***6th February – Life works in mysterious ways… I appealed for photos and videos of my phonics programmes ‘in action’ and only the next day I was alerted to an online ITV news item by journalist Rhys Williams in which Phonics International resources can be seen in a school in Scotland!

Debbie: I was unaware that journalist Rhys Williams was conducting an extensive investigation to compare guidance for teachers in reading instruction across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to compare with current official guidance in England. I was aware, however, of some previous journalism of Rhys focusing on guidance for teachers in Wales which I posted about via the Forum of the International Foundation for Effective Reading Instruction.

Anne Glennie alerted me to this latest piece by Rhys as shown on ITV News:

‘Children’s reading a ‘serious problem’ in parts of UK as pupils taught with long-discredited methods

Wed 5 Feb 7.12pm • ‘Cueing’, a teaching method which can make it harder for children to learn to read, is in use in parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland.’

In this news piece by Rhys Williams we see a clip of my Phonics International programme’s resources and Alphabetic Code Charts being used in a school in Scotland to great effect. Thanks to headteacher Geraldine Millar for her adoption of ‘systematic synthetic phonics’ and my free PI programme! This begins at 1min 26 seconds and finishes at 2 min 30 seconds.

And then this is followed by the case of complaint of Gillian Evans regarding the failure of two schools in Scotland to teach her son, Thomas, to read. See 2 min 46 seconds to 3 min 46 seconds. I know a great deal about this case because Sir Jim Rose had asked me to support Gillian which I did (along with two other amazing witnesses) – sadly to no avail.

Rhys himself has posted about this latest ITV News item via X. He does an excellent job of elaborating on the flawed ‘multi-cueing’ guidance for teacher-training in the various countries in a series of posts – some of which I have responded to with links leading to relevant information particularly via the Forum of the International Foundation for Effective Reading Instruction.

Anne Glennie has worked tirelessly to promote the need for ‘systematic synthetic phonics’ training for teachers in Scotland. As part of this effort, Anne established a petition which was signed by Sir Jim Rose himself and many others of his ilk – to date, to no avail!