As an afterthought: when I piloted the S-W prog. at St Thomas Aquinas, there was a reception child who was quite obviously to all simply not ready to take part. She would sit on the teacher's knee and watch the other children taking part in the lessons until she got bored and wandered off to play in...

Jenny, my apologies to you. I know that you know what we're saying because, from previous discussions, I know you've read the report. I was in a bit of a hurry and fired off a quick reply. Your logic is impeccable! Frankly, I don't know whether the fact that this 18.6% ([1607 divided by 299] X 100) ...

We didn't say that 18.6% of children weren't ready intellectually to score on the test, Jenny. We said that we don't know why they didn't. As for knowing whether they're ready, you don't know until you test, and the reason why we test is to find out something rather than rely on anecdotal evidence. ...

First, Debbie, I agree with you that handwriting is still not being given the attention it so richly deserves. We didn't pay enough attention to it in the beginning - mainly because schools are so precious about their particular handwriting systems that it seemed futile to swim against the stream. H...

As we wrote in our 'Report to schools: longitudinal study of literacy development from 2003-2009, following 1607 pupils through Key Stage 1' Autumn 2009): http://www.sounds-write.co.uk/docs/sounds_write_research_report_2009.pdf There is nothing controversial about the fact that individuals vary in r...

I’m sure there’s a lot in what you say, Jenny. What I am seeing is that many schools do a bit of phonics at the level of one sound-one letter and then send home the usual ORT/Ginn/etc books home with the children. Plus ça change! Teachers lack of knowledge might also explain why, when a mother told ...

I gave a talk on Sounds-Write to the Central Beds psychology team last week and they were wholly onside, not to say enthusiastic, about the importance of teaching phonics. They must have read that working party report, Derrie.

My advice to any parent seeking help for children who have fallen behind in their reading and spelling is to ask the questions posed by Diane McGuinness on page 348 of Why Children Can't Read.

Thanks, Yvonne! I hadn't read the 'findings of the project team' until you flagged them up.
I think you've said all there is to say on the subject.

Eclecticism still rules! In the three primary schools in my home town, all the evidence is - and I'm going on what local parents tell me and the books their children bring home - that early years practitioners are doing what they've always done: they teach the sound of the week, or, if they're a bit...

Hi Geraldine, Actually there was a more blatant example still of the TES's wilful misrepresentation of phonics teaching in their Insight section (page 25). There, a whole page has been devoted to Olivia O'Sullivan, from the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education, who has written a piece entitled '...

Yes, Jim. I think you might have forgotten that Sounds-Write too has also been contributing to the promotion of synthetic phonics of the linguistic kind in both the Republic and in Northern Ireland these past eight years.

Debbie, I wasn't going to tell anyone this story but, in the end, I can't resist. It's all blood under the bridge now anyway but, when we first started Sounds-Write, we exchanged correspondence with Greg Brooks. He wrote to us saying that he believed that about 75% of words were readily decodable (i...

Jenny, for reasons debated many times previously I think there are good grounds for teaching from sound to print rather than the other way round. However, I don't particularly want to disagree with your interpretation of Brooks' points of view. The problem here though is that he's hedging his bets o...

I'm just over half way through Ms Birbalsingh's book and I have to say that I was very annoyed at the ad hominem attack on her last week in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/mar/05/katharibne-birbalsingh-tory-teacher-aladin). The op-ed, penned by Fiona Millar, Toby Young and Fra...