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From Solitary to Social - How book talk fosters a love of reading in classrooms - Jodie Matthews (Strategic Lead) - 6th Jan 2025

From Solitary to Social - how book talk fosters a love of reading in classrooms At Roade English Hub I work with a team of incredibly passionate individuals who work hard and are driven because they know, and research tells them that being literate has the potential to be life changing. Incredibly research also clearly shows us that if you are a literate child who reads for pleasure then this has more impact on your future life chances than any other factor. At Roade English Hub we believe that it is every child’s right to be literate, and to be given the opportunity to develop a love and passion for reading. In our travels around our vast area, we have yet to find a teacher who doesn’t also want these things.
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Getting Them Blending by Christmas: Strategies for Success - Janet Thompson (Literacy Specialist) - 3rd Dec 2024

Why is Blending Important? Blending—the process of pushing sounds together to form words—is a crucial milestone in early literacy. The sooner children can blend, the sooner they enter the world of reading. Learning the “code” of sounds has little value if children can’t use it to decode words.
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Reading is a Mathematical Equation - Hayley Pyrah (Hub Lead) - 2nd Dec 2024

Have you ever wondered why the simple view of reading is set out in quadrants? I recently attended a training event with Christopher Such, who explained the Simple View of Reading as WR x LC = RC… Word Recognition multiplied by Language Comprehension equals Reading Comprehension. Although I have seen this equation previously, shared the quadrants on many occassions and read various different representations about the Simple View of reading; I never really reflected on why it was a multiplication equation rather than an addition until Christopher Such explained it… You can’t have one without the other! If Gough and Tumner (1986) had shared the two skills of word recognition and language comprehension and shared it as WR + LC= RC then we might assume that if a child was lacking in one of the skills, you could fill it with the other and still achieve reading comprehension.
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"The SEND Phonics Puzzle: Every Child Deserves a Piece!" - Gabriela Neal-Gonzalez (Literacy Specialist) - 4th Nov 2024

When I sat down to write this blog post, one thought immediately came to mind: ‘How can we be better for our SEND learners?’ The teaching of phonics is fundamental for any child to learn to read, when I say any, I really mean ALL. For years there has been the misconception that ‘If this child has SEND they cannot learn to read in the same way as their peers!’ The truth of the matter is all children, no matter their starting point or their need, will learn in the same way as the rest of their peers – phonics is the way to teach reading. The phrase ‘teach reading’ is absolutely key here – we are not born with the inbuilt knowledge of reading – we have to be taught to read. So, if we take this into consideration – we all begin at the same starting point no one is born with reading skills (although how easy would it be if we were?!) we gain them over time through considerate and consistent high-quality teaching.
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Flourishing through Fluency - Jess Steele (Literacy Specialist) - 30th Sep 2024

Flourishing through Fluency…… On my many visits to schools around Northamptonshire and beyond, one of the things I take the most pleasure in seeing is a class full of children reading together. There is something truly magical and heart-warming about this wonderful, shared experience. When this is done well; the text is carefully chosen, the children are motivated and engaged, they are actively participating in the experience and sharing their enjoyment- there really is nothing better. But how do we ensure every child can enjoy this rewarding shared experience?
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Successful September - Sally Currell (Engagement and MLS Lead) - 27th Aug 2024

So here we are again, summer holidays seem but a distant memory and the autumn term has started with a bang! The Reception children seem so small but eagerly arrive each morning clasping their book bag and water bottle, the Year One’s suddenly seem so grown up and the confidence is oozing from Year Two as they realise they are now the oldest pupils in Key Stage One and are keen to look after the youngest ones. September arrives and there is always so much to do, no matter how much preparation you did at the end of the summer term, or indeed throughout the holidays. I always find that September goes by in a flash as children and staff settle into new classes, new routines and new timetables whilst the weather is usually better than it was throughout the holidays!
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How do you Coach a Coach? Hayley Pyrah (Hub Lead) - 14th Aug 2024

Have you ever been teaching and told that today you will have visitors attending your lesson to observe, coach and give feedback, to then be filled with dread? Even though you are confident in your ability to teach and you are fully prepared; the nerves kick in and you fear all of the possible worst things that could go wrong or the horrendous things they could say about the lesson. There could be two reasons for this feeling... 1- You care!
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Summer Holiday Reading! Charlotte Lamb (Literacy Specialist) - 22nd Jul 2024

Summer holidays are the perfect time to catch up on some reading. It can be tricky for teachers to find time to read in term time but the summer holiday provides that quieter time to catch up on recently released children's literature as well as just enjoying reading! It's so important for us to keep up to date with recently released texts so we can recommend them to children in our class, talk about them and more importantly ask our headteachers for copies of them for school! Exposing the children we teach to new an upcoming authors helps them to branch out from the comfort of those well known and popular texts and in turn has an impact on vocabulary, writing and motivation to read for pleasure.
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Raising Aspirations - Jodie Matthews (Strategic Lead) - 18th Jul 2024

Did you know that if you raise your expectations of what can be achieved then more is actually achieved. If you set your target really high the outcome will be higher than it would have been with a lower target. As humans we strive to meet goals and targets we set ourselves and are set by others and in doing this, while we may not achieve the very high target, we come closer than we ever thought possible. As we go into our 6th year of supporting schools I’ve been reflecting on what has been achieved.
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To band or not to band- that is the question! - Gill Wilcox (Literacy Specialist) - 1st Jul 2024

The June weather might have been underwhelming but I have got one seriously hot topic for July: To band or not to band- that is the question! Reading progression has been built on a foundation of colour banding for decades. Children, parents and teachers can measure success through a rainbow journey of fairly standard texts. How can we possibly deviate from the embedded procedure that has become cemented in reading provisions in every corner of the country?
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