Here we are in the last term of school and soon the summer will be upon us. It is really important that during this summer, the ‘summer slump’ of learning loss will not add to the learning loss that has […]

Multisensory  learning is when a child uses a number of senses to experience a learning activity.  This could be seeing, hearing and touching or manipulating letters.  We experience the world with our senses and these allow  us to absorb and  […]

What are homophones? Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings.  The word ‘homophone’ has a Greek origin.  ‘Homo’ meaning ‘same’ and ‘phone’ meaning ‘sound’.  So, the word ‘homophone’ means a same-sounding words that have different meanings.  […]

Many teachers are now using decodable books to help their beginner readers practice the phonics taught in the classroom lessons.  This is because it is now accepted that decodable texts, which are controlled texts, help children develop decoding, and decoding […]

The verb ‘to dictate’ is not one that teachers warm to.  This is because we love to foster creativity in our children and to get them to write their own ideas.  BUT when teaching children how to read and spell […]

When I trained to be a teacher in one of the best universities in London, I learned a great deal about the wonderful world of books, how to select quality picture books and spot racially biased books, and even how […]

Scaffolding the teaching of multisyllabic words –  simple to complex Many teachers are focused on teaching children how to sound out graphemes (spellings) and to blend sounds together into words.  They will even be teaching children how to manipulate phonemes […]

Often when I read with a pupil, I need to remind her/him (and myself) to point to the words.  As fluent readers we don’t point to words on the page, but sometimes if we come across a difficult or new […]

Beginner readers need a great deal of practice.  Where possible, sending home decodable books is an important opportunity for reading practice.  It is difficult for the teacher or teaching assistant to hear every child read every day or even every […]

Word chains are really important for all children learning to read, especially struggling readers. Some programmes call this activity ‘Sound swap’ (Sounds-Write) or ‘Switch it’ (Reading Simplified). Why word chains are a useful teaching tool Word chains offer children practice […]

I recently listened to a webinar by Dr Susan Brady and there some really important points I wanted to summarise for busy teachers. Focus what is supported by evidence to accelerate learning We are now racing against time to reverse […]

Decodable books have a very specific and limited purpose in the process of learning to read.  They provide reading practice as children learn to use the sound/letter correspondences they have been taught, and the strategy of blending sounds throughout the […]