Really bad arguments made by a headteacher (and then published in the TES) to convince people to vote for the incoming SoS to scrap the phonics screening check https://www.tes.co.uk/news/school-news/breaking-views/scrap-phonics-checks-ditch-performance-related-pay-and-streamline If you were Secretar...

An update for 2015:

http://whatkidsarereading.co.uk/

Previous discussion of The Dyslexia Debate

The Dyslexia Debate returns

http://www.rrf.org.uk/messageforum/view ... f=1&t=5930

Synthetic phonics advocates who attended the rEDliteracy conference may have seen Prof Steve Higgins' talk. Here are his talk slides https://www.dropbox.com/s/96rqsfe68z589cd/ResearchEd_London_25Apr15.pptx?dl=0 On slide 16 he states that spelling should be ''taught separately and explicitly'' Any co...

If you've £4.20 to spare and are interested in 'dyslexia' then I suggest you get a pdf copy of The Psychology of Education Review Vol 39 No 1 Spring 2015 This issue is an Open Dialogue edition discussing Julian Elliott's book The Dyslexia Debate. http://shop.bps.org.uk/publications/the-psychology-of...

Literacy standards decline in Scottish schools

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/11 ... hools.html

Here's the full report on the literacy of Scottish kids.

http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0047/00475921.pdf

To save everyone the trouble of visiting the website with its extremely annoying and intrusive adverts, here is Elizabeth Nonweiler's reassuring reply to Becky Morris: Becky, I was interested to read your post and would like to comment on some of what you have written. In the Phonics Check, the chil...

http://www.nottinghampost.com/Becky-Morris-Does-year-old-really-need-phonics/story-26374665-detail/story.html (warning: really annoying adverts) Becky Morris, community liaison manager at the Holgate Academy family of schools in Hucknall, wonders about the wisdom of testing five-year-olds on phonics...

An Australian academic has given a link to this paper by Misty Andoniou, to read in preparation for an online discussion-details here: https://cpezaro.wordpress.com/portfolio/jc2-what-should-teachers-know-about-spelling-adoniou-m-2013/ What should teachers know about spelling? https://cpezaro.files....

Download an evaluation report of the project from this page:
http://www.springboard.org.uk/pages/en/soundcheck.html

Seems it uses Dyslexia Action's 'Active Literacy Kit'
http://www.dyslexiaactionshop.co.uk/act ... TEX1PAercg

Anne Glennie, who spoke at the RRF conference, has an article in the TESS today. Bring on the reading wars https://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=11006970 This is quite at odds with how we operate in Scotland, and quite different from how we approach the teaching of early reading. We have the ...

Sound strategy for pupils who fail the phonics check https://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storyCode=11006964 A reading programme designed by experts in dyslexia can significantly boost the skills of all children who fail the controversial new phonics check, research reveals. The government-funded appr...

I suggest that if anyone is unsure whether to use a particular synthetic phonics programme or undertake a training, they look to see if it was included in the Pro 5 Phonics 2014 catalogue. Although no longer valid for match-funding, all the included products/training were scrutinized carefully by an...

I've had a quick look: http://www.directphonics.co.uk/index2.htm I see sight words, onsets (adjacent consonants) and some muddle ''They learn words with the following new phonemes: oa, ai, ou, a-e, o-e, i-e, u-e, ur, igh, oi, ea(d), aw, ir, ew, or, oy'' oy/oi, igh/i-e, ir/ur.... are different spelli...

The evidence is accumulating: Does early schooling narrow outcome gaps for advantaged and disadvantaged children? http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775715000199 We find that an early school start generally improves children’s cognitive skills, which is even more pronounced for di...