“Perhaps one of the mistakes in the past efforts to improve reading achievement has been the removal of struggle. As a profession, we may have made reading tasks too easy. We do …
The Problem with Reading Informational Texts
Let’s start with a little reading… Is it familiar? The ‘Way of the Dodo’ text lives in infamy as a SATS 2016 reading paper extract that was so difficult that it made some pupils cry. It …
Arguing about English
Everyone has an opinion on the teaching of English, its curriculum, along with our national qualifications. Not just teachers: parents, policy makers, and pupils, all have an argument at the ready. Of …
Supporting Secondary School Literacy
Never in the field of school leadership has so much been expected, with so little time, as the role of literacy coordinator.
The ‘Language Leap’ at Transition
The importance of tending to pupils at the transition between primary and secondary school is well-established. The obvious focus, understandably, attends to the pastoral needs of pupils: making them feel safe and …
Does reading *really* matter in mathematics?
Every teacher recognises that every subject is mediated by reading skill, but it matters in some more than others, right? Does it really matter that much in maths? When I speak to teachers, or …
Five Things I Wish I’d Known About Literacy
When I started teaching nearly two decades ago, I was a teacher of reading, writing, vocabulary, academic talk, and more. The problem was that I could do reading and writing, but I …
Do We Need to Sort Out Silent Reading?
DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) or ERIC (Everyone Reads in Class) are very common approaches to independent reading that occur each week in countless schools. They are part of the fabric of …
Covid-19 and the Literacy ‘Matthew Effect’
“For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Matthew, 25:29 Six …
5 Helpful Websites on Reading for Teachers
There are vast array of brilliant websites about reading that would help teachers of all stripes in their daily work. Some cover useful reading materials, whereas others dig into the science of …