Josie Mingay was one of the RRF conference speakers. I am Literacy Leader at a large secondary school in South West London. Based in the SEN department, I deliver Literacy lessons to a wide range of students from Year 7 to 11 and co-ordinate a number of whole-school Literacy programmes across the sc...

I can only suggest you go to my twitter account https://twitter.com/SusanGodsland and look at my tweets& replies from yesterday.

Another review of Willingham's book: http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/bookreview/raising-kids-who-read-what-parents-and-teachers-can-do But it’s comprehension that may be the most complicated aspect of reading. As Willingham persuasively argues, reading comprehension is heavily depe...

Discussion on twitter last night and Elizabeth Nonweiler joined in. She'd been to see her local Labour candidate that day to discuss Labour's policies on literacy and phonics. She learnt that: Lab has no plans to scrap phonics check or alter NC. Will let changes 'bed in'. This is good news, especial...

https://news.tes.co.uk/b/tes-professional/2015/04/09/slim-down-the-curriculum-to-ensure-success-for-disadvantaged-students-says-primary-head.aspx “As an experienced professional, I view the idea of a narrow curriculum with disdain and fear. Yet I have to face reality: without the appropriate academi...

Prof. Greg Brooks attended the conference. He left some leaflets behind advertising his latest book:

Dictionary of the British English Spelling System.

You can purchase a copy in various formats but it's also available to view for free, online.

http://www.openbookpublishers.com/reader/325

Alec Mahony: Labour Should Stand Up For Literacy http://www.labourteachers.org.uk/labour-should-stand-up-for-literacy-alecmahony/ I knew that words are made up of sounds and letters represent sounds. So I decided to start teaching these things and as if by magic the lads started to read. How was thi...

A couple of quotes from Dick on that thread If you you have “no problem with phonics,” “it was always there,” and so on, then why aren’t all kids passing the Check? 32 out of 40 is actually a pretty low cut score. That is, any capable reading can breeze through all of the 40 words, and the pseudo-wo...

It's not all sweetness and light :mrgreen: Jules Daulby: Mother Courage of the Reading Wars I am not against phonics – I say that despite being labelled a phonics denialist. I teach phonics. I know my phoneme from my grapheme, I can split a digraph (or diagraff as my daughter calls it) at 40 paces, ...

Fab blog from Katie Ashford, English teacher and Director of Inclusion at Michaela Community School.

How can we increase a child's vocabulary?

https://tabularasaeducation.wordpress.c ... /03/vocab/

Janet Downs 'grandparent':

'School Reform Minister, Nick Gibb, talks about phonics and gets it wrong again'

http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2 ... ong-again/

Excellent decision, Joan

Look forward to seeing you on Saturday.

'Too many pupils in Stoke-on-Trent getting an inadequate education, with schools not improving rapidly enough'

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/stok ... ys-schools

Jenny, Project X CODE was the version used in Oxford. See my post on this thread:

www.rrf.org.uk/messageforum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5430

Yesterday, on twitter, 'mao' flagged up this Oxford Mail story: http://m.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/11779558.Education_boss_warns_that_Oxford_children_left____unable_to_read____after_schools_project_fails/ A SCHEME set up by Oxford City Council to improve reading in primary schools has been dubbed a “sha...