What to do about 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...
View ArticleSlow Writing at #researchED primary literacy conference
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...
View ArticleScaffolding: what we can learn from the metaphor
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...
View ArticleReading difficulty is a teaching problem not an intelligence problem
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...
View ArticleCan phonics help us spell better?
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...
View ArticleIs our behaviour a choice?
Arguments about free will date back to ancient Greece, but the scientific consensus now tends towards the belief that free will is an illusion. It's become an article of faith in the life sciences that...
View ArticleLeading literacy in schools
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....
View ArticleWhy do some children struggle with reading?
Janet and bloody John! When I was about 7, my primary school teacher told my parents that I would probably never learn to read. Apparently, the suspicion was that I might be mentally subnormal. My...
View ArticleHow to explain… structured discussion
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...
View ArticleConstructivism is not a pedagogy
So-called ‘educational innovations’ in which the teacher assumes the role of 'facilitator, mentor or coach' do not appear to be very successful. Nevertheless, 'constructivist' ideas are still popular...
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