“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 months ago everything changed. Covid-19 crashed into our consciousness and schools were closed for all but a few pupils. Ever since, school teachers […]
Covid-19 and the Literacy ‘Matthew Effect’ Read More »
This academic year, over at Teach Secondary, I have the great pleasure of sharing a ‘Vocabulary Clinic’ article each month. It is a quick burst of vocabulary ideas and insights. You can find PDF copies freely available to download from my RESOURCES PAGE. I’m delighted to say that there have been over 50,000 downloads of my
A version of this article was originally published in the excellent ‘Teach Secondary‘ magazine – you can subscribe HERE. It is well worth a read! Controversies and complaints about spelling are centuries old. In his Preface to ‘A Dictionary of the English Language’, in 1755, Samuel Johnson derided writers for their “ignorance or negligence”. Today,
Spelling: Avoiding Ignorance and Negligence Read More »
So I *might* have mentioned this already, but I have gone and written a book – published officially this Friday! ‘Closing the Vocabulary Gap’ has proven a labour of love for the last eighteen months of my life and I’m proud to get a hold of it and send it out into the world. You
Closing the Vocabulary Gap Resources Read More »
A 10-year-old child who is a good reader will encounter something like 1 million words a year (around 12 novels), but crucially, approximately 20,000 of those words will prove unfamiliar (Oakhill et al. 2015). It is important then to support our pupils to develop an array of independent word learning strategies to explore and to
7 Strategies to Explore Unfamiliar Vocabulary Read More »
(This article was first published in Teach Secondary Magazine. You can subscribe HERE) How could a group of crossword puzzle champions save the world? Such a startling question has a very British answer, and it should inspire teachers everywhere. During WWII, at Bletchley Park, a collection of academics and other intelligent folk became ordinary heroes,
Cracking the Academic Code Read More »
