Recorded excerpt about the importance of non-fiction as 'background knowledge': Why Background Knowledge is Crucial for Literacy An excerpt of "Reading Reconsidered" by Doug Lemov, Colleen Driggs and Erica Woolway http://educationnext.org/background-knowledge-doug-lemov-reading-reconsidere...

We feature Pamela's blog, 'The Snow Report' here:

http://www.iferi.org/iferi_forum/viewforum.php?f=6

Professor Pamela Snow writes yet another pertinent blog posting on the topic of the reality of teacher knowledge, literacy provision in schools and levels of literacy: http://pamelasnow.blogspot.co.uk Explaining or justifying literacy instruction? In their piece on The Conversation this morning, Que...

By courtesy of the mentalfloss.com site: http://mentalfloss.com/article/56821/9-fun-facts-about-schwa We all know that English spelling is rarely a good guide to pronunciation. One big reason for this is the prevalence of schwa in the spoken language. That’s why dictionaries and other written guides...

Greg's thoughts on: 'Let's focus on the disadvantaged' https://gregashman.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/lets-focus-on-the-disadvantaged/ When we talk about education, we need to focus on the needs of those who lack the most. Many innovations make a nice-looking decoration to add to the top of a solid, ac...

In adversity, we can grow and teach others the way forwards: https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/palestinian-teacher-wins-million-dollar-global-teacher-prize Palestinian teacher wins million-dollar global teacher prize Hanan Al Hroub recognised with 'Nobel-style' award A Palestinian t...

HeatherF on:

'Phonics - is there much evidence?'

https://heatherfblog.wordpress.com/2014 ... -evidence/

Further, HeatherF on:

The EEF - is this the best we can do?

https://heatherfblog.wordpress.com/2016 ... we-can-do/

Nick Gibb's speech 'Schools as engines of social mobility' (March 2016) again emphasises the need for 'systematic synthetic phonics': https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/schools-as-the-engines-of-social-mobility It would be interesting to compare speeches with other leading figures in education i...

Greg writes about 'The Educational Collective' following some interesting issues raised by Andrew Old via his blog (see the link within Greg's post): https://gregashman.wordpress.com/2016/03/13/the-educational-collective/comment-page-1/#comment-2207 I've added a 'readers comment' because I'd like to...

Thanks to Susan Godsland for flagging up this piece on research findings regarding 'eyesight': http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32836733 Dyslexia not linked to eyesight, says study By Sean Coughlan Dyslexia is not linked to any problems with eyesight, say researchers. Teams from Bristol and Newca...