http://www.learningspy.co.uk/literacy/can-phonics-help-us-spell-better/ An excellent rebuttal of Rosen's ill-founded and snide critique. Given that Rosen has been haunting David's blog, with increasingly ill-natured comments, I must admit I also thoroughly enjoyed David's conclusion: "I’m going to b...

I am wondering if there is any chance that academising primaries might actually improve phonics teaching in some schools, perhaps because they are no longer linked to LEAs, or become part of a chain that exposes them to other influences besides what other local schools are doing?

I forgot to say the increase also applies for level 3 (it's level 2 I'm talking about above).

The number of pupils who achieved the higher Level 3 in their reading has moved from a steady plateau of 25/26% in 2007-2011, to 31% this year - again in regular annual increments.

This is from a post I've written elsewhere. The figures are taken from DoE reports of keystage 1 results for each relevant year. "Reading comprehension scores, as measured at the end of Key Stage 1, have risen from their previous plateau, particularly among SEN children: Number of children achieving...

Thanks for all the replies! I suspected it must now be funded from pupil premium or similar, but wanted to make sure. My enquiry was prompted by reading about a school where the SENCO was also the reading recovery teacher.. .I wonder how many there are of those?

Hi, does anyone know the answer to this? Thanks.

I don't know whether this was one huge lie that this was going on or that he knows some particularly idiotic heads. I remember that. He used the word "some" headteachers, and was careful not to specify an actual number. Of course, given that there are 17,000 primary schools in England, it's quite p...

Excellent critique, Debbie. I hope you are sending a copy to the magazine in question. Rosen is a master of rhetorical technique, and the art of implying fallacious or unsupported ideas in a way that allows him a strategic retreat or sidestep if challenged. Most people simply don't recognise how the...

I love the fact that "writing reports in science" is an innovation ...unfortunately in many primary schools it would be, with comic strips and posters, or groupwork with one pupil acting as scribe being preferred as more "engaging" .

Apparently the Bristol PGCE tutors were still rubbishing phonics as recently as 2011, according to this blog:

http://mrbunkeredu.wordpress.com/2015/0 ... d-told-me/

Jenny, I think it may just have been speculation. You make a good point about the difficulty of keeping track.

Oh, right, thanks Kenm. I'd forgotten about the dip. It's just that when I recently encountered the explanation that some teachers were just stopping the test at 32 (to "save time" or whatever), I was embarrassed to realise that idea hadn't occurred to me! However, I suppose there is no reason why b...

I thought the non-cheating explanation for the spike - that some teachers were just stopping the test as soon as child hit 32 mark - sounded plausible?

They are selling Henrietta Dombey's view of phonics in their publications section:

https://www.clpe.org.uk/publication/17

And an excellent response to the piece from The Quirky Teacher: http://thequirkyteacher.wordpress.com/2014/10/18/why-there-is-no-reading-for-pleasure-anymore/ Guided reading sessions tend to be half an hour every day. In my experience, they are the most stressful and noisy sessions in the primary ti...