Aus: 'A new skirmish in the reading wars: Teachers take on the department' (Prof Robyn Ewing)

[Debbie_Hepplewhite]

Here we go again... in the Sydney Morning Herald:

A new skirmish in the reading wars: Teachers take on the department

by Jordan Baker

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/a-n ... b6dd538b3c

[Debbie_Hepplewhite]

Professor Pamela Snow responds to the paper written by Professor Robyn Ewing:

An academic union: Perpetuating myths about phonics instruction

http://pamelasnow.blogspot.com/2018/07/ ... myths.html

Poor old phonics. It really is the Cinderella of reading instruction. No-one gets up in the morning to have a debate about the importance of vocabulary, or comprehension, or fluency, or narrative language ability. Even morphology, a long-overlooked, but vitally important part of learning to read a morpho-phonemic language such as English, is beginning to come in from the cold, and not before time. But phonics, it seems can only manage a conditional presence in some early years classrooms and initial teacher education; and even then, it is relegated to metaphorical floor-scrubbing and never quite makes it to the ball.
This has been reinforced this week by the publication of a report authored by Professor Robyn Ewing of the University of Sydney, commissioned by the New South Wales Branch of the Teachers Federation[1]. That unions are investing skin in the pedagogical game is in itself notable, and an unabashed further policisation of the reading debate. You can download a copy of the Ewing-Union report from the NSW Teachers Federation website.

[Debbie_Hepplewhite]

John Walker of 'Sounds-Write' responds to Professor Robyn Ewing's paper via his 'The Literacy Blog' here:

Exploding myths - imploding arguments

https://theliteracyblog.com/2018/07/29/ ... arguments/

Having been round the literacy block a few times, I did permit myself a smile when I read the title of the paper by Anne Castles et al ‘Ending the Reading Wars: Reading Acquisition from Novice to Expert.’ Good luck with that, I thought. And, sure enough, who should pop up with an anti-phonics/anti-Phonics Screening Check publication but Robyn Ewing, professor of teacher education and the arts at Sydney University.

[Debbie_Hepplewhite]

I'm adding a link here to the 'phonics debate' in which Professor Robyn Ewing took part:

http://www.iferi.org/iferi_forum/viewto ... f=3&t=1044