Ruminations
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Why orthographic processing is Cwen.
[You can also read this on my Substack, if preferred: Seeking Nisaba] English does, actually, suck, from a systems-design perspective. You can be someone who loves languages, be fascinated by them, and even think there’s something like a thread of the divine running through language and language acquisition, and still acknowledge that English sucks, on…
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The Educator has no clothes! Part 2.
(a.k.a. the bit no-one will share) [You can also read this on my Substack, if preferred: Seeking Nisaba] I originally included the content of this post in part one of the post of the same name, but my anonymous reviewers were split down the middle as to whether I should “go there” or not. I…
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When success is failure: “implementation casualties”
[You can also read this on my Substack, if preferred: Seeking Nisaba] This one might get me labelled a heretic. I started systemic advocacy from the point of view articulated in the oft-quoted paper from Snow and Juel: Explicit teaching of alphabetic decoding skills is helpful for all children, harmful for none, and crucial for…
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The Educator has no clothes! Part 1.
[You can also read this on my Substack, if preferred: Seeking Nisaba] My mum was a teacher, as was her mum before her. I decided to also become a teacher when I was in grade 4, after watching a ‘tough’ kid’s visible misery at not knowing how to start a maths problem. I offered to…
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DSM-5 Gatekeeping?
[You can also read this on my Substack, if preferred: Seeking Nisaba] Here’s the too long; didn’t read version: The DSM-5 has no requirement for 6 months of intervention to have occurred before a SLD diagnosis can be made. A clinician, clinic, organisation, or government body may adopt that position as policy, or decide it’s…
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The Disillusionment – ILPs/IEPs
Individual Learning Plans / Individual Education Plans [You can also read this on my Substack, if preferred: Seeking Nisaba] As a dyslexia advocate and tier 3 interventionist, I hear quite a bit about ILPs (Individual Learning Plans – that’s what they’re called in Tasmania). Sadly, they often feature ‘early’ in the typical tales of woe…
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Spelling Rules. Or sux.
[You can also read this on my Substack, if preferred: Seeking Nisaba] In this post, I will: Look at the position of the Sounds~Write program with regard to (not) teaching spelling rules. Highlight that this is an unusual position to take in structured literacy. Note that there appear to be some rather wild claims made…
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Anniversary reflections
[You can also read this on my Substack, if preferred: Seeking Nisaba] I wrote most of this over a couple of days in the summer school holidays, and then thought I’d finish it when I got back, but of course didn’t. The recent Teaching Matters science of learning summit in Hobart this week got me…
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Are Tasmania’s ‘Reading Wars’ over?
Experts seeking distance from $1M report suggests issues run deep. [You can also read this on my Substack, if preferred: Seeking Nisaba] The Premier’s Literacy Advisory Panel is set to hand down its final report to Tasmania’s Department for Education, Children & Young People (DECYP) any day now. The Panel’s Final Consultation Report was brimming…
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Protected: SoR‘s Dirty Big Secret
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.