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Constructivism is not a pedagogy

Jun 03, 2020 | Category: literacy

An article by Sarah Bergsen, Erik Meester, Paul Kirschner and Anna BosmanSo-called ‘educational innovations’ in which the teacher assumes the role of 'facilitator, mentor or coach' do not appear to be...

How to explain... structured discussion

Nov 09, 2018 | Category: literacy

Over the years I have become increasingly convinced that there is something particularly cognitively 'sticky' about speech. We are more likely to remember that which we have said than that which we ha...

#academic langugae #structured discussion

Why do some children struggle with reading?

Sep 20, 2018 | Category: literacy

[caption id="attachment_66637" align="alignleft" width="300"] Janet and bloody John![/caption]When I was about 7, my primary school teacher told my parents that I would probably never learn to read. A...

#Reading #dyslexia

Leading literacy in schools

Apr 25, 2018 | Category: literacy

Leading on literacy can be a thoroughly thankless task. It can often feel like you’re working incredibly hard to produce resources and strategies which colleagues at best ignore and at worst resent. P...

#literacy #Teachology

Can phonics help us spell better?

Jun 12, 2016 | Category: literacy

Children's author and high-profile opponent of phonics instruction, Michael Rosen recently wrote this blog casting doubt on the idea that learning phonics could help people spell. He was writing in re...

#phonics #Michael Rosen #Debbie Hepplewhite

Reading difficulty is a teaching problem not an intelligence problem

Feb 04, 2016 | Category: literacy

Education is a technology that tries to make up for what the human mind is innately bad at. Children don’t have to go to school to learn how to walk, talk, recognize objects, or remember the personal...

#glue ear #Keith Stanovich #phonics

Scaffolding: what we can learn from the metaphor

May 11, 2015 | Category: literacy

Pretty much everyone agrees scaffolding students' work is a 'good thing'. Whenever they get stuck we leap in with our trusty writing frames and help them get going. A good writing frame can teach an u...

#scaffolding

Slow Writing at #researchED primary literacy conference

Apr 25, 2015 | Category: literacy

Here are the slides I used during my researchED presentation on Slow Writing (including some we didn't get around to looking at due to my rambling incoherence.) If you want to read more about it, do...

What to do about literacy

Apr 15, 2015 | Category: literacy

Over the last couple of years I've visited over 100 schools and practically none of them have got literacy right. Now obviously I only get asked to talk to schools who feel they can improve - maybe th...

#literacy

Closing the language gap: Building vocabulary

Nov 16, 2014 | Category: literacy

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew, upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. Lord Byron Like most teachers, as soon as pupils ar...