Most teachers approach teaching in a child-centred way so dictation goes against the grain.  It may seem old-fashioned and yes, a bit dictatorial.  But actually, is it a really powerful tool which is particularly useful for struggling or emerging readers […]

So, we are resuming our campaign to change the way teachers send home spelling lists every week using the LOOK, WRITE, COVER, CHECK approach.  Why doesn’t it work with so many children? Many children have a poor visual memory and […]

This year I have a number of students in Year 5 and 6 who are fluent readers.  Their problem is spelling.  Typically they may spell a word with all the correct letters that are in the wrong order, e.g. ‘nitgh’ […]

Before children can begin to read and spell multisyllabic words they need to get a feel for what a syllable is – for what a ‘mouthful of a word’ is. If they have had systematic phonics instruction they may find […]

What is a syllable and why we should teach children about it A syllable is a part of a word that contains sounds (phonemes) of a word. It usually has a vowel in it. A syllable is also called a […]

Many of my students at the Bloomfield Learning Centre have difficulty remembering the complex alternative spellings of sounds in English.  The problem is they don’t hold on to what they have learned.  The teacher may teach <ai> and the next […]

Do you have children. who. r-ea-d. l-ike. th-i-s? How can we get children to read fluently? So firstly, why do we need to read fluently? We need to read fluently because it is difficult to understand what we are reading […]

  We have just received this independent review from Teach Primary Magazine.  The review is available online.  See link below. Phonic Books – That Dog! for catch-up readers across the school. At a glance: • Age appropriate, synthetic phonic catch-up […]

We’re delighted to see that our latest series That Dog! is being used by the Sounds-write Reading Centre. These modern-day stories with contemporary illustrations are designed to engage older readers and follow the same phonic progression as our Magic Belt […]

Do you teach ‘silent letters’? Read what the Literacy Blog has to say about them.   http://www.thereadingcentre.com/2011/11/26/silent-letters/

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 […]