Stanilas Dehaene, a leading neuroscientist, has researched how the brain learns. He has summarised his findings with the ‘four pillars of learning’. The first pillar is attention. Without attention we can’t learn. We need to focus on what is being learnt in order to absorb it. BUT – before attention – comes motivation. We need […]
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If asked, many early years and special school teachers would probably say that one of the first things children should learn is to recognise, and later write, their name. One single word, yet many children seem to find this difficult and it can take a surprisingly long time to achieve. The main reason for this […]
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“My child gets 10/10 on their spelling tests but then forgets their spellings when free writing.” This is a statement that I often hear from parents. In schools, children typically get a weekly spelling list which they practise and then get tested on at a single word level. The next week, they receive a new […]
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What do we mean by ‘sound it out’ and what does it entail? When a child gets stuck on a word we often remind them to ‘sound it out’. As fluent readers, we assume this is very straightforward. We recognise these words automatically and skip all the stages that beginner readers need to go through […]
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“Let’s make learning fun!” I always do a silent inner eye roll when I hear that phrase. The exclamation is loaded. Loaded with unspoken messages. The first message is that whatever we are currently doing with our pupils must be as dull as ditch water and needs jazzing up. We are urged to bring ‘magic’ […]
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We all mispronounce words from time to time, especially when they are unfamiliar to us. Speech and Language Pathologist Miriam Fein explores the important link between pronunciation and the development of vocabulary. Every once in a while someone starts a thread on Twitter about words that they mispronounced for a long time because they only encountered […]
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All too often, our classroom libraries offer a wonderful selection of fiction but only a limited amount of non-fiction. Why should we ensure that children have access to a wonderful range of non-fiction books? 1. Non-fiction books are fun Firstly, because so many non-fiction books published today are an absolute joy to read. With amazing […]
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How important is it to cultivate the love of reading in children? Decodable books are an essential part of a structured literacy approach, but they have a specific purpose. They are decodable exercises which students can use to practise the phonics skills they have learned. They are not designed to compete with the huge variety […]
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During mental health week, we think it is important to highlight the link between mental health and illiteracy. Illiteracy causes poor life outcomes, poor health, depression and poverty leading to crime. The Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychological Therapies at the University of East Anglia (UEA) has just reported on the global problem of poor […]
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Although systematic, synthetic phonics teaching programmes are now a mandatory part of the UK National Curriculum for schools, one of the questions we are most frequently asked is still, ‘What are decodable books?’. Phonic Books co-founder, Tami Reis-Frankfort, provides a brief clarification of the meaning of the term, and explains why decodable books are so […]
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