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? […]
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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 moreI 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 moreAs 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 […]
Read moreAs 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 […]
Read moreIn ‘ 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 […]
Read moreI 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 […]
Read moreI will forever remember the academic year 2020-21. Not for the lockdowns, or the bubbles bursting; not for the lateral flow tests or constant sanitising; not for the masks and visors, or contact tracing. No, as memorable as Covid has been, I will remember, with relish, the year marking as we know it we came […]
Read moreEach workbook in the Get It Right: Boost Your Vocabulary series offers targeted support for exanding students’ vocabulary and addressing the word gap by exploring ambitious words in context and unpicking layers of meaning, resulting in more confident readers and articulate writers. Here are five reasons why your school should try the Get It Right: […]
Read moreWhat Lemov makes clear here is that there is something important happening when we share reading, indeed not a singular something but a whole bunch of somethings. The complexity of reading has been well documented (Scarborough’s reading rope makes this very clear). Through the reading process, our students are acquiring vocabulary, developing phonological and grammatical […]
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