A very short message but a no less powerful one for that! Frances Woodward, one of our team of Sounds-Write trainers tells me that yesterday she finished another training at Potton Lower School in Bedfordshire. She was also able to pass on that she has just ‘finished a course in Potton, Beds. The school now has… Continue reading Potton Lower School in Bedfordhsire
Following on from my previous posting, I want to consider what the implications are for what our eyes are doing when we are learning to read? Certainly, because the span of fixations are more limited, the beginning reader needs more fixations and saccades to hold text in foveal view. This and the fact that publishers… Continue reading The Eyes to the Write (in English orthography)
To most competent readers, reading is something they do naturally, much like walking or talking: things we do that we have developed to the point of automaticity. Because we seem to be unable to look at text without gaining meaning, we are rarely aware of the cognitive processes that go into this most complex of… Continue reading The eyes have it!
The following is a short video of Dr Louisa Moats talking about how “spelling deserves much higher status in the attention of reading educators”. We, at Sounds-Write, have always argued this, which is why we have collected so much data on children’s spelling. Below is a verbatim transcript of why Dr Moats believes spelling is… Continue reading Dr Louisa Moats on spelling
The following post is what I intended to get across at the recent researchEd conference and didn’t have time to finish! The post covers some of the important issues raised by John Sweller, Paul Kirschner, John Hattie, Daniel Willingham, David Geary and others in a number of academic pieces published on human cognitive architecture and… Continue reading What human cognitive architecture has to tell us about instructional design in phonics teaching.
I’ve just been asked a question that comes up with unfailing regularity: what should the advice to parents be ‘if a school insists on students learning “key words” by sight and asks you as a parent to help’. The sad truth is that if a school is sending words home that are to be learnt… Continue reading Should key words be taught as ‘sight’ words?
I have recently been asked how many phonic patterns (sound-spelling correspondences) I would teach pupils in a half-hour session on average. Though at first sight this sounds pretty straightforward, in reality, it’s a complex question. I’m going to assume that the pupils are beginning readers, aged between four and five years. I’m also assuming that… Continue reading How many sound-spelling correspondences to teach in a phonics session?
The recent Ofsted report ‘How a sample of primary schools in Stoke-on-Trent teach pupils to read’ makes shocking reading. It is a small sample of only twelve primary schools (out of 77) in Stoke-on-Trent and yet the report declares that in seven out of that twelve, ‘reading was not taught well enough’ and that six… Continue reading The tip of the iceberg
This post has been written in response to a number of questions I’ve been asked or come across (especially on Mumsnet) asking what parents can do to prepare their children for learning to read and spell. The advice below is derived from my own experience in teaching my youngest daughter and my grandchildren, as well… Continue reading Stepping stones to beginning reading
This post arose out of a tweet I read this morning which said that ‘a friend had to read the first page of Oliver Twist aloud to university students because it was too difficult for them’. Thinking back to the time I was teaching literature courses at university, I also found that my students in… Continue reading Why can’t children read… Dickens?