Christopher Such
@Suchmo83
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Experienced primary teacher, school leader and author. Feel free to DM if you are looking for professional development relating to reading.
@suchmo83.bsky.social
Joined October 2010
I've made a blog-post where all the resources I've shared - from science curriculum documents to tier two vocabulary lists - can be downloaded. Help yourself! https://t.co/ul2t6kgoZb
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Found this last part out the hard way @Suchmo83. Tried doing three different passages and it was a disaster, haha. Your book always has the right insight.
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This is spot on, and not just an issue in primary. There *are* things we can do to improve reading comprehension, but this isn’t it. Valuable 🧵 from Chris.
A surprisingly common counterproductive practice in primary schools is for teachers to look ahead to the next standardised comprehension assessment and then make sure their kids practise answering lots of questions that look similar to the ones in the test. >>
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As always, Christopher Such is right on the money…I worry that the problem is worse than that…
A surprisingly common counterproductive practice in primary schools is for teachers to look ahead to the next standardised comprehension assessment and then make sure their kids practise answering lots of questions that look similar to the ones in the test. >>
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WOW!!🔥🔥🔥 Every NYC teacher, principal, and superintendent needs to read & internalize this thread. The way we’ve replaced the teaching of reading with the teaching of reading test-taking is wholly unethical!!!
A surprisingly common counterproductive practice in primary schools is for teachers to look ahead to the next standardised comprehension assessment and then make sure their kids practise answering lots of questions that look similar to the ones in the test. >>
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But explicit preparation for tests that are supposed to be used internally for summative purposes makes no sense. Doing so reduces the accuracy of the assessment, and it is ineffective in developing the reading capability that will actually determine outcomes over the long term.
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Naturally, some preparation for assessments has a role to play. Kids deserve to feel confident when approaching their Y6 reading SATs - and schools want to maximise marks - so *some* explicit modelling and rehearsal is entirely justifiable after Christmas in year 6, say. >>
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Sometimes English/reading co-ordinators don't realise that this gaming of the assessment is happening. But much more often they just don't realise that it is problematic. >>
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And this is then used as a reason to return to the previous method of teaching reading that *did* game the test efficiently but *didn't* do much to develop fluency or build pupils' experience with written language. >>
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Naturally, this gaming of the assessment gives the school an inaccurate view of their pupils' attainment. Even worse, though, is that it then means that when teachers stop doing this and start doing something that builds reading capability, results can take a short-term dip. >>
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But much more often teachers have come to believe that their ultimate job is to make the reading score go up, regardless of whether this accurately reflects underlying reading development or not. >>
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Teachers who have been in the same year group for more than a year can sometimes do this without consciously realising that they are doing it because they are familiar with the assessments against which their pupils' progress will be judged. >>
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A surprisingly common counterproductive practice in primary schools is for teachers to look ahead to the next standardised comprehension assessment and then make sure their kids practise answering lots of questions that look similar to the ones in the test. >>
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I am starting to see more teachers interested in using evidence-based teaching in upper grades in my area so I am digging in to some podcasts and videos that I can send my colleagues. @Suchmo83 always says it so clearly.
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It seems like an apt time to share this old post Simon and the Love of Reading | Teaching it Real
teachreal.wordpress.com
Simon hated Tuesdays. Tuesdays filled him with a low sense of dread, bringing a queasy feeling and a sense of restlessness. It was not enough to be able to blag a day off, but just enough to make h…
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I See Reasoning - Y2 with the video to explain, info and FREE SAMPLE! Visuals, talk tasks and open-ended challenges for deepening the challenge with small numbers: https://t.co/ObVUDoVCXW
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A great 🧵from @Suchmo83 on ‘reading for pleasure’ and struggling readers. For children who can read, it’s an admirable activity. For those who struggle, it’s nothing short of dire. An activity that reminds them of their lack. It can be a very long 10-15 minutes for them.
@DeputyGrocott I think it depends on what the pupils who struggle to read are doing at this time. If they are just left to sit in front of a book and pretend to read while embedding feelings of inadequacy (something much more common than we'd like to imagine), then I think it is problematic. >>
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I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
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If you're interested in thoughtful discussion about reading, especially in the context of US early grades, I'd highly recommend you follow @ChaninJeff.
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@dnleslie @Suchmo83 @S_Oberle This site: https://t.co/v79UjZdXvw It's based on an American accent and does appear to view the whole of the English orthography as an alphabetic code, so it has it's limitations, but I've found it very useful when designing phonics/spelling sheets over the last few years.
phonicsandstuff.com
These tables show the most common graphemes for each phoneme. They are calculated by counting individual correspondences or by using a weighted ranking based on word frequencies!
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This. And let's add, when the research strongly points in one direction, logic and critical thinking should provide direction. We shouldn't throw our hands up with faux-helplessness and say, 'there aren't enough studies so all choices are equally reasonable.'
@S_Oberle But it's worth noting that when research provides essentially no guidance, this isn't a reason to suggest that anything goes. While obviously fallible, the consensus position of experienced teachers should provide direction in such circumstances.
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