1. Step-by-step You don’t need to teach the whole alphabet to get reading going. Start with a few letters and get children to build words with them. Our series starts with the sounds s, a, t, i, m. 2. Word-building […]

How to use decodable books Decodable books are controlled texts that beginner readers can read independently once they have been taught the spellings in the text.  Children learning to read with phonics benefit from reading decodable texts because they allow […]

Director, Clair Baker and Frances Woodward of Forward with Phonics have spent the last couple of weeks training teachers and volunteers in Lusaka and Mongu, Zambia in the Sounds-Write Reading and Spelling Programme. Many of the attendees were volunteers who are […]

Comprehension is only as good as one’s vocabulary. So, is there any point in comprehension exercises? Should we be focusing on building meaningful vocabulary? Read this thought-provoking blog by Solomon Kingsworth.   https://medium.com/@solomon_teach/small-is-beautiful-part-two-5fe2cd58f1fc

Do you have children who spell the word ‘jumped’ – like this: ‘jumpt’ and ‘wanted’ like this: ‘wantid’? This is because they are listening to the sound/s at the end of the word. This is because we tell them to […]

Do your children forget spellings from one week to the next? Many teachers issue spelling lists each week only to find that a week or two down the road the children have already forgotten them. At Phonic Books we believe […]

The Scottish Learning Festival 19th – 20th September, Hall 4, Glasgow SEC TES SEN Show 5th – 6th October, The Business Design Centre, London Dyslexia Scotland, Education Conference 27th October, University of Strathcylde, Technology and Innnovation Centre, Glasgow The Education […]

Talisman Card Games 11-20 have just been awarded a silver award from Primary Teacher.  These are beautifully illustrated card games that not only develop reading skills, but social skills too.  The Primary Teacher award gets teachers to try out and […]

What is ‘The Matthew effect’ when it comes to reading instruction? This idea (mooted by Keith Stanovich) is that children who learn to read in the first three years of their education become fluent readers. They read more, learn more […]

  Many schools took part in this year’s ‘Name an alien’ competition and we have been overwhelmed at the response to it and really impressed with the effort the children have made. It was really difficult to choose just 20 […]

I have just started to teach a struggling reader  in Year 1.  The first thing I observed from my assessment was that she did not use ‘pure phonic sounds’, also known as ‘precise pronunciation’.  Many of the consonants were pronounced […]

Is it dangerous to assume that a child who has not had parental input is less able?  Are we setting low expectations from the very beginning? Quirky Teacher presents some important arguments about making assumptions about pupil ability in Early […]