Having a child in London means that, sooner or later, you start compulsively researching ‘good’ schools. I walked past Thomas Jones primary school today and saw a notice on their gate that said they had featured in an Ofsted report about how the best schools teach children to read. I came home and looked it up: Reading by Six: How the best schools do it.
Systematic phonics teaching seems to be the answer, whether they use Jolly Phonics, Read Write Inc, or have developed their own programme. I wonder if there is any academic research out there on how different children respond to these programmes? For example, a classic dyslexic symptom is struggling with sound-letter association. How do these programmes deal with this? Is there any specific provision for this? Is it structured repetition, as in Keda Cowling’s work?
