In our ‘what is…’ series we’re taking things back to basics! From phonics to decoding, blending and more, we’re going to break things down and give you our expert advice on each area, to help answer any questions you may have around teaching reading. *** When fluent readers read, the words fly off the page. […]
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Yes, they do. Sounding out words is very taxing on a beginner reader’s working memory. If we think about it – children need to recognise the shape of the letter, attach a sound to it, hold that sound in their heads, do the same for the next letters in the word, blend the sounds into […]
Read MoreWe used to say “practice makes perfect”, but when it comes to memory “practice makes permanent”. We know that to get good at anything, we need to perfect and improve our skills, and this is done through repetition and rehearsal at each stage of learning. In order to learn we need to store the learning […]
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There are many phonics programmes to choose from. Here is what these programmes need to offer to deliver explicit, systematic, structured, and successful reading instruction for all children. 1. Clear scope and sequence: the Alphabetic Code is complex, and it is imperative that it is introduced in a systematic way – starting with the simple […]
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What is Set for Variability? Set for Variability is a cognitive flip that we do when we mispronounce a new word, and we need to try a different pronunciation to fit in that word. A classic example is when a learner reads the word ‘head’ as ‘heed’. They are misapplying their phonic knowledge to this […]
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Research has shown that children lose the equivalent of one month of learning over the summer. Many children experienced learning loss during the pandemic, so it is important that we help to keep children reading throughout the summer to prevent this additional summer slide. Here are ten ideas to keep children reading over the summer […]
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Find out all you need to know about the Phonic Books Dandelion Series Check out our leaflet to find out more about our Dandelion Series and to answer any questions you may have: What is decoding? What are decodable books? Why Phonic Books decodable books? What is the scope and sequence? What titles are in […]
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For children to comprehend a text, they need to read it fluently. If the reading is disfluent, the reader will struggle to hold onto all the information to comprehend a sentence or paragraph. We know that reading fluency has three components, as seen above: Accuracy – children need to be able to read words accurately. […]
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It is not uncommon for reading interventionists to encounter students who try to use words within words as a spelling strategy. Some teachers may think that helping students remember how to spell a word that they can already spell, e.g. the word ‘hat’ may be useful to teach the word ‘that’. They then teach the […]
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Scarborough’s Reading Rope is a wonderful theoretical framework for describing the complexity of reading and what we need to teach children in order to become fluent readers who can comprehend a text successfully. Decoding is on one branch of the rope, and language comprehension is on the other branch. These become increasingly intertwined as children […]
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