Today I’m feeding back thoughts arising from the first week of our project to improve the reading behaviours of selected groups of learners who have fallen behind (blog 25.10.22).  It has occurred to me that the NLS broad aim for all pupils’ use of language and literacy is huge – far too high a mountain…

Planning intervention at secondary school for HOW to move pupils’ reading to more difficult levels is far from simple. Our objectives are twofold: teaching students with RAs between 9.0 and 11.0 how to use: Word-attack strategies to read and understand unknown multi-syllabic (MS) words Linking these word-attack skills and strategies to comprehension at sentence and…

My last blog focused on reading fallback that has more to do with language than reading skills alone – multi-syllabic words as barriers to reading beyond a RA of about nine plus. Teachers and SENCOs are their wit’s end – just what are they to do? How can they best enable pupils who arrive in…

My last blog focused on the problems of children who are falling behind in primary – the disadvantage gap. I outlined four areas for intervention: speedy recognition of ‘sight’ words (you, your, should, they – as words not spelled phonetically that must be learned whole), phonics, use of context, followed by focused teaching of subject…

‘Poorer children falling further behind by age 11’. This worrying title of an article in the Times (7.9.22, Nicola Woolcock) outlines the still-strong connection between poverty/disadvantage, and school achievement. Apparently, the academic gap between poor children leaving primary school, and their more fortunate peers, is now the biggest for ten years. This disadvantage gap measures…