The vocabulary gap is perhaps more difficult to spot at Key Stage 3 than it is in the earlier years. By this stage, students will have 7 years of schooling under their belt, yet, when questioned directly, will struggle to define words they should be very familiar with by now. Exacerbated by Covid interruptions, teachers are faced […]
Read more Literacy is essential at all ages and stages of development. Working in a forward-thinking school, we are aiming to put literacy at the heart of the curriculum as it is the scaffold underpinning learning and understanding in all subjects. However, after a grilling from year 10, I found that teaching etymology wasn’t necessarily having the […]
Read more Keep the bigger picture in view The image of the Reading Rope is a powerful one. As a primary school teacher for 20 years, I worked to twist together the fibres to build and strengthen the rope with the aim of sending pupils to secondary school fully able to access the curriculum. Now, working at […]
Read more Most teachers will tell you that the longer you remain in education the more you feel: training, professional development dialogue and staff CPD goes in cycles. New variations of past ideas emerge and make you question two things: one how old you feel and two, why you didn’t pursue these ideas when they first emerged? […]
Read more I am a teacher working in a school which is in a deprived area of Portsmouth, England. As Lead of Phonics and Reading, I am really keen to promote language skills within the school, as the children who start nursery and school in this area come with very limited language. As is the case for […]
Read more I was appointed as Language for Learning Lead at Icknield Community College in September 2016 with a broad rather vague brief. ICC is an Oxfordshire academy of 700 11-16yr olds on roll with lower than national average FSM, EAL and SEN cohorts. Building on my predecessor’s legacy, I continued to deliver a ‘word-of-the-week’ to tutors […]
Read more As a graduate in both English Language and Literature, I always had a vague notion that vocabulary development was best undertaken through reading a variety of texts and encountering new words in context. I assumed that vocabulary could be built merely by using context clues and by encouraging pupils to read for pleasure. We would […]
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As if Covid didn’t present enough problems – we have noticed a frightening increase in the number of students who have completely disengaged with reading. I blame the pandemic for this because the National Literacy Trust’s annual survey found: ‘some children and young people reported that a lack of access to books (with schools and […]
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In ‘ Bridging the Word Gap at Transition: The Oxford Language Report 2020 ’ the team of researchers found that students transitioning from primary to secondary school are exposed to up to four times as much new vocabulary as at primary school. Compound this with the existing challenges around literacy skills and reading ages, COVID gaps and the emotional challenges of transition and it is easy to […]
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I arrived to the school as a new member of staff in September under the banner of Assistant Head teacher for English and (that somewhat abstract concept) literacy. So much drew me to the school but one big driving force was that the school had established itself as a ‘reading school.’ Hours before my interview […]
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