All rubrics fail? ⬇️ If so what should we use? I think I have used rubrics and self-assessment rubrics successfully. Can you explain why you think it won’t have been effective?

I've spent the last few years working with hundreds of schools, enough to spot some patterns and (I hope) to write some useful threads over the coming months. Here's the first one... In my opinion, what do primary schools commonly get wrong with their reading lessons? 🪡

-THREAD- 🥳Our website is 8 years old! We're celebrating 8 years of supporting schools with quality book recommendations, topic booklists and age group reading for pleasure resources! We'll be celebrating all this week - and look out for a giveaway later! (1/4)

☝️Dylan Wiliam said that Cognitive Load Theory is ‘the single most important thing for teachers to know’. This poster summarises some key ideas from CLT and offers 6 strategies to optimise instruction and maximise learning. 👊 REPOST and grab a free HQ copy here:

I was reading this US blog on shared reading with big books and wondering if big books and a pointer are still a key practice in the UK for key stage 1? Christopher Such blog.heinemann.com/what-are-the-b…

If you are an upper elementary teacher, then be sure to check out these free morphology resources from Dr. Shelley Blackwell!

Great read! Don’t be a slave to text structure. ‘Instead of focusing reader attention on the author’s presentation strategy, we should get them thinking about the information itself.’ So, focus on how an author portrays the content.

Nobody writes about reading like Chris Such does - his second book gives you everything you want to know about elementary reading instruction. Ordered in Japan and it arrived the next day. For non-Brits, you can still make it work for your context! 😀Christopher Such

Is there a strong reading/literacy community on Bluesky? Are folks moving across since Musk got involved in US politics? Curious if margaret mckeown Christopher Such Timothy Shanahan and others in the literacy world are making the switch! 🤔

"Insufficient phonemic awareness is the most common cause of word reading difficulty (Ashby et al. 2022; Kilpatrick 2015)" (taken from p.120 from Shifting the Balance 3-5 by Cunningham, Burkins, Yates) Is this actually correct?

"Decades of rsch show that tching syllable patterns to assist in decoding has value (Bhattacharya & Ehri 2004; Diliberto et al. 2009; Doignon-Camus & Zagar 2014) as long as we keep in mind that some syllble patterns are more reliable than others." Is there still a US UK divide?

If you are interested in reading instruction, evidence and thoughtful, productive debate, I'd highly recommend that you follow Matthew Ryder. I'm not certain we agree about everything, but I deeply respect his willingness to discuss ideas in good faith.

Brilliant thread from Christopher Such! Is support for a gradual accumulation of knowledge through extended reading essentially the same as support for a knowledge building curriculum or is that a different focus and philosophy?

Timothy Shanahan has kindly responded to my thread in the comments in his blog. However, I think that he has missed some of what I wrote. Here is his response:

If you know, you know and if you don't, you don't! I recommend you buy Chris Such's new book so you will be in the former camp when it comes to reading instruction! 😀

This video ⬇️ is a must watch for anyone wanting to understand how reading works and how it all fits together. It is the same reading map used in Chris's second book, Primary Reading Simplified, but having it explained like this really does help!

Campaign groups in the US, UK and India claim that TV subtitles will help children learn to read. But our new research led by Anastasiya Lopukhina shows that children don't even look at subtitles until they can already read at around 1 word per second.

Any primary teachers out there who have read "Reflect, Expect, Check, Explain: Sequences and Behaviour to Enable Mathematical Thinking in the Classroom" from Craig Barton. Does it work well in the primary setting and are there sequences available for primary?

In independent reading sessions, I alternate weeks: graphic novels allowed one week, not the next. Otherwise, some students read only graphic novels. Too harsh? Or a fair way to broaden their reading diet? Teresa Cremin

Hi BookTrust, have you removed the Poetry Prompts lesson guidance PDFs from your site? They were online just a few months ago. Could you please reupload or share a link? Many thanks! booktrust.org.uk/resources/find…