Dive into the transformative world of literacy with this range of blogs. Explore how literacy transforms lives, empowers minds, fuels creativity, and fosters critical thinking. It explores disciplinary literacy as well as skills across all phases of education. These blogs cover key topics, such as reading, writing, vocabulary, and oracy. They tackle literacy challenges, including literacy barriers such as dyslexia, whilst offering lots of practical literacy strategies to improve learning.
Literacy is a perennial concern in education. Standards are lamented, strategies launched, policies revised, and detailed plans drafted—yet year after year, the same issues persist with little meaningful progress. There are many reasons for this, but two are particularly salient. First, literacy is not a single skill but a
Where do teachers start when it comes to supporting students who struggle with reading and writing? There is so much written and argued about reading and writing, that busy teachers can feel a little lost about here to start or what to do. Many teachers can feel like King Cnut
I have spent more than a decade writing about vocabulary and working with a range of teachers across primary, secondary and colleges. Over that time, I've come to think differently about one of the most important, but tricky aspects of vocabulary instruction: deciding which words to explicitly teach.
Take the time to sit with Rebecca for a moment. It was in the school library that I sat across from Rebecca. At the end of a long autumn day – for us both – I attempted to spark her into life, nudging her to give her best effort to catch up
It can sometimes feel like primary school and secondary school teachers inhabit different worlds. It is no surprise then that teachers at different phases have diverging views and beliefs given their dissimilar experience. The saying goes that primary school teachers teach the whole child, whereas secondary school teachers teach their
What if the brave new world of AI and assistive technology means that we stop learning by hand? Would we lose any learning it the translating from handwriting screen tapping, or from note-taking by hand to receiving summaries from an AI chatbot? On one hand, it seems absurd to argue
Shared reading is vital for every student to succeed in education. Reading in the classroom helps build knowledge, develop ideas, boost vocabulary, fuel creativity, and so much more. But we know that some students with additional special educational needs can struggle to develop their reading comprehension and engage in shared
It is the new year, which is a time for a fresh start and developing new habits. I've been working away for the last year on a new book that distils what every teacher needs to know and do when it comes to literacy in the classroom. In
Teaching a struggling reader, whether they are seven or seventeen, can be a gut-wrenching experience. It can make the typical tasks of a school day difficult and sap the enjoyment out of learning. It is no surprise then that every teacher, and parent, wants to get to the root of
The saying goes that what gets assessed gets taught. But for teachers, when it comes to the act of writing to learn, that is not always true. Students can spend thousands of hours writing in the classroom, but if they struggle with writing it can still remain unaddressed. Why is
Tutor time reading has experienced a wave of popularity in English secondary schools over the last few years. As schools responded to plummeting reading habits, along with a focus on reading in inspection and across curriculum, it became a popular fix for promoting and practising more reading during the school
The canon of English literature - and what is taught in English classrooms - is always the stuff of fierce debate and news headlines. A new TES article claims schools 'need support to break away from An Inspector Calls'. So, we should ask the question, should it be