Pre-Reading Activities

posted in: Reading | 0

This is the second of my “Back in the old days when I first started teaching” posts. As I mentioned in my previous post,  Year 1 was the first year of formal learning and there were three terms each year.  … Continued

Pre-Writing Activities

posted in: Writing | 0

Back in the ‘old days’ when I first started teaching, Year 1 was the first year of formal learning and there were three terms each year.  In Year 1, students spent the first term participating in pre-reading, pre-writing and pre-maths … Continued

Busy and Bury

posted in: Categories | 0

Why is the ‘u’ in ‘busy’ pronounced as /i/ and in ‘bury’ pronounced as /e/? It relates to the fact that how we pronounce words can be different in different dialects of English and that the pronunciation of words often … Continued

The Comprehension Continuum

posted in: Reading | 0

Comprehension moves from the basic recall of information through to making inferences and finally making evaluative judgements.  Each of these types of comprehension have a place to play in our understanding of the text.  However, many comprehension activities don’t move … Continued

Letter Sounds Matter

posted in: Reading, Spelling | 0

Which is more important – knowing the name of letters or knowing the sound of the letters? The importance of knowing letter names versus letter sounds in early literacy development has long been debated. Similarly, should we be teaching letter … Continued