Tag: boys and reading

  • Phonics confuse slow readers

    I love the English language and all its strange little ways – how it is perfectly unsuited to learning to read using an exclusive phonetic system. Take a simple word like Slow. Slow can be pronounced phonetically as Slough, like the town, or Sloe, as in the name of the fruit. If you come from…

  • What is reading for?

    What is reading for?

    Currently, there is a lively debate about how children should learn to read. It seems to me that both sides of the debate share the same concern – they all agree that children should become fluent readers, able to both read and understand the written word. To me, the debate has come about through the…

  • Forget writing and arithmetic – Reading is the one and only core skill

    Reading is the the most difficult skill most of us will ever set out to master. I used to worry about repeating myself but, when writing stories for very young readers, I love repeating words and phrases, twisting them gently to create new, surprising meanings with the same jumble of words and letters. It helps…