Sadly, Warwick Mansell’s piece in Monday’s Guardian rehearses all those old chestnuts about phonics teaching that have been discredited time without end. Although it makes some pretence at balance, it is shot through with the kind of ignorance about what phonics teaching is that one would normally find in the TES. Mansell tell us that… Continue reading Alas poor Warwick!
Two stories on the blogosphere worth browsing are: John Bald’s response to attacks on phonics in the TES (17 06 2011). One such condemnation can be found in a letter from Professor Colin Richards, Spark Bridge, Cumbria, entitled ‘One man’s jihad is just another man’s phonics’. Who is the humorist Colin Richards and I wonder… Continue reading Doing the rounds
Two weeks ago, I took time to have a look at Singapore approach to teaching maths at a one-day professional development course for teachers of maths. It was delivered by Dr Yeap Ban Har, who, according to the website mathz4kidzblog, worked for the ‘National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore for more than… Continue reading Singapore maths
Here‘s a super series of shorts giving a history of English in ten minutes. Man! Don’t ya just love the Open University! For those interested in debates around language, the OU’s Open Learn also offers a range of discussions.
I didn’t realise that we have our own version of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Apparently, The Times newspaper has been running the Times Spelling Bee competition, now in its third year. Having already come through the locals and the semi-finals, the eleven finalist teams fought out the Grand Final in the O2 Arena. The… Continue reading The Times Spelling Bee
This morning’s Today programme carried a short piece featuring Alex Bellos, author of the highly entertaining Alex’s Adventures in Numberland. Alex has been asked about his favourite number so many times, he decided to set up an online survey to find out if people have favourite numbers and what they are. Although he doesn’t have… Continue reading Off piste – favourite number
Sounds-Write now has a page on facebook.
Looks as if Tricia Millar has revamped her ThatReadingThing website. For years Tricia has been specialising in working with older children and young adults struggling with literacy and, as you’d expect with a linguistic phonic approach, Tricia is reporting very creditable gains for some of the young people trained using her programme.
What is it that participants in the Scripps National Spelling Bee worry about more than most? Why, the dreaded schwa, of course! What is a schwa and why would it cause problems for spellers? Well, to begin with, schwas are the most frequently occurring vowel sounds in the English language and they are always associated… Continue reading The dreaded schwa
It’s the time of year again when they sort the proverbial sheep from the goats at the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Though, if you watch video footage, courtesy of the Telegraph, you’d be hard pressed to find a single sheep, so prodigious are the contestants’ skills. Last year I reported that Anamika Veeramani, having tripped… Continue reading Simples!
