News & Information

One thing that all teachers agree on is how important it is to get children reading

Dandelion World Review

This is a testimonial by Ann Sullivan. Ann has over 30 years’ experience in mainstream and specialist education. Based in the UK, her career includes roles as a KS1 and KS2 class teacher, SEN secondary literacy teacher, school-based Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO), an advisory teacher for pupils with special educational needs and a Specialist […]

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How to…teach alternative spellings for vowel and consonant sounds

In our ‘how to…’ series we are going to delve into all things phonics instruction and give you our expert advice on developing confident readers. *** One of the difficult aspects of the English Alphabetic Code is that sounds (phonemes) can be spelled in different ways. For example, the sound /ae/ can be spelled ‘ai’ […]

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How to…teach high-frequency words

In our ‘how to…’ series we are going to delve into all things phonics instruction and give you our expert advice on developing confident readers. *** High-frequency words is another term for common words with tricky spellings, or high-frequency words with “irregular” spellings. The term “irregular” is a bit misleading because while beginner readers might […]

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How to…write a word chain

In our ‘how to…’ series we are going to delve into all things phonics instruction and give you our expert advice on developing confident readers. *** First, what is a word chain? A word chain is a list of words used to develop phonemic awareness skills: blending, segmenting and phoneme manipulation. These are the underlying […]

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How to…teach vocabulary when reading a decodable book

In our ‘how to…’ series we are going to delve into all things phonics instruction and give you our expert advice on developing confident readers. *** Decodable books often include target words that pupils may not know. There are many reasons why pupils may not know words in a text:  The word may be unusual. […]

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How to…dictate a sentence from a decodable book

In our ‘how to…’ series we are going to delve into all things phonics instruction and give you our expert advice on developing confident readers. *** Dictation is a great way to consolidate the bonds between reading and spelling. It is a controlled exercise where pupils can succeed because the teacher includes words with spellings […]

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How to…correct reading errors

In our ‘how to…’ series we are going to delve into all things phonics instruction and give you our expert advice on developing confident readers. *** One of the most important elements of learning is receiving error feedback (How We Learn, Dahaene). With every error feedback, the pupil can adjust their knowledge or skill and […]

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How to…stop students from guessing

In our ‘how to…’ series we are going to delve into all things phonics instruction and give you our expert advice on developing confident readers. *** Many pupils will have been encouraged to use guessing strategies by well-meaning teachers and tutors, such as guessing clues from the picture or the context, and/or skipping the word […]

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How to…read a non-fiction decodable book

In our ‘how to…’ series we are going to delve into all things phonics instruction and give you our expert advice on developing confident readers. *** Non-fiction decodable books are wonderful reading resources. They combine two essential parts of reading: word recognition (decoding) and world knowledge (language comprehension and subject vocabulary). Educators now recognise that […]

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