One of the best aspects of my job is when I get to observe other practitioners in action. I’ve been very lucky to have such generous colleagues. This is the story of the first time I saw someone using Reading Recovery. Yes, it’s a story, an anecdote, and therefore not data, please bear that in […]
Reading Recovery: first impressions of bad teaching Read More »
A report on Dr. Steven Dykstra’s talk at The Reading League Third Annual Conference in Syracuse on October 19th 2019. In his biographical notes on the International Foundation for Effective Reading Instruction website, Steve states: As a psychologist with over 25 years of experience, working in an urban setting with the most challenging and difficult mental
“Hey Dumbass!” The marketing problem in the Reading Wars Read More »
If parental input is driving your system’s success, there’s something wrong with your system Chilli was a 9 year old boy who couldn’t read or write. He’d been issued with the same type of take-home readers and magic ‘sight word’ list that everyone else in his class had been issued with, year in, year out,
The Home-Learning/Literacy Myth Read More »
Tutor Puppy-Farms: Find the right tree to bark up It’s true that many children have missed out on vital parts of their education over the last two years. My own dyslexic daughter completed her final education certificate mostly via Zoom and though concessions for the pandemic were on offer, she still missed out on gaining
Tutor Puppy-Farms: Find the right tree to bark up Read More »
Being an independent specialist practitioner affords me a unique view. We’re all working in a coal mine, but I’m the one who looks after the canaries. When something isn’t being done right, it’s the population I deal with that suffers first and hardest. Over the years, I’ve seen the casualties of low quality instruction in
Canaries in the Coalmine: Insights from private tuition Read More »
Writing for Life Online With high quality initial instruction, the majority of children can learn to read, regardless of diagnosis. But what about writing? Achievement of accurate, fluent written expression requires instruction and practice far beyond that needed for reading. Partly as a result of this, the value of high quality, early writing instruction can
The Multiplier Effect Read More »