Literacy, early literacy, literacy in the primary school, early writing, early reading, phonics, spelling
The Guardian, 9 Oct 2021. Michael Rosen (poet, author, performer, parent, Ph.D. in education) has written to the new Education Secretary in the UK, asking why the last decade of synthetic phonics hasn’t improved reading in England. An important letter for Australian teachers to consider, given the push (largely by non-educators) for synthetic phonics in Australia.
Dr Peter Bowers, 2021. Structured Word Inquiry (SWI) teachers grapheme-phoneme correspondences more explicitly than phonics does: An open letter to Jennifer Buckingham and the reading research community.
EducationHQ News, 3 Dec 2020. The role of the teacher librarian is changing, but is more important now than every before. Developing a love of reading is vital and so is the need for children to learn to effectively steer their way towards factual, reliable and safe content.
The PETAA website has some outstanding resources for teaching. I highly recommend the teaching and learning progression on sustainability, which spans from pre-school to Year 8. Click here Hayes, J. & Parkin, B. (2020). The language of climate change science: a teaching and learning progression. Newtown, NSW: PETAA.
PETAA (Primary English Teaching Association of Australia) publishes many excellent units of work. Check their website regularly. The Language of Climate Change Science: a preschool to Year 8 teaching and learning progression
The Age, 31 April 2020. A $30m federal government direct instruction literacy program has failed to boost literacy and schools report a significant decline in attendance. Year 3 NAPLAN scores in school with the program declined by 23.43 points, compared with school without the program where results increased by 4.47 points. A House of Reps standing committee recommendation no further funding, but Minister Dan Tehan extended it.
Education Matters, 3 March 2020. A new study investigates the links between handwriting and other literacy skills in young children, highlighting that the (hand)written word should be the way of the future rather than a shift to paperless schools.
National Council of Teachers of English, 5 Dec 2019. The NCTE is a significant professional association devoted to improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education. This short position paper from NCTE is a must-read. The act of reading is always embedded in purposeful, meaningful activity at all levels. Even pre-school children learn naturally this way (just as my 3 year old…
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Professor Roessingh, The Conversation, 5 Nov 2019. The miracle of the hand-brain connection lies at the existential core of what it means to be human – that is, to have developed as tool makers and language users.
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