The theme of the conference this year will be ‘WASTE’
Speakers arranged so far:
Rhona Johnston
Professor of Psychology at the University of Hull, joint researcher on the famous Clackmannanshire project
which proved beyond all doubt that synthetic phonics is much more effective than other types of phonics teaching.
Dr. Marlynne Grant
Chartered educational psychologist and author of the high quality phonics programme, Sound Discovery.
Lorna Jackson
Headteacher of Maryland Primary School, Newham. A premier synthetic phonics programme is used
throughout the school from nursery onwards. In the 2006 KS1 SATs, 83% of pupils who
had received phonics teaching from YR achieved level 2+.
Katie Ivens
Co-founder and Education Director of the Butterfly Saturday Reading School; 150 children aged between
5yrs and 12yrs are taught to read through phonics in classes held on Saturday mornings. Adult literacy is also taught.
Marj Newbury
Reception teacher and foundation stage co-ordinator at Byron Primary School, Bradford; 98 per cent of the pupils are Muslim
and speak English as an additional language. She has been using synthetic phonics extremely successfully for 14 years.
Jim Curran
Trained as an educational psychologist, has taught at secondary level for 33 years.
Jim is manager of the Special Education Unit, De La Salle High school in Downpatrick, N. Ireland.
Diane McGuinness
Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Florida, a world authority on synthetic phonics and author of
the influential book, 'Why Children Can't Read'.
Fiona Nevola
Former Head of English in two schools over a period of fourteen years, author of the
outstanding phonics intervention programme, the Sound Reading System, which is being used
in Young Offenders institutions among other places.
Who should attend?
Anyone who is concerned about education and literacy, i.e. teachers from all sectors of education,
parents, carers, teaching assistants, head teachers, local authority advisors, teaching consultants,
those working in the prison service, academics, publishers, journalists, policy advisors, members of parliament ...
About the Reading Reform Foundation (RRF)
The Reading Reform Foundation is a non-profit-making organisation. It was founded by educators and researchers
who were concerned about the high functional illiteracy rates among children and adults in the United Kingdom
and in the English-speaking world. It was set up in 1989 to promote the teaching of the
alphabetic code in a research-based way, and this remains its main aim.
Click HERE to return to the RRF Home Page