DfE validated programmes & Phonics for teens with SEN & Dyslexia

posted in: Phonics for older students, Secondary literacy |

Quick answers to two frequently asked questions about phonics for secondary schools. Question 1: Are secondary and special schools required to choose from the DfE’s list of validated phonics programmes? No! Those programmes are validated for primary only and may be inappropriate for both the age and stage of students at secondary school. That Reading Thing meets the DfE’s criteria for phonics interventions for older students as laid out in the 2021 Framework for Reading. Read more in this blog post. … Read More

Ghoti = Fish (no it doesn’t)

posted in: Dyslexia, Phonics for older students, Post-16 & Adult Literacy, Secondary literacy, Thoughts on Education |

Ghoti spells Fish. This thing still shows up on social media and still makes me sigh heavily for two reasons: 1. It still gets used by literacy professionals as ‘proof’ that the English language is ‘not phonetic’. Of course, we’re honest that English has a complex written code. There are a lot of ways to represent the sounds that we say. However – and this is a big deal for teen and adult literacy learners – the language is most … Read More

Explicit Literacy Instruction

posted in: Phonics for older students, Post-16 & Adult Literacy, Secondary literacy |

There are two phrases we ask That Reading Thing tutors to avoid: Sound it out Break it down Why? Because our students have heard these two phrases their whole school lives and have no idea what they mean. The analogy I give is learning to build my first website. I started with the WordPress platform because I’d read about their ‘famous 5-minute install’. Brilliant! There were no YouTube demo videos back then so I found the simplest instructions for the … Read More

Decodable text for teens and adults

posted in: Phonics for older students, Post-16 & Adult Literacy, Resources and Lesson Ideas, Secondary literacy |

We’re often asked what decodable readers we recommend and the answer is ‘none’. This is because the vast majority of TRT learners, even those who are working slowly through the *Foundation levels, are not beginning readers. They all come with some sight words so there’s no reason to limit those in text. They usually know all the basic alphabet sounds for both reading and writing and can work with multisyllabic words from the first lesson. That Reading Thing is structured … Read More

Functional Skills – Phonics at Entry Levels

posted in: Phonics for older students, Post-16 & Adult Literacy, Resources and Lesson Ideas |

As I travel around the FE world I’m hearing that people have looked at the Post-16 Phonics Toolkit but haven’t necessarily read it. If that’s you, here’s a quick tour based around the chapter people are most concerned about. Chapter 11 is called “Turning the FSE word lists into a learning tool” It encourages FS teachers not to teach lists but to develop vocabulary for both reading and spelling. The chapter is a bit of a beast, but these six … Read More

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