Published July 2016, these statements regarding professional development for teachers demonstrate the interest and commitment of the Department for Education for teachers' professional development:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... evelopment

There is an ongoing theme of TV producers meaning well, but promoting Reading Recovery which is looking like not such a good idea! In Australia, talented lady, Delta Goodrem, is cast as a Reading Recovery teacher which is already causing some alarm! Here is a thread dedicated to TV programmes promot...

Tanya Forbes gave me permission to share her message on this forum as she, too, noted that Delta is going to be cast as a Reading Recovery teacher. Tanya wrote the message below to another forum: This was brought to my attention last week and I have written to the producers regarding casting Delta a...

Greg Ashman flags up worries about a TV soap in Australia in which a glamorous lady is going to be portrayed as a 'Reading Recovery' teacher, see here:


https://gregashman.wordpress.com/2016/0 ... y-teacher/

Justine Greening's first article in her new role as Secretary of State for Education:

https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/br ... hout-state

Education secretary Justine Greening: ‘I wouldn’t be in this job without state education’

There's no way to get round the fact that English spelling requires a great deal of specific knowledge about specific spellings for specific words. It's a bit of a quagmire. But, there are ways to increase the likelihood of learners paying attention to the way that words are spelt and therefore to i...

Hi Dick, you said: A child who can read all 40 items on the "Phonics Reading Check" does not require any additional instruction in reading, per se. I'm afraid I cannot entirely agree with you regarding your comment above, although you may well be right that children reading all 40 items ar...

Professors James Chapman and William Tunmer have had an article on Reading Recovery published online in the Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties. It's now available here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19404158.2016.1202847. Discussion Schwartz’s response to Chapman and Tunmer’s ...

Abigail Steel provides good explanations of three top phonics myths: Eliminate These Top Three Phonics Myths From Your Mind http://www.blackberryphonicstraining.com/home/eliminate-these-top-three-phonics-myths-from-your-mind?platform=hootsuite 1) Phonics kills the love of reading 2) Phonics is only ...

Very interesting piece in The Conversation about a research project combining phonics skills alongside Big Book reading: https://theconversation.com/teaching-phonics-skills-alongside-reading-raises-literacy-achievement-among-indigenous-children-62166?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%2...