Tuesday 31 December 2013

Wow! nice reviews for my Aesop's Fables illustrated (wonderfully) by Talleen Hacikyan

Publishers Weekly 09/23/2013
Versatile storyteller Rosen (We’re Going on a Bear Hunt) distills 13 well-known Aesop’s fables into one-page retellings, illustrated in folk-art style by Canadian artist Hacikyan. Rosen engages the stories’ grimmer aspects, and Hacikyan’s stylized illustrations, chalked on black backgrounds, suggest troublesome dreams on moonless nights. In “Dog and Wolf,” a wolf with an empty stomach eyes a “sleek and fat” dog’s collar and snarls, “I’d rather be free than a well-fed slave.” In “Cockerel, Dog and Fox,” a treed rooster protects himself by asking the predator to wake his “Doorman” (“So Fox woke up Dog. And Dog snarled and snapped and tore Fox apart quicker than it takes a leaf to fall from a tree”). Rosen supplies morals tailored for today’s cultures of bullying and savvy social interactions. When Fox praises Crow’s voice, so that Crow opens his mouth and drops a piece of cheese, Rosen remarks that sneaky individuals use compliments “just so they can get something from you.” If there is but cold comfort in these pages, the fables should still provide fodder for conversation. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)
Resource Links"
School and public libraries that need Aesop stories for a younger audience should purchase this attractive book."

Children's Literature - Elizabeth Fronk
This new set of thirteen tales comes with familiar stories such as “The Mouse and Lion,” in which the small rodent aids the big lion. It also includes lesser-known stories, and Michael Rosen adds his own interpretation to the morals of all of these tales. Rosen keeps the stories lively by having actual conversations with the stories’ main characters. In “Dog and Wolf,” the exchange between them tells of freedom’s lesson that it is better than a well-kept but chained life. In one of the better stories, “Frog and Bull,” the frog gets an unseen group to help compare his size to a bull’s. The frog literally bursts in his attempt to outdo the bull. Each story features one large illustration that has a childlike feel and is set against a black background. In many of the tales, the illustrations add life to a fairly routine tale. This collection could perhaps use less of Rosen’s interpretation of the morals. Also, the stories do not have any organization to them; although this does not distract, it does not help keep a reader’s interest. The collection’s slim size and intriguing chalklike illustrations help this book stand out from other Aesop fables. Mid-elementary or early middle school teachers might find it intriguing to have their students compare Rosen’s version of Aesop’s morals with more traditional versions. Reviewer: Elizabeth Fronk AGERANGE: Ages 6 to 10.

School Library Journal11/01/2013
Gr 1–3—Proud or foolish animals often meet unfortunate ends in this baker's dozen of familiar and less-often-told tales. "In a moment, Lion's friends set upon Wolf and skinned him alive." Fox eyeing the just-out-of-reach grapes, the mice from town and country, and Mouse rescuing Lion are here. Two tales-"Fir Tree and Thornbush" and "The Axe and the Trees"-feature plant life rather than the customary animals. Three tales place a trio of characters in contention. All are told in well-paced prose incorporating contemporary phrasing, such as, "Hey, look out there, Lamb, you're muddying up the water." However, the morals are not as sprightly and are prone to lengthy explanation. "If someone stronger than yourself is attacking you, or if you think someone is trying to get the better of you with clever words, then go and get help from someone who can defend you." Hacikyan's full-page views reflect her fine skill as printmaker. The simple, naive characters are richly shaded, expressive, and energetic as they interact in nicely etched, usually dark, settings. Though the lessons seem turgid here, the handsome scenes and deftly told stories are welcome additions to the realm of Aesop.—Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston

Kirkus Reviews2013-09-15
Prolific Brit Rosen and Canadian artist Hacikyan deliver 13 of the legendary fabulist's moral vignettes. Familiar fables such as "Mouse and Lion" and "Town Mouse and Country Mouse" accompany lesser-known parables. Rosen's plainspoken telling engages children with injected humor. In "Frog and Bull," Frog is impressed with Bull's huge size. "It's bigger than a hundred frogs. I'm only as big as its eyeball. Oooh, how I would like to be as big as Bull." Frog gulps air to puff himself up, addressing an unseen child chorus: "Hey children, how am I doing? Am I as big as Bull?" Not even close, they respond, and Frog continues to gulp with predictably disastrous results. Rosen conveys the morals pithily. In "Lion, Fox and Wolf," Fox (to put it mildly) outsmarts Wolf, who's been disparaging him to Lion behind his back. "If you plot and scheme against other people, you'll probably end up with them plotting against you." Hacikyan's accomplished dry-brushed acrylics, luminous against black fields, incorporate handprinted leaves and textile block patterns, bespeaking her acumen as a printmaker. The leafy endpapers are stunning. Incorporating a vain crow, opportunistic wolves and foxes, talking trees and more, this collection both instructs and charms. (scholar's note)(Fables. 5-10)

Monday 23 December 2013

Two thoughts on the Right this week.

Two thoughts on the Right this week:


1.

Immigration anxiety is about a) standards of living, b) culture, and c) powerlessness. The anxiety about a) is based on an untruth that poor people can make other poor people poorer. The anxiety about b) is based on an untruth that other people’s culture is a threat to your culture. The anxiety about c) is based on a feeling that people in government and big business have so much power over you, they can control your life.

I agree with c) but find that when I apply that to a) and b), I discover that it’s people in government and big business who make poor people poorer while peddling misleading ideas about the purity of cultures.


2.

The advantage for the Right in having Anjem Choudary on air making the link between British foreign policy and how Muslims in Britain might feel is that because it's him making the point, it 'proves' that condemning British foreign policy is an absurd and dangerous idea. Interestingly, the interview with Humphrys and Lord Carlisle didn't discuss British and US policy at all. It was all focused on a) why Choudary wouldn't condemn the atrocity and/or b) that he isn't in favour of democracy and c) that he wants Sharia law in Britain.

So, end result: the link is made between a) condemnation of UK foreign policy b) murdering people and c) hating democracy d) wanting Sharia law.

Result for the Right!

Wednesday 18 December 2013


Working towards a National Campaign for Education


West London
EDUCATION
Question Time

Why are teachers striking? Is OFSTED a political tool? Do we need SATs? Why is there a shortage of school places? Are standards falling in our schools?
If you would like to propose questions for the panel to consider please use #edqtime @NCE2014
7pm, WEDNESDAY
22nd JANUARY 2014
CHAIR: Adrian Chiles ITV presenter and local parent
PANEL: Michael Rosen Childrens author and broadcaste
Christine Blower National Union of Teachers General Secretary
Julian Bell Leader of Ealing Council
Government and local campaign speakers are invited
Everyone is welcome especially parents, governors and students
There is no charge for the event but please register for tickets at
Press contact: 07958 542872  Nickgrant2512@mac.com

Venue: St. Pauls Church, Queen Caroline Street, Hammersmith, W6 9PJ 
Nearest tube: Hammersmith

Tuesday 17 December 2013

Rave review for 'Alphabetical'

Michael Rosen is brilliant, entertaining, wise, and a magpie -- he collects stories.
This large book is the story of the 26 letters of the alphabet (their personal histories -- yes, letters have histories!).
That is the central thread of the book.
But while Rosen tells each letter's story (A, in the capital shapes we know it) was originally a pictogram of the head of an ox, with a nose and two horns. The Egyptian/Phoenician/Semitic word for "ox" was something like, "Arr-leff". So we start with "Arr" for Arleff, and away we go.
B was a house (Beth).
C was a camel (Gimel, but never mind the C-G alternatives: this is similar to C-S and C-K as phonic alternatives).
But then, letter by letter, as Rosen explores the main "narrative" thread of his topic, he brings in extra stories that link with successive letters.

As one of the other briefer reviewers notes, the extra stories about D concern "Disappearing letters".
Try, for example, the "s" that disappears from "hostel" when we move to "hotel". The French use a circumflex accent (a "little roof") over the "-o-" to show that there is actually an invisible, disappeared "-s-". And, of course, the "-s-" we used to have, In English, and French, came originally from Latin.
Of course, how English, and French (and much more) came from Latin is another story.
By the way, a great deal of Latin came from Greek.
Many of Rosen's extra stories come from his own personal life: he has a rich cultural background.
His parents, Harold and Connie Rosen were pioneers in the educational research and upheavals that created the post-war Western English-speaking school system and curriculum that we know.

Wait a minute: this book is about the "Alphabet" not the "Alphabeta" (or could this be the "Alphabetagammadeltaepsilon"?).
But look, that "-bet" in "alphabet" comes from the Greek letter-name for what we call "Bee".
The Greek version of "B" is "beta". It looks just like our capital "B", but the lower-case Greek "b" is not much like our lower-case "b", is it?

The letter "V" is illustrated with extra stories about "Vikings".
But weren't they just thugs who murdered and plundered?
Yes, and no. They also were astounding boat, and church builders. Explorers and navigators. They were bodyguards to the Emperor of Constantinople. They created the first major Russian city. They (collectively speaking) invented "Beowulf" and other stories of dragons, and warriors. They built towns in Ireland.
Not your average thugs, eh?

Ow!
Can you see how much there is that could be said about the Alphabet?
Other reviewers have complained about the size of Rosen's book.
The plain and simple fact is that the book COULD have been MUCH BIGGER!
There is a huge amount that could be said about the alphabet, and still not exhaust it.
This is a book I wish I had written.
Rosen shares his fascination with the alphabets (and with the alphabetas, and the alephbeths, and so on), and with rich, longevious, glorious languages.
Human languages.
The book is about an aspect of human ingenuity: WRITING!
Humans are curious, clever, DIVERSE people.
Rosen's book celebrates some of this ingenuity, curiosity, and diversity.
He needs 400 pages to start doing this, and it isn't a page too long.
Is there an Index?
Make your own. You will thank yourself later.
This is a book to revel in and treasure!
If you haven't read Michael Rosen's other books, you have a treat in store!
Michael Rosen never wrote a bad book!
With "Alphabetical" he wins, yet again! FIVE STARS IS NOT ENOUGH!!
John Gough -- Deakin University, retired -- jagough49@gmail.com

Friday 13 December 2013

Gordon Askew tells teachers about phonics. I reply.


These are the powerpoint notes of a presentation on phonics given to teachers.
I have put my comments in italics alongside it. 



Achieving high literacy standards through phonics implementation




Gordon Askew

Independent education consultant Literacy and Phonics Adviser to DfE





At the heart of everything

“Books crow-bar the world open for you.”

Rooftoppers, Katherine Rundell





Nationally . . . .



at the moment, everything is not ‘all right as it is’ with reading and writing.





Our writing system . . .


 involves no pictograms or ideograms


 does not use symbols to represent whole words or

syllables 

This is true if the only kind of reading we did was alphabetical. But it isn't. So in our daily lives we come across other symbols which are a kind of reading too. Some of these symbols are integrated into the alphabetic code, the most famous and widespread being @ but also there is £, $, &. * and even the very symbols being used here: squares or bullet points. 



 splits spoken words into their constituent sounds in pronounced order 


 represents each sound in turn with a symbol, working left to right 

The difference between 'hue' and 'sue' (as I pronounce them) is that I say 'hue' as if it has an 'i' or a 'y' between the 'h' and the 'ue'. There is no letter to indicate this. Similarly, in the word 'debt' , the fairly regular 'b' is of course silent. It is only  there for obscure historical reasons put there by an 'etymologist' saying that the word's Latin origins should be shown in the word. This has nothing to do with sounds and symbols for sounds. 

Again, the letter 'h' does something with vowels that follow it. Phoneticians sometimes describe this as 'colouring' the following vowel. This shows us that we do not pronounce words evenly laying down one sound after another and the distance between the letters does not represent the distance between the sounds as we make them. 

 uses symbols based on the ‘Roman’ alphabet 

The letters 'j', 'u' and 'w' were not in the Roman alphabet. 

 is an alphabetic code

Our system of writing is 100% phonic. It has no other basis whatsoever. 

I'm not sure what the point of saying this is. With 'debt' I have given one example of the system not being 100% phonic. The reason for the 'b' being there is not phonic. The same goes for the 'b' in  'subtle' and the first 'c' in 'arctic' and the absurd spelling of 'delight' which was falsely spelled that way because it was believed that it owed its origins to a Middle English word 'delichte'. It wasn't. 

We also have the problems of the preserved spellings of 'knock' and 'gnat'  where the 'k' and the 'g' are not voiced. Of course the phonics experts like to get round that by saying that the first 'n' sound of 'knock' is made by writing 'kn' but this is absurd. The 'k' is there because it wasn't every removed once the pronunciation changed. The 'k' is not 'phonic'. 





Issues with our alphabetic code


 44 sounds (phonemes)


 26 letters


 Therefore some graphemes (alphabetic symbols) involve 2, 3 or 4 letters, e.g. /sh/ ‘ship’; /igh/ ‘night’; /or/ (/aw/) ‘caught’

Also


 many phonemes represented by more than one grapheme; e.g. different representations of /ai/ - ‘ai’, ‘ay’, ‘a_e’, ‘ey’, etc.


 same grapheme can represent more than one phoneme, e.g. /k/ is ‘c’ in cat but ‘s’ in circus





So we get . . .

 44 phonemes

 One ‘simple’ grapheme representation of each

 About 56 more very common grapheme representations

 About 96 other rarer grapheme representations (but some of these occurring in frequently-used words) 

Another classic phonics absurdity: 'rarer' but 'frequently used'! This is referring to words like 'was' or 'of' or 'come' or 'women' with 'rare' but 'common' representations. And we know how phonics gets round this: by calling them 'tricky' words or 'red' words and doing what they say they are against - getting the children to learn them as 'look and say' words. 

All of these are a ‘regular’ part of the system – but some are much more common that others 

Why confuse us with saying that less regular usages are 'regular'?! The pronunciation of 'was' as 'woz' is not found elsewhere. So it's 'irregular'. It just happens to be very, very common. 





Complex but . . .

what a good SSP programme will do is provide a systematic approach designed to cover


 basic knowledge and understanding needed by end Y1 at latest (80% English words) 

'understanding' - how is this? Where does the 'understanding' come from? This is the sleight of hand that we keep hearing from phonics people who on the one hand are teaching a system that is 'phonic' ie based on sounds and symbols but claiming that children are able then to understand what they're reading. And yet, of itself, phonics does not and can not teach 'understanding'. Something else has to be going on at the same time. That is because the written code is much more complex than the texts provided by the phonics schemes. This is not just a matter of 'words' or 'tricky words'. It's a matter of the grammar of the written code which is different from the spoken code. We do not speak as we write. This written code has to be learned as a set of sequences and strategies that differ from spoken language with its interruptions, incompletions, repetitions, gestures, unillustrated pronouns and so on. 


 broad knowledge and understanding by end KS1 at latest (overwhelming majority of English words)





But also vitally needed are skills of . . .

 blending for reading
 segmenting for writing

Overall this coverage should be the content of a discrete, daily phonics lesson.

Many schools are already doing this.





Background

Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading (‘Rose Review’) Feb. 2006

Digest of research evidence, see:

‘Response to public consultation on Year 1 Phonics Screening Check’

Annex C: What is the research evidence on phonics?





The Simple View of Reading



Different kinds of teaching are needed to develop word recognition skills from those that are needed to foster the comprehension of written and spoken language





searchlight model





searchlight model X

replaced by:

phonics as the strategy for word recognition

sometimes termed:
phonics as the ‘prime strategy’





What does ‘prime strategy’ imply?

NOT
first of several alternative strategies.





What does ‘prime strategy’ imply?

When reading unknown words:

 Phonics should always be used to decode first, before any other strategies are used to help unpack meaning. 

This is in contradiction of a) the 'tricky' word strategy of many phonics schemes and b) the means by which all of us who've learned to read over many centuries have used - namely 'mixed' methods of anticipating what's coming, using our knowledge of grammar to predict, working from the meaning of what we're reading, using methods of going back over what we're reading and so on. 


 This approach needs to become automatic and habituated. 

There are different ways for the phonic system to become 'automatic' or 'transparent' - and the pre-pure-phonics-taught population uses these different methods to reach the point at which we can 'read with understanding'. 


 The alternative ‘searchlight’ strategies should never be used for initial word recognition.





Is this not too narrow an approach?

No
 Evidence shows it works (Rose, etc.) 

The 'evidence' shows that phonics works if you test children to find out if they have phonic awareness ie you test them by asking them to read out loud. However, if you test children for 'reading with understanding' later in their school careers, then those who received intensive phonics instruction, do not do significantly better than those who did not receive intensive phonics instruction. The 'evidence' is flawed. 

 Phonics is the entire and only basis for our writing system 

As I've shown, this is an oversimplified and misleading statement. 

 There are no other reliable alternatives





What are the alternatives? Why are they unreliable?

Remembering words : Learning whole words by sight 

We should remember that the phonics schemes include this method alongside the phonic method. They have to because English is so irregular. 

 Some children (poor visual memory) can remember a few words

 Some children (good visual memory) can remember quite a lot of words

 No children can remember all the words they need to read fluently 

No matter how phonics people wish to describe those of us who learned to read by a mix of methods, they can't tell us that we didn't learn to read! We did. 





What are the alternatives? Why are they unreliable? 

To date, there is no evidence of phonics teaching on its own 'eradicating illiteracy' so quite why the word 'unreliable' is being levelled at other methods, is not clear. 

Using context : pictures, meaning, grammar

Often very difficult and seriously unreliable, especially for young children and those with limited language 

The phrase 'those with limited language' needs unpacking here. There is a good deal of research to show that children are often diagnosed has having 'limited language' on the basis that it is an adult talking to a child, who is determining that it is 'limited', and/or matters of bidialectism and bilingualism are often overlooked. 

This is guesswork – albeit sometimes informed guesswork

This is phonics put-down. If a child can't read the word 'would' proceeding by phonics and/or 'tricky' words, what should he or she do? The best way to read 'would' is grammatically. A native speaker reading the whole sentence, will be able to deduce 'would' partly from phonic cues and partly from grammatical ones. This isn't 'guesswork'. It's intelligence. I've observed this at first hand on several occasions. 






Using context can be very deceptive

 Early readers can sometimes use it quite effectively when they are reading books designed to support this approach

 Fluent readers (especially adult ones) can and do use it very effectively; they have an enormous store of language and reading experience

BUT

 There is a ‘middle’ stage of learning to read when reliance on guessing what a word might be is disastrously unreliable 

Note the use of the word 'disastrously' here. A lot of early reading is 'disastrous' by this count. Children sitting reading without understanding is 'disastrous' too. After all, why do we learn to read? In order to understand texts. If we don't understand them, why read them? 





Phonics first 

This really has to be unpacked. Some schools are interpreting this as removing all non-phonics texts from Reception and Year 1 classes. It's time for phonics people to 'come out' and tell us if they really mean this or not. I've heard contradictory accounts of this. 


 Phonics is the only reliable strategy for learner readers to use when tackling unknown words

No, this isn't the case. There is evidence to suggest that phonics only readers are no better than 'mixed methods' readers when faced with words they have not seen before - provided those words are in the context of a passage of real writing. The false testing of phonics nonsense words simply shows that children are being trained to read out loud phonically regular words. This doesn't tell us if they are reading for understanding.  




 If they have been taught to understand and use the system properly it will almost always work to find out what a word ‘says’ 

How ironic that the word in italics - 'says' - is precisely the kind of word that phonics only children sometimes find difficult - along with 'said' because in many accents it's pronounced 'sez' and 'sed' - 'rare' pronunciations for 'ay' (in 'says') and 'ai' in ('said'). However, both 'says' and 'said' usually crop up in easy-to-predict contexts in sentences and passages, so grammatical and semantic cues often assist the reader. However, the word 'read' , along with 'wound' - and a few others - can only be figured from context. Yes - only. 

 This is, of course, not all there is to reading – but it is an essential first step 

This is very funny. The idea that the vast question and problem of 'reading with understanding' can be packed away in this one sentence is hilarious. 





The first big misunderstanding



Different children learn to read in different ways. Lots of children learn by methods other than phonics. There is no one-size-fits-all. 

No, that's not a 'misunderstanding'. Why should different children, with different experiences of texts (before learning to read), different usage of spoken language, different emotional and cultural backgrounds all learn to read in exactly the same way? Where is the learning theory or sociolinguistics to back up such an extraordinary statement. We have sat through years of hearing how 'choice' in education is all-important and yet on this one matter - learning to read - one-size-fits-all is THE way. 

In actual fact, something else is going on. Many homes teach their children various forms of initial literacy before the children get to school. They do it with picture books, reading cereal packets, playing with magnet letters on the fridge, song-books, reading ads of the TV or in the street and so on. Many homes do not. For this reason alone, one-size-fits-all is not appropriate. 




Where this goes wrong

 Many children ‘pick up’ reading relatively easily, more- or-less regardless of the method used to teach them. Sooner or later, they figure out the phonics for themselves This has always been the case. 

Yes. 

 Equally, some children do not ‘pick up’ reading, or do not pick it up well enough to become fluent, comfortable readers. They never sort out the phonics. 

Yes.

 Phonics is not a method of teaching reading. It is how the system works. It is the core knowledge needed to read. 

No. Some children learn to read without going down the phonics route. They 'get' the phonics through other methods or that phonics is part of the method. Calling it 'core knowledge' is misleading. It is one of the knowledges. And there are various routes to it for some children. Why deny it. Anyone who learned to read prior to the present era of intensive phonics instruction is evidence for this. Why try to wash us off the record? 

 We cannot leave the teaching of reading to chance. We need to teach the core knowledge – phonics. 

Classic phonics scaremongering. What chance? Was I taught to read by 'chance'? No, I had teachers and parents who worked away at it from the time I was 3 to the time I was 7. They used many different methods: reading out loud to me (which enabled me to 'get' the written code, playing with letters, drawing letters in sand, on slate, learning nursery rhymes and poems, playing lexicon, using flash cards, playing syllable games, reading 'Beacon Readers' and so on and so on. 





Applying ‘phonics first’

If children are systematically being taught phonics and we want them to learn consistently to apply phonics skills as the strategy for word reading, then they must not be asked to practise this with books that:

 require them to use alternative strategies

This is exactly how and why schools are banning real books from Reception and Year 1 classes, in case the children look at them! Meanwhile, those homes where parents think this is a load of old hooey  are of course filling their children's lives with stories and poems which they read with and alongside their children, sometimes pointing at words, sometimes helping their children guess words, sometimes reading a text over and over again so that the child learns the text (as I did with 'Peter Rabbit' when I was a child and their children benefit enormously from this massive infusion of a variety of texts. 

 require them to apply phonics they haven’t yet been

taught

In the early stages of reading, they should practise with books that are matched exactly to their level of phonic knowledge and that do not require them to use alternative strategies (i.e. ‘entirely decodable’ books) 

This is of course the old boring fallacy that we learn in stages as determined by those who instruct children. It is predicated on a notion of learning that we learn in predetermined stages. 





Decodable books

When young children are asked to practise with such books success is immediate and their sense of themselves as independent readers very rapidly grows. Progress, matched to teaching, is fast and they are very soon fluently reading the widest possible range of books. 

However, this fluency has its down side when the children are a bit older and discover that they 'can read' certain texts and not understand them. This is particularly the case (from my observation) with children who have a very narrow experience of texts. 

'they are very soon fluently reading...' this should be backed up with evidence that longterm intensive phonics teaching produces 100% success for children 'reading with understanding'. Is there evidence that it can and does for all children? No. 




The second big misunderstanding

Decodable books are facile and dull. They restrict children’s reading disastrously. How will children ever learn to love books and reading if they are taught like this? They may learn to ‘bark at print’ but they will never learn to be real READERS. 

Well, we can all argue about what's dull and what's interesting. Those of us who have sat with our children hour after hour helping them become good judges of what is boring our children and what is not. 





Where this goes wrong

 The quality of decodable books has blossomed recently. They are many now available written by some of our top children’s writers.

 Phonics is only one ‘axis’ of the simple view of reading. At the same time children's language and comprehension must be nurtured and developed. They can and must be taught to love books. They should be hearing, learning, telling, discussing, enacting and exploring the widest possible range of wonderful children’s books. This is every bit as important as the phonics. 

How does this sit with the passage above where Gordon Askew is demanding that children learning to read are NOT given texts which are not phonic and not geared in to the exact stage of phonic awareness geared in to the progression of the schemes? Note, he is using the word 'exploring'. How do you 'explore' a book whilst preventing a child from trying to read it for themselves? Either you're stopping them or you're not!

Some headteachers and some Ofsted inspectors are interpreting the passage above in a way that is directly contradictory to the one here. 




The Year 1 phonics screening check


 Covers only the decoding of isolated words; it is not a reading test and is not meant to be; it does not attempt to assess comprehension 

True. 


 Seeks to establish simply whether children can apply phonic knowledge to decode unknown words; this is not sufficient for reading, but it is essential 

It is not essential in all cases. I (along with millions of others) did not learn to read on the basis of 'first' phonics, the 'reading for meaning'. That's why it can be shown that it is not essential in all cases all the time. To say that it is is misleading. 


 Involves exclusively those GPCs that will have been covered at this stage by any good SSP programme


 Presents them only in completely phonically regular arrangement (even in the ‘pseudo-words’)


 Therefore, involves nothing that a child who has learned the necessary sounds and how to blend them will not be able to do 

However, some children when faced with the 'nonsense' words try to correct them to make them make sense (eg 'strom' to 'storm'.) This is of course marked as 'wrong' even though the child may be a good reader. 

Note also that the children who do not score at the right level are dubbed as not succeeding and parents must be told. It is not clear how or why this is advantageous for children learning to read. 




The Year 1 phonics screening check

 Any group of children not reaching the standard will include many who will struggle with reading at later stages, or, at very least, not read with sufficient confidence and fluency to become ‘real readers’

 This includes a good number of children who appear, at this stage, to be reading satisfactorily (but who are, in fact, using primarily those ‘alternative’ strategies that will prove unreliable later on)

 We all need to be fully aware of who these children are, so that they can be given the further support they need





Opening the door

Children who can ‘lift words off the page’ (i.e. decode them phonically) can begin to access any text within their present language comprehension.

To develop their reading further it is essential to develop further that language comprehension, both spoken and written.





Opening the door

Systematic synthetic phonics, well taught and consistently applied as the prime strategy for word reading and fully balanced by both the enthusiastic sharing of a love of literature and the development of comprehension, is not the door to a very small room. It is a door to the vast cathedral of all books have to offer.

‘Books crow-bar the world open for you.’

Thursday 12 December 2013

Ofsted (!) : "...not enough encouragement to read widely for pleasure".

“Pupils don’t receive enough encouragement to read widely for pleasure. Time needs to be set aside in lessons for the reading, sharing, recommending and discussion of texts. Schools can be distracted by national tests and examinations, which do not always assess pupils’ wider reading skills well.”

OFSTED Annual Report 2013 Some key challenges for raising standards in English

Note: I agree with the sentiment - of course - but it's ironic that it comes from Ofsted, the institution which puts the most pressure on schools to teach to the test and not have the freedom to encourage all pupils to read widely for pleasure. So: right idea but coming from the wrong place. 

Wednesday 11 December 2013

Wilshaw and Gove blaming 'luck' and 'mediocrity'


1. 'Mediocre' teachers

When the people who run education start blaming 'mediocre' teachers, it's amazing that journalists seem incapable of asking these people who run education why they assume that the way they're 'managing' or running education is so un-mediocre, or so bloody brilliant? We have a structure of education now which is dependent on one person, the secretary of state. This person has the power to open and close schools, devise curricula, implement exam systems without any of the old checks and balances in place once state education was first created. So if there are 'mediocre' bits of the system, then surely now with one-man one-rule system that'll be the fault of the boss, won't it? As of the setting up of this system, it's no longer a collective problem. It's his.

2. Luck of the draw

And Wilshaw going on about the 'luck' of who you get determining how good your education is, leaves out the matter that he rules over a system which is now based on schools competing against each other...so there'll always be losers, who get less funding, and end up with more excluded pupils etc etc. It's his system that has given up on the notion of universal provision in spite of all their chat about giving everyone an equal chance...

Sunday 8 December 2013

Crime and punishment...I mean crime and non-punishment.

For one reason or another, over the last five years I've heard accounts of what might be called 'middle class crime': things to do with contracts, property, building projects and the like. I'm not sure what these things are really called: 'misdemeanours'? 'torts'? 'offences'? or what? They have sometimes involved millions of pounds. As far as I understand, these offences (I'll stick with that term) happen all the time. People engaged in contracts, buying and selling and building often put a good deal of effort into cheating, conning and swindling. People can do this in many different ways: not paying contractors, bribing people who are supposed to arbitrate and hundreds of other methods.

At the end of the day, these are in effect forms of robbing. The offender is trying to either nick money off someone (eg claiming for stuff that they haven't earned) or trying to wangle ways in which they can get more money for a contract than is due them. So, this is robbing.

Now, I may have got this wrong, but as far as I can make out, many of these kinds of offences end up in face-offs, arbitration of some kind, with medium to big companies coming to deals and understandings and then claiming back off insurance companies and the like. In other words, the robbing is not dealt with in the way that robbing is dealt with if I come up to you and grab your wallet.

So what's going on here?

We have a system of justice that is based on what are thought to be ideas that can't be argued with: when the law gets hold of a robber, the law punishes and the usual way for this to be dealt with is prison. Prison, we are told does two things: it punishes and it deters. In other words, the punishment stops the offender doing it again and all the other people out there who might or would rob, are deterred when they hear about the robber who got punished. Now, that is in reality a massive piece of nonsense. Clearly, the punishment principle doesn't work because loads of people re-offend. And the deterrence principle doesn't work because loads of people think that robbing is a good idea. However, any politician who said what I'm saying would be metaphorically burned alive by the press for saying any such thing.

Meanwhile, there is a layer of this middle class robbing which is being dealt with in a completely different way: through arbitration, repayments and fines. An accountant who, let's say, is found to have done some fiddling on a contract or some such, will probably simply be asked to pay up. Then they go on accounting.

Why is this all normal? Why isn't this a publicly paraded disgrace? In a rather complicated speech, King Lear tries to figure this out. The famous bit goes:

"Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks.
Arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw does pierce it."

In other words, if a crime (or sin) is committed by a rich person (ie gold-plated), the thing we think of as the 'strong lance of justice', just breaks as it hits the 'plate' (or armour) . If the same crime or sin is committed by someone in rags (ie a poor person) 'justice' would immediately be done (in the poetry, a 'straw' thrown by someone as weak as a 'pigmy' would be able to pierce the rags that the poor man wears.

As I say, complicated because of the metaphors but it's clear what Shakespeare is getting Lear to say. And it's a moment of realisation that the ex-King comes to see this mix of hypocrisy and injustice going on.

What's incredible is that this situation is just what I'm trying to describe. If a poor person does some robbing, then the full might of the law - police, lawyers, prisons - comes in to enact a punishment which in the majority of occasions doesn't work anyway. If a fairly rich person (I'm not even talking here about the mega-rich) commits one of these fiddles, wangles, con-jobs, then a completely different system weighs in: arbitrators, tribunals and the like, where lawyers are employed to negotiate agreements between offenders and those offended against. And, as I've said, the end-result of this negotiating apparatus is that the offender won't be locked up. Presumably, that's thought to be inappropriate. Or inconvenient. Or unnecessary.

Just to be clear, I'm not calling for yet more locking up as some kind of pseudo-egalitarianism. That wouldn't solve anything either. For the moment, I'm just pointing out the absurd hypocrisy of it all.

I wish someone who knows much more than me about all this would write a play or a film which would show people involved in all this...in some kind of ironic way. Perhaps it has been done and someone will tell me about it.






Tuesday 3 December 2013

How Ofsted inspections lead to crazy stuff

THIS IS TAKEN FROM THE COMMENTS THREAD FOLLOWING THIS MONTH'S DEAR MR GOVE COLUMN IN THE GUARDIAN





  • RClayton Barrby
    So where is it recorded that OFSTED has been instructed in this particular respect. Do you seriously suggest that this is all done by nods and winks ?

  • Quaestor RClayton
    I've never heard Gove, Wilshaw, or anyone connected with the government or Ofsted, or with any school of thought connected with learning to read, say that teachers should not read stories to children.
    Except, when I think of it, there was just one, in my first year of teaching, who said she couldn't see the point of my doing so with first year secondary pupils first thing in the morning. This person was not of the Conservative persuasion.




  • Nottmposh Quaestor
    Having just completed the Ofsted training, I would disagree with you here. I went out to do my mentored inspection and asked the lead inspector how, when observing a KS1 teacher in the last 30 minutes of the first day, I would judge teaching if the teacher was simply reading to her class. She replied that if the teacher insisted on doing this then she would be foolish because it would be very difficult under the criteria to judge it as anything other than inadequate. Therefore the advice was passed to the leadership team to advise the teacher to do something where the inspectors could judge progress.
    This is what I suspect is behind Mr Rosen's emails. I cannot conceive of a single inspector who would actually believe sharing books with KS1 children is a waste of time, but the current inspection process is forcing schools to do strange things to ensure that the 20-30 mins an inspector is in can be judged.

  • Quaestor Nottmposh
    This is rank bad guidance from the lead inspector and shows a limitation in Ofsted's current practice. A teacher who did nothing but this would obviously be taking an unbalanced view, and inspection ought to be able to get to the whole picture.
    Changes to inspection in 2005 cut down the time available for observation to the extent that other lead inspectors I've spoken to have said similar things, though not in this context. There is a lot more to do to put this right. However, I'm not going to try to defend "teaching to the inspection", as that is precisely what teachers have been told not to do, since Ofsted started.

  • Quaestor Quaestor
    Oh, for an edit button. I meant that a teacher who did nothing but read to the children would obviously have an unbalanced approach, but that Ofsted should be able to go beyond an individual lesson to establish the whole picture of the teacher's work. This should include hearing a sample of children read, and I believe it still does.