Ghoti = fish

We started off looking at language and how we need to be very mindful of the words/terms we use in the classroom. I think a lot of them were common sense, although I did add in a term about neurodiversity as that was missing from the list. Things like 'Aspergers' not being used any more. But just ASD L1. I guess things are always changing though, so it's hard sometimes to keep on top of it all.

The main part of the lecture was about phonics. I love teaching phonics. I think you can be really creative during a session and it's amazing getting these tiny little people writing and reading!

We had quite a recap of terminology and knowledge. It brought it all back to me from teaching Year 1. Highlight for me was watching Sylvie articulating the phonemes! So sweet!

When we read the nonsense paragraph, it was so interesting to see how many strategies we use unconsciously to make sense of something.

I was surprised to hear that the Rose Review (2006) was only based on a small project in Scotland. Given that this has become the main emphasis of teaching reading, I am amazed that it wasn't a more robust test! I think that the Searchlights model made more sense to me as it incorporated more than just one technique for reading. Afterall, I didn't learn using phonics, so there is more than one way to approach this learning. The one size fits all approach doesn't sit well with me, to be honest. And NONE of these models seems to have any room for reading for pleasure! Although the new book by Clements and Tobin (2021) seems to touch on it.

We should be taking a multi-sensory approach to teaching phonics, so using songs (jolly phonics), etc. However, it disturbs me that teachers are instructed to ensure that these don't 'distract' children form their learning... Ok. This can be got around by bringing out sandplay, etc during times when they are not having a 'formal' phonics session.

Letters & Sounds are not accredited any more, but whichever scheme the school has in place, they all need to be systematic and synthetic. We observed a lesson and my goodness, there were so many missed opportunities for learning and modelling in the lesson! The teacher didn't give the children any ownership of their learning. It was slightly multi-sensory with the robot arms (which were don't incorrectly!). The teacher didn't seem to be having any fun teaching the sound 'igh'! Here are things I thought could have improved the lesson:

1. Model the sounds during the revise section.

2. Use the correct terms - grapheme not letters.

3. Model writing one of more of the words she had asked the children to write.

4. Add in sounds buttons.

5. Get the group to come up with a sentence together.

6. I liked the getting the children to correct the spelling but didn't like the 'either/or' approach. I think it might have been better if she had written it wrong and then asked the children what needed to change.

7. More engagement needed with the group. Get the children to finish the sentence "The sun is __________".

8. Sign a song in the initial teaching part.

Apart from that, she was awesome :o)

I watched the video from GEMS Wellington Academy - an early parent workshop. It was very good - lots of handy hints! My takeaways were:

• Use lots of open questions when talking to the children about what the book might be able, or what it was about.

• have 5 mins for word recognition and then 5 mins for comprehension.

• Think of activities for after the reading - draw their favourite part, write a sentence about the story, retell the story, come up with a new character, look for any red words in the book.

• They also emphasised encouraging the children to read of pleasure - taking them to the library, etc.