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Tell publishers to stop selling predictable texts!
Someone from a major educational publisher rang me today to extol the virtues of their new range of decodable texts. I think she was hoping I might help promote them.I’ve had a look at their...
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New year, same crappy old Education Department advice
In 2018, my state’s Department of Education and Training (DET) produced a brochure for parents called “Literacy and numeracy tips to help your child every day”. Its top recommendation for “Helping...
View ArticleTelling the Spelfabet story
You might have seen the recent, excellent guest posts on La Trobe University academic Emina McLean’s blog by teachers, telling their stories about discovering the science of reading. If you haven’t...
View ArticleTHRASS: the phonics of Whole Language
People often ask my opinion of the THRASS (Teaching Handwriting, Reading and Spelling Skills) approach, which has long been used in many Australian schools. Till now I’ve mostly replied that I’m no...
View ArticleThe Phonics Patch on ABC iView
Someone recently asked me why I’m not a fan of the phonics English mini-lessons on ABC iView. They seem to me to demonstrate what American Public Media journalist Emily Hanford calls “The Phonics...
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ABC iView Learn A Word
I don’t know who advises our national broadcaster on the content of its early literacy education videos, but I find them pretty underwhelming. Please don’t show children in your care the Learn A Word...
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Is Reading Eggs all it’s cracked up to be? (boom tish)
After my last blog post about the new Reading Eggs – Fast Phonics program, its activity that looked exactly like a Nessy activity suddenly got new graphics. Then someone asked me why I’m not a fan of...
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Marketing reading science
I was glued, green-eyed to Twitter a couple of weeks ago for tweets about the US Reading League’s conference, wondering whether Greta Thunberg and the polar bears would forgive me if I planted 40 trees...
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Four cheers for Emily Hanford
American Public Media journalist Emily Hanford has made some accessible, powerful and widely-discussed documentaries about the gap between reading science and classroom practice in the US. It’s a gap...
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We need GOOD practice, not common practice
I wrote an opinion piece in The Age newspaper this week called “Premier’s Reading Challenge no fun for kids who can’t read“, arguing we need to close the gap between research and practice in early...
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Petition to dump Reading Recovery and Leveled Literacy Intervention
If you’re in Australia’s state of Victoria you might have seen yesterday’s article in The Age online about a new petition to remove Reading Recovery and Leveled Literacy Intervention from our...
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Running Records are an uninformative waste of teacher time
I’ve been doing lots of assessment of my clients’ skills in the following areas lately: Receptive and/or expressive language Articulation Phonological awareness Phonological/auditory memory Rapid...
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Fact and fiction with Mem Fox
On telly’s Today show last week, celebrated children’s fiction author Mem Fox talked about the importance of reading to children, something with which absolutely everyone agrees. Mem Fox’s missionary...
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Free Learning Difficulties Including Dyslexia webinars
La Trobe University and the Victorian Department of Education have this year collaborated to run workshops across Victoria about learning difficulties including dyslexia. The workshops have been...
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Balanced Literacy: phonics lipstick is not enough
The ACARA media release on the latest NAPLAN data says, “compared with 2016, there is no improvement in average results across the country that is significant”. Sigh. So many teachers working so hard...
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Try learning a new alphabet yourself
I have a quick workshop activity which gives adults a small taste of what it’s like for children beginning to learn to use a new alphabet. I’ve decided to make it available to my gentle blog-readers to...
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Multi-cueing: teaching the habits of poor readers
I’m mentioned in The Age newspaper today because as usual I’ve been talking to anyone who will listen about the need for more and better phonemic awareness and phonics teaching for beginning and...
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Levelled books for guided reading
The books young children are typically given at school are called “Levelled Books”, which are used in class for “guided reading” or “shared reading”, where a teacher and a group of children read a book...
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Sorry, all kids deserve the gold standard
The excellent Lorraine Hammond, President of Learning Difficulties Australia, was on Radio National’s Life Matters program this morning, with the unenviable task of explaining how children learn to...
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Seven things to consider before you buy into phonics programs
I’ve just written a comment in response to today’s article in The Conversation called “Seven things to consider before you buy into phonics programs” by Senior Lecturer in Language, Literacy and TESL...
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