***Dr Gillian Evans writes, ‘ “All Learners in Scotland Matter”, No They Don’t’ – and Gillian has the knowledge and experience to illustrate this parlous state of affairs…

Debbie: The field of ‘Education’ is devolved in the United Kingdom. This has led to a different rationale, and different content, for ‘official’ guidance for teacher training, and foundational literacy instruction for learners, in England compared to Scotland, Wales and

***Myths and misunderstandings about the claimed superiority of the ‘Speech to Print’ phonics approach for teaching reading, compared to programmes said to be based on ‘Print to Speech’ – and the THIRD approach with equal attention to BOTH directions where speech to print is taught for spelling, and print to speech is taught for reading

Debbie: I don’t doubt that writing my observations and thoughts about this topic is stepping into a minefield, but I feel compelled to write something. I’ve avoided fully approaching this topic in the public domain for many years. With the

***England: Reading Leaders from the ‘Flying High Trust’ share their ‘SURPRISES’ from the implementation of ‘No Nonsense Phonics’ in their infant, junior and primary schools – guest post by Carl Pattison

Carl Pattison is the Early Reading Lead advisor for the Flying High Trust (an Academy Trust of multiple schools in Nottinghamshire). Carl summarised the findings of the Reading Leaders (Summer 2023): Summary: After Reading Leaders reflected on the ‘surprises‘ following

***PART TWO: ‘The harmful legacy of multi-cueing and its evolution into look-alike reading – a secondary school perspective’ guest post by Jacqui Moller-Butcher

For PART ONE of this topic, introducing Jacqui Moller-Butcher and her work and worries about ‘look-alike reading’, click HERE. The harmful legacy of multi-cueing and its evolution into look-alike reading – a secondary school perspective by Jacqui Moller-Butcher, June 2020 Please

***PART ONE – Guest post: Introducing Jacqui Moller-Butcher and her extraordinarily important findings (and suggestions) regarding ‘look-alike reading’ in KS 3 (secondary sector)

Debbie: PART ONE: I’ve never met secondary English teacher Jacqui Moller-Butcher but I’ve known of her since she first raised worries about her observations of ‘look-alike reading’ in an online discussion via the blog of popular KS 3 blogger, David Didau. At

***Contact details of some people and schools using – Phonics International, No Nonsense Phonics or Oxford Reading Tree Floppy’s Phonics (Oxford University Press) or a combination in some cases!

Debbie: I’m frequently asked if I can provide the name and contact details of people in schools that are using one (or more) of my systematic synthetic phonics programmes. It may seem strange to refer to using ‘one or more’

***England: Lord Scudamore Academy is a school where the Oxford Reading Tree Floppy’s Phonics programme (Oxford University Press) has been used successfully and enjoyably for over a decade…

Debbie: It’s truly heartwarming to build relationships with people working with one’s phonics resources and suggestions who love using them, where children love them and succeed with them, and the children’s parents and carers are appreciative – and everyone ‘says

***About Wand Phonics – an interactive digital platform that can complement the FREE Phonics International programme and/or the hard copy No Nonsense Phonics programme (England: Wand Phonics is validated by the Department for Education when used along with NNP and/or PI)

It’s me, Debbie, writing to describe this very exciting development – the availability of the Wand Phonics body of work – an interactive, digital platform created by Wand Education in collaboration with Phonics International Ltd.  https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/pSy8tLDPJDcYV [Please note: If you have problems clicking

***Does CVC refer to letters or sounds? Post by Debbie Hepplewhite written at first as a guest post for Dr. Kathryn Garforth of Garforth Education (Canada)

There is a need to distinguish between consonant letters and vowel letters through teaching about ‘the alphabet’ compared to consonant sounds and vowel sounds through teaching about the ‘alphabetic code’. Teachers need to teach about both ‘the alphabet’ and ‘the

***Easy-peasy phonics revision – just TURN BACK to previous code, words, texts on paper belonging to each learner – SO SIMPLE!

By Debbie Hepplewhite: Teaching the English alphabetic code (the letter/s-sound correspondences) and the requisite three core phonics skills and their sub-skills for reading and spelling is based on a routine ‘phonics teaching and learning cycle‘ when it is taught SYSTEMATICALLY – whether for mainstream

***Australia: ‘Diocese of Ballarat Catholic Education Partnership Award 2022’ for Emma, Bree and Rebecca having pioneered for the Science of Reading explicit teaching practices (including the use of ‘No Nonsense Phonics’)

Debbie: I was so delighted to read about this achievement via Emma Rutherford’s Facebook page. Hearty congratulations to Emma, Bree and Rebecca for all the pioneering and hard work of these ladies – and for the hard work of their

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