I’m a fan of classic ‘word sort’ activities like these, but I do believe a small tweak can make them more effective at promoting orthographic mapping.

A very small🧵 on why I think they’re powerful and a small, simple addition to make them even better! I incorporate word sorts into my instruction in some capacity most days because they provide opportunities:
-for fast paced reading *and* writing
-to vary challenge (by incrementally increasing number of polysyllabic words)
-to analyse orthographic tendencies (e.g. ‘y’ spelling…

I've noticed some great improvements in my class's handwriting since September.

We have a simple routine that only takes 5 mins a day; little and often really is key!

Whilst I have also taught and reinforced key ideas about body position, pencil grip and paper position,... ... the bulk of our time has been spent on the core principles:

Strong modelling
Precise, timely feedback with on the spot intervention
Practise that focuses on both writing accuracy AND fluency

We only target 2 words a day, but aim for mastery with those words.

Since moving to teach in NI, it's been a fascinating little journey observing some of the differences from what I'm used to (England).

Of the many differences, PHONICS INSTRUCTION is the big one. Both the amount and quality of instruction varies greatly from school to school... .. akin to England's approach to phonics 10+ years ago (before the PSC was introduced for increased impact monitoring and accountability). 

It's the implications of this that have somewhat surprised me (though it's largely what I expected).

Here's what I've noticed:

My new ‘project’ for next year:

Exploring the ways in which a simplified form of CONCEPT MAPPING can support reading comprehension of narrative texts (and non-fiction too but overall that is a little bit more straightforward and clarified by more research).

Why…? ‘Situation model’ similarities

To successfully understand what we read, we don’t remember all of the exact words/phrases (obviously), but we actually create a ‘situation model’ of it, which is a mental representation of key aspects of the story (who, what, where, when, why).

I've recently been diving back into the world of handwriting research, but with a bit more of a focus on the practicalities of effective handwriting instruction.

Here are a few key principles and actionable tips:

https://twitter.com/RyonWLeyshon/status/1581589314819219456

Flower and Hayes describe the writing process as 'the act of dealing with an excessive number of simultaneous demands,' and that writers are 'thinkers on full time cognitive overload.'

It is vital that we understand the cognitive demands that transcription places on all writers.

Some thoughts on teaching spelling with a specific focus on how we approach the statutory lists on the NC:

It’s quite common to see words from these lists thrown at kids without much thought as to how these will anchor onto existing orthographic representations/understanding. Relying on wrote memorisation strategies like look, cover, write, check or rainbow writing or pyramid writing (to name a few) will likely achieve successful short term ‘performances’ for some, but not set up rich, robust orthographic representations needed for long term learning.

My Year 4 class (last year) made huge improvements in their ability to coherently record and accurately punctuate ideas in their writing.

Here's a thread about it in case it's of any use to anyone else:

(It will feel very familiar to anyone using @TheWritingRevol strategies!) Whilst it was clear that mastery over sentence level grammar and basic punctuation had to be a priority if writing standards were to improve, they still needed a rich diet of age-appropriate teaching to ensure they could write with different styles for different purposes.

Orthographic processing is the ability to form, store and access orthographic representations which abide by the allowable order of letters within a language and are then linked to the phonological, semantic and morphological coding of that language (Cunningham et al., 2011). When a developing reader uses their phonological processing capacity to successfully decode a word, they will start to create cognitive orthographic representations and, in typical readers, fluent future word identification will be enabled with varied repetitions (Ehri, 2005).

A 🧵on the importance of handwriting when learning to read and write:

Handwriting letters helps to *create* networks that link sensory and motor systems in the brain, networks that brain imaging research shows will be constantly drawn upon as a literate adult.

But… how? James (2010) compared a ‘look and say’ approach (no handwriting) with a printed approach (handwriting) to examine neural activity in preliterate 4 year olds after 4 weeks of training. The findings demonstrated the importance of handwriting, with the printed approach forming…

The message here is an important and thought-provoking one, but one that, IMO, has its sights set in the wrong areas to illustrate the point.

For me, the ways in which primary schools are becoming ‘mini-secondary’ schools will potentially have negative side effects, but…

https://twitter.com/naomicfisher/status/1548622308796993536

… there are many issues with the way phonics instruction is targeted and discussed in the thread - issues that can and will cause pushback against it, potentially damaging children’s learning and wellbeing in the process.

Here are some things to consider in response to Naomi:

I’ve given these lists a trial run with selection of year 4 children using a decoding automaticity test (like the ASUWRI in which individual words flash up on the screen for a brief amount of time - 0.5s in this case).

There are some predictable and some interesting takeaways:

https://twitter.com/RyonWLeyshon/status/1546977761075527681

Predictable observations:

1. Although the sample was small, differences in decoding automaticity performance were *largely* inline with my expectations based on what I know of them as readers from fluency checks and typical reading comprehension work, standardised scores etc.

Behaviour Toolkit (v2) - a thread

I find it useful to have a simplified overview of high utility behaviour management strategies on my desk. I choose one or two each week that I’m going to make a conscious effort to improve.

(I explain each strategy in more detail below ⬇️) (FYI-this was only designed for personal use. I do wonder if it could be made more useful for others but I’m not sure how well it would work whilst remaining succinct enough for a one page overview. And I know the icons are pretty pointless but I find it more visually appealing!)

MEGA THREAD! 🧵

(Yes, it clearly should have been a blog, but I just can’t get into blogging for some reason!?)

What role does spelling play in the orthographic mapping process?

Covering:
-Theoretical underpinning
-Key research findings
-Potential implications for instruction Background theory

What is orthographic mapping?

It refers to the process of creating representations of specific words that contain semantic (meaning), orthographic (spelling) and phonological (sound) information tightly bound together to aid instant decoding (Perfetti, 2007).

A hard agree from me.

Reading and discussing high quality, *challenging* texts must sit at the heart of a reading curriculum.

This is a topic I have explored and researched in depth so I'll piggyback on this thread to share some related ideas that *someone* may find useful!

https://twitter.com/Suchmo83/status/1487360791913369608

To ensure that discussion of texts is prioritised, we call some of our reading lessons 'Dialogic Comprehension' sessions. There is no expectation for answers to be written down (though it is allowed); verbal exploration and analysis of the text is the main focus.

A thread (that perhaps should have been a short blog) on:

Using carefully crafted questions routinely to guide children’s thinking in reading comprehension sessions and why, IMO, these examples are powerful enough to warrant including regularly. 'What do you think the author was trying to tell us here?'

The personal link (what do *you* think) emphasises that meaning is constructed based on an individual's own prior knowledge and experiences, so interpretations will vary - and that this is a wonderful aspect of reading..

A thread on handwriting fluency (automaticity and pace)

With a steadily rising recognition (in the UK, specifally) of how vital reading fluency is in the reading comprehension process, I wonder if handwriting *fluency* could do with some added impetus in schools. From my experiences (teaching over the last 9 years or so in the UK and in my twittersphere), it is common to for handwriting accuracy/legibility to be taught and monitored at least fairly consistently, but conversations centred around handwriting automaticity/pace are very rare.