http://www.parliament.scot/S5_PublicPet ... 1668_H.pdf*Petition Update* 'The Committee agreed to write to the Deputy First Minister and initial teacher education institutions
Anne's submission, link above, is essential reading not only for people living in Scotland, but for people living all across the world where the English language is taught via the written form.
Please read Anne's complete submission, it is not long, and here is a flavour of it, this is her introduction:
The scenario in Scotland is not untypical of other countries. We have shown through our IFERI forum and blog that the issue of teacher-training, and foundational literacy provision in our schools internationally is still not resolved.PE1668/H
Petitioner submission of 11 January 2018
While Mr Swinney may believe that Curriculum for Excellence is non-prescriptive, it does in fact promote mixed methods with its inclusion of sight words, letter names, context clues and multi-cueing – all of which have been shown through research to be detrimental to beginning readers. Currently, there is very little national guidance available to teachers in Scotland about beginning reading instruction. Rather than being led by research, teachers rely instead on commercial resources such as reading schemes and books. Simply repeating that teachers are empowered does not make it so. Teachers may have professional freedom to choose their methods, but they can only be truly empowered if they have the necessary knowledge of reading pedagogy, awareness of current reading research, an understanding of how children learn to read, and suitable resources to help them take this forward in the classroom. Without this knowledge, it is impossible for teachers to evaluate resources or tailor teaching effectively to suit classes or individuals.
A curricular approach should support teachers and children with the information they require. To prioritise the philosophy of a curriculum and teachers’ professionalism over children’s progress, indicates clear confusion on the part of the Deputy First Minister of the purpose of schooling in the first place. Society relies on us, parents rely on us, and indeed expect us, to teach their children to read. We are failing in this fundamental duty.
Please inform your friends and colleagues about the reading debate and point them in the direction of the IFERI site.
I have retweeted Anne's latest information with this comment - only time will tell if Scotland gets its teacher-training act together:
Anne, the position is that one should be able to hold those in authority to account with the hot information in your submissions. The question is, how does one truly achieve this? Are those in authority actually unaccountable? This is HUGE.