Ruth’s Blog: Handwriting Alert
Entry – and most exit – strokes hinder children’s handwriting I invented mnemonic phrases to help children form letters correctly. For example, “Round the dinosaur’s bottom, up his neck and down to his feet,” reminds them how to write the letter ‘d’. As the children write the letter they say the phrase and then […]
Ruth’s Blog: The Right Brain for Reading
Take two eight year-olds, Jack and Daisy: same age, but years apart in reading ability. Jack loves reading. He’s always got a book with him and reads it under the table when he thinks his teacher isn’t looking. By the end of a story he’s reading at over 200 words a minute, he writes prolifically […]
Ruth’s Blog: Whoopsy Daisy
Me: How’s Daisy doing? Mark: Not very well, actually. She’s in the bottom group. We’ve just had her end of Year 2 report – it says she’s great at maths but not at reading. The teacher thinks she’s probably dyslexic. Me: Do you listen to Daisy read? Mark: We try, but she doesn’t want to. She hates reading. […]
Ruth’s Blog: Why book bands block children’s reading progress
You’re creating a new reading programme. The first question you ask yourself is, ‘How can I get all children to read as quickly as possible?’ You know that the more quickly they learn to read, the sooner they’ll read fabulous books for themselves. You want the success of your reading programme to be judged on the speed of […]
Guest Blog: Should we teach phonemic awareness?
By Jennifer Chew In his 1994 book The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker, an eminent American professor of linguistics, points out that in casual speech, phonemes are uttered at the rate of 10-15 per second. He also writes that ‘Each phoneme’s sound signature is colored by the phonemes that come before and after, sometimes to the point of […]
Ruth’s Blog: Cursive Handwriting in Reception – or not?
What is cursive handwriting? ‘Cursive’ or ‘joined-up’ handwriting is any style of writing where letters are joined to make writing faster. Formal cursive joins all letters with strokes leading to and from each letter. Children are usually taught to join letters from the beginning. Casual cursive is a combination of joins and pen lifts. Children are taught individual letters […]
Ruth’s Blog: SOS children
You’re nearly five. You’ve been in the Reception class for four weeks. It’s Phonics time. You’re sitting on the itchy carpet next to Billy whose legs are touching yours. You gaze at Mrs Brown’s black trousers and see she’s wearing shoes like your mum’s. They’ve got shiny black tops with dots in a nice swirly […]
Ruth’s Blog: Stop with silence
Let’s say you’re convinced that hands up for answering questions is a bad thing (see last blog) and getting children to answer questions with a partner will help children pay attention in lessons. Let’s say you think it really important that all the children in your school answer every question with a partner – so […]
Ruth’s Blog: Let readers fly
Children’s intellectual progress depends very substantially on their ability to read. Exam results at the age of 16 and even earnings at the age of 42 are predicated on the speed with which children get out of the reading gate. (Read On, Get On, Save the Children 2014). We also know that good readers are […]
Ruth’s Blog: Hands up any teacher who wants to exclude four-fifths of the class?
Every time we ask a “hands up” question, we exclude the four-fifths of the class who don’t put up their hands. And if six raise their hands and we choose only one to answer then we exclude five more. It’s an unintended consequence, of course, but it goes some way towards explaining why so many children […]