I can’t help thinking that Sue Palmer, the literacy consultant and author of Toxic Childhood, doth protest too much, too often. This time she’s complaining about the government’s new EYFS writing targets. Just to be sure what we’re talking about, the target in reading is for children ‘to read and understand simple sentences. They use… Continue reading Sue Palmer – too much, too often
It’s the time of the year once again for the WOTY! What’s this, you wonder? WOTY is the Word of the Year, each year decided on by the AmericanDialect Society. At the annual conference in Portland, Oregon, Ben Zimmer* is chairing the New Words Committee, which decides on the WOTY. This year’s nominations (from Zimmer’s VisualThesaurus)… Continue reading Jabberwoty
Graeme Paton in yesterday’s Telegraph has headlined Nick Gibb’s latest attempts to raise standards in reading by reporting him as saying that ‘all children should read Harry Potter by 11’. At first blush, it sounds nauseatingly off-putting. Another prescriptive injunction delivered in a tweetable sound-bite by a government minister! Actually, as you read on, you… Continue reading Reading Harry Potter by 11
This morning on Radio 4 Melvyn Bragg began the first in the series ‘The Written World’. He starts by saying what I always begin every Sounds-Write training with: that writing is ‘the most important idea that anyone has ever had’. Bragg then goes on to talk about the development of writing systems. What he doesn’t do… Continue reading The Written World
With thanks to LW-B
Someone on the Reading Reform Foundation website recently asked what were the differences between linguistic and synthetic phonics. Although some people claim that the differences between linguistic phonics and synthetic phonics are minimal, I would contend that they are enormous and, furthermore, that these differences have profound consequences for teaching and learning. To begin with, the… Continue reading Linguistic versus synthetic phonics
In memory of Christopher Eric Hitchens, 1949-2011, writer and permanent oppositionist.
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!
Following on from my previous posting, although the Y1 phonics screening test should literally be ‘child’s play’ for pupils taught using a good quality phonics programme, it looks very much as if it won’t be much fun for the 73% of schools not teaching phonics well. For them, the check is going to come as an unpleasant… Continue reading That Y1 phonics screening test again
At the end of last week the Standards and Testing agency of the DfE sent out to schools its ‘Y1 phonics screening check’, and I have to say that it is great news for Sounds-Write. It is proposed that the test will consist in a sample list of forty words. The structure will be as… Continue reading New Y1 phonics screening check – child’s play!