If you tuned in to the Radio 4 Today programme this morning, you would have heard Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, debating the relevance of phonics in teaching children to read with Greg Wallace, executive principal of the Best Start Federation of primary schools in Hackney. After being… Continue reading Bousted? A busted flush!
As reported by the Guardian, the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee, on which I always have a few words to say (here, here and here), has been won this year by Snigdha Nandipati, a fourteen-year-old from San Diego. Funnily enough, the word she won the competition with reminds me of just how daft are the… Continue reading The annual Scripps National Spelling Bee
This week’s TES treats us to yet more phonics fantasy, this time in the ‘Comment’ section of the paper. In a review of the Radio 4 two-part documentary ‘Reading between the lines’ by Michael Morpurgo, Adi Bloom displays the kind of ignorance about phonics and phonics teaching to which the practitioners have become all too… Continue reading Adi’s red physiognomy
If you haven’t yet come across David Crystal’s blog, you might want to look at his thoughts on texting acronyms and their effects or rather non effects on the language. And if you’re not interested in rofling, there’s bound to turn up something of interest for anyone curious about language usage. Quirky, precise, always entertaining, and… Continue reading Crystal LOLing at Rofling!
Aren’t you just sick of listening to ministers like Leighton Andrews telling us all how rosy everything in the garden is going to be with a bit of ‘upskilling’? Apparently, Welsh pupils are going to be the latest beneficiaries of the ‘excellent teaching of literacy’ that Mr Andrews is going to bring in. There’s that… Continue reading 2015? It’s still too late, Leighton!
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!
I see that Michael Rosen has been ‘sounding off’, if you’ll excuse the pun, on his blog about phonics again. It is really rather baffling that someone who is clearly very inquisitive and who actually listens carefully to the people he interviews and talks to on his Radio 4 programme ‘Word of Mouth’ should be… Continue reading Rosen unwound
http://www.ccpixel.net/2009/09/eye-reflection/ In the latest issue of the Eye, there’s a lovely little satire on teachers and reading: TEACHERS PROTEST AT HAVING TO TEACH CHILDREN TO READby Our Education Staff Michael WhiteboardBRITAIN’s top teaching union, NOTREAD (the National organisation of Teaching Representatives, Educationalists and Deputies) last night voted unanimously to go on strike against government… Continue reading Teachers under surveillance
What is it with these heads that can’t stop crossing themselves and averring that they are not going to tell six-year-olds they are failures? As if any teacher in their right mind would declare a child a failure if they didn’t pass a test, any test. If anyone is declared a failure, it ought to… Continue reading Another head teacher takes the pledge
I had to smile the other day. I was listening to programme on Radio 4 reporting on the Home Affairs Committee, which happened to be hearing evidence about an inquiry into drugs by the police, when who should pop up but Russell Brand? Regardless of the content of what Mr Brand had to say, and… Continue reading Brand? but by no means bland!