Comprehension is only as good as one’s vocabulary. So, is there any point in comprehension exercises? Should we be focusing on building meaningful vocabulary? Read this thought-provoking blog by Solomon Kingsworth. https://medium.com/@solomon_teach/small-is-beautiful-part-two-5fe2cd58f1fc
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Do you have children who spell the word ‘jumped’ as ‘jumpt’, and ‘wanted’ as ‘wantid’? This is because they are listening to the sounds at the ends of words. After all, we tell them to listen to sounds when they spell. Sometimes, it is very helpful to bring a bit of morphology into the teaching […]
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Do your children forget spellings from one week to the next? Many teachers issue spelling lists each week only to find that a week or two down the road the children have already forgotten them. At Phonic Books we believe that teaching children the first 300 high-frequency words in a way that links up with […]
Read MoreIn the context of reading instruction, the ‘Matthew effect’ is the idea that children who learn to read in the first three years of their education become increasingly fluent readers. They read more and learn more vocabulary, which enables them to even read more and comprehend more-advanced texts – so they advance further. Conversely, children […]
Read MoreI have just started to teach a struggling reader in Year 1. The first thing I observed from my assessment was that she did not use pure phonic sounds, also known as ‘precise pronunciation’. Many of the consonants were pronounced with an added ‘uh’ sound: for example, /k/ was pronounced ‘kuh’ and /p/ was pronounced […]
Read MoreIs it dangerous to assume that a child who has not had parental input is less able? Are we setting low expectations from the very beginning? Quirky Teacher presents some important arguments about making assumptions about pupil ability in Early Years assessment. https://thequirkyteacher.wordpress.com/2017/05/13/its-as-if-the-parents-dont-exist/
Read MoreWhen asked how they teach reading, many teachers pride themselves that they are teaching ‘balanced literacy’ in their classroom. This idea seems to imply that they are covering all the approaches their pupils may need to learn to read. But what is ‘balanced literacy?’ Can it be defined or measured? Read this article by Professor […]
Read MoreIt is that time of year again and the Year 1 Phonics Check is looming. It will take place this year during the week commencing June 12th. There had been a lot of criticism about the check in general but specifically about the nonsense, ‘alien words’ in the check that children are asked to decode. […]
Read MoreIt is really important to teach reading and spelling together so that children can see that reading is decoding letters into sounds and spelling is encoding sounds into letters. In short, they are reverse activities. This way children learn how the English language alphabetic code actually works. It also means that from the beginning, children […]
Read MoreHigh-frequency words are common words in the English language. Many teachers believe that it is useful for children to learn to read and spell these words as soon as possible. The problem is that many of these words have complex spellings. This means that children may find it difficult to read and spell them until […]
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