Sullivan in order to do another caricature. O’Sullivan has penned a piece entitled ‘Wood a child tawt to reed using phonix alone notis anything wrong with this hedline?’ Like the… Continue reading Wud a litrasy expurt no a gud cwalitee phonix program if thay sore won?
I’ve long thought that, when it comes to the teaching of reading and spelling, the TES simply hasn’t got a clue what it is talking about. Never does it miss the opportunity to denigrate the teaching of phonics, even though the evidence in favour of a phonics approach is overwhelming. Yesterday (Friday 1 April 2011),… Continue reading Tickelled pink?
For a long time now I’ve been thinking seriously about why it is so difficult for phonics advocates to bring about change in the way in which we teach children in English speaking countries to read and spell. The answer, of course, is complicated but one reason that seems to present itself more forcefully than… Continue reading Rocket science? It is almost!