That was the cry of the 900+ educators from all over the world who converged in Syracuse, New York this week for The Reading League’s Third Annual Conference. The theme, as we sailed off into two days of incredibly high quality professional development, was about sharing knowledge in the best possible way so that everyone …

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats: Part One of The Reading League 2019 conference debrief Read More »

Emily Hanford sure is a hard act to follow (see part one). Luckily, those who did follow were outstanding. Conferences are always a joy, but coupled with it is the terrible fear of missing out (FOMO). Delegates have to regretfully choose between concurrent presentations. Presenters have to present at the same time as big names. …

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats: Part Two of The Reading League 2019 conference debrief Read More »

I once met a woman at a conference who seemed very nice. It was a big conference and comprised many of the leading lights in literacy and education. She told me she provided dyslexia tutoring and also that she was an Irlen practitioner. I expressed surprise that she would be present at an event that …

Through a Faulty Lens 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 »

The word ‘demand’ can certainly raise some emotions in people. I have been using it liberally lately in my writing and presentations and I’m finding that there is a little bit of knee-jerk, if not deliberate, misinterpretation of the term. Let’s start with my quote, recently uploaded to Dyslexia Support Australia and Dyslexia Victoria Support …

Demand and Supply: These are not dirty words Read More »

“In real science, one is eventually influenced by the evidence.” Keith Stanovich (2000) Once upon a time, it was widely believed that the Earth was flat. Many ancient cultures portrayed the world as being a flat surface and this belief survived until Pythagoras and the like started proving otherwise in the 6thcentury BC. Through the …

The Flat Earth and Teaching Reading Read More »

Why an over-focus on “blends” could be slowing reading and spelling progress. Working 1:1 with primary school children allows me to monitor teaching trends in my local area. This micro-sample is often an indicator of general tendencies in teaching on a larger scale and I try to confirm, as much as possible, the extent of …

Round the Blend Read More »