There has been huge political turmoil in the UK, and now at the time of posting this message, Rishi Sunak is the new Prime Minister replacing Liz Truss who was the PM only for a matter of weeks. Rishi Sunak has re-appointed Nick Gibb and Robert Halfon which is a very interesting development. It is d...

Read about the fantastic development in the US of parents fighting back in response to publishers' and academics' resistance to, and complaint of, Emily Hanford's 'Sold a Story' series. The link below is from the IFERI's 'Parent Forum': 21 November 2022 The Parent Response to "Opinion: A call f...

At the time of posting this parents' letter - with its growing number of signatories - journalist Emily Hanford's series ' Sold a Story ' is causing quite a stir in the United States. Bearing in mind that we have an international community, ripples of this development are travelling around the world...

Journalist, Emily Hanford, provides podcasts featuring the challenges faced in the USA to achieve research-informed instruction in all schools for all children: Sold a Story https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/ Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong There's an idea about how ...

Here is a later response by Greg Ashman: Motivated Reading and other peculiarities A coda to "Structured Word Inquiry fails a key test" https://fillingthepail.substack.com/p/motivated-reading-and-other-peculiarities ...Structured Word Inquiry is profoundly weird. Its proponents repeatedly ...

Professor Pamela Snow writes a post via her excellent, research-informed blog, in response to edu-political developments in Victoria: Once more for the people at the back 8 Oct 2022 https://pamelasnow.blogspot.com/2022/10/once-more-for-people-at-back.html It’s been a busy few weeks with respect to d...

Liberals $220m phonics focus aims to ‘end guesswork’ in learning to read Annika Smethurst and Adam Carey October 4, 2022 https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/liberals-220m-phonics-focus-aims-to-end-guesswork-in-learning-to-read-20221003-p5bmok.html?fbclid=IwAR0CteW0wZF-70SsmE1Yu_AiTCWw0CpZf8...

This article by Dr Sarah McGeown references the status quo in Scotland - and also that the lack of research-informed reading instruction is still an international issue: We have taken systematic synthetic phonics on as a universal way to teach children to decode, all within the big five areas of tea...

https://www.tes.com/magazine/analysis/general/embracing-hard-questions-over-reading-approaches-and-phonics This article in the TES by Henry Hepburn references Anne Glennie's petition. Anne is reaching a wider audience in Scotland - and must be commended for her continued efforts to inform teachers i...

Fantastic news from Tennessee described in this piece by Barbara Davidson via the Thomas Fordham Institute site! I have long since advocated that ALL teachers should be training in the reading science - not just early years and infant teachers! I constantly point out the teaching reading and spellin...