Amazing! The new magazine for 7+ readers that teaches the curriculum in a Horrible Histories style! Plus Give-away!

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 Kids love disgusting! 

"Uuuurrrrrrggghhhhh!!! That's DISGUSTING!" were the first words from Princess Peppa, my 9 year old. (I may need to rethink her blog pseudonym now she's waaay past loving Peppa Pig). "That's COOL!" was the response from Little Miss George, the 7 year old. 

They couldn't be more different, but they both laughed, giggled, and uurrrggghhhed their way through our sample copies of Amazing! Magazine. From how to make your own edible bogie's; Yes; Really. To a guide to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar; (it's not limiting itself this one); the magazine takes a fresh look at information we want our children to learn and presents it in a fun, clever, humorous and yes, quite frankly often disgusting, way. 

It's designed to link to the primary curriculum. Want to know if you'd survive as a Roman gladiator? Find out in the Ancient Romans edition. Want to learn where and when the first false teeth are made? Check out the Human Body edition.

Is spelling a lost art?

Is spelling a lost art?

Why can't she spell?

Have you ever been shocked by a friend or colleague that you discovered couldn't spell basic English words?  I've been completely shocked by friends and colleagues who can't spell. They are intelligent, capable adults, but when they need to write things down on paper it becomes clear they can't spell words that my 9 year old has already learnt in Year 5.

The words I've seen adults ask for help with include; 'communicate', 'relationship', and 'development'.

I must admit to being shocked. I have always assumed, possibly naively, that everyone that's gone through the school system and is working in a pretty good job can read and write, and when I say write, I also mean spell.

Remember in school when there was a weekly spelling test alongside the weekly times-table test? My daughters now come home with pretty much the same homework as I did 35 years ago... Spellings and Tables.

The theory is presumably that if you know your tables off by heart, other mental arithmetic is invariably easier and you'll find passing tests, counting change (when using cash on those rare occasions these days) and working out how much you'll pay back in interest if you borrow money for a car, an awful lot more manageable. And let's be honest; when someone calculates something in their heads quickly we are all impressed.

They are that little bit sexier as a result. Or is that just me?

Personalised picture books for Christmas

Desperately searching for a different Christmas present for your children, family or friends?

Don't want to bend to peer pressure and just purchase the most popular toy of the year?

Or maybe just fancy something that little more long-lasting than plastic toys or clothes they will grow out of?

Why not try something a bit different and choose a personalised book for your little one?

Over at Egmont your child can be the star of the story with their very own personalised book.

Choose from Thomas the Tank Engine, Bob the Builder, Mr. Men or Fireman Sam.

Not only have I got a great voucher code for you; you can also win these great books here this week!

10 reassuring and helpful tips for getting organised: for mums whose children are starting school

Little Miss George started in Reception just over a week ago. Already she has brought home two reading books without any words in them; a sponsor form to raise money for the school; 3 separate newsletters with dates for parent evenings, school photo sessions, coffee mornings and encouraging suggestions that I attend the annual general meeting of the "mums and dads" committee; and lots of tales of playing with lots of Lego. If she was my elder daughter I would be wondering what on earth the school was playing at and would be feeling completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information.

If she was our first, I would have diligently attending the welcome meeting for new parents last week in order to be told exactly how important it was to read the reading books "the same night" and return the next day to ensure that the book was available for the next child.

I would be feeling under pressure to attend every meeting, and already panicking about the potential risk of forgetting to dress my daughter in appropriate "dress-up" gear on various fancy dress days to come.

I would be scanning every letter and marking in my diary every single event, without having a clue which pieces of information were more important than others.

As it is, I know better.

This year I am much more relaxed. Here's my list of top tips that will help you work out what information is important, what to prioritise and what to just ignore. I hope it helps.

Egmont release new snowy stories

The Egmont Snowy collection

Egmont's new snowy stories

When I was a girl growing up in the seventies I collected the Mr Men books. Small enough for little fingers; short enough for bedtime stories and light enough to not squish your toes when you inevitably drop them.  

Today the format is just as perfect as it always was, only now its not just the Mr Men that come in this size.  Way back in October, when I was thinking about Halloween and originally started drafting this post, I was thinking ahead to Christmas and planning the house decorations.  Now the decorations have all come down and time seems to have swept past us as break neck speed. 

In true "frazzled mummy" style I intended to review Egmont's new snowy stories which come in this perfect format*, in time for Christmas.  Though too late for Christmas, these would make great additions to party bags, or extra presents for any birthday's you have coming up.  

I was kindly sent three of the lovely stories and we read them the day they arrived, and have done a few times since.  

But I made a school girl error.  I was supposed to include my daughter's excellently handwritten review of the stories which she did for me back then.  Unfortunately, in the chaos that reigned when nine separate boxes of decorations came down from the loft and the house was 'tidied' in preparation for Christmas day visitors, I managed to mis-place her work.  (sorry luv) So I finally have had to ask her, politely, to tell me again what she thought.  

Over to her in a moment. Firstly, my younger (aged 4) also gave a brief appraisal. She enjoyed all the books and the Thomas book the best as the "snowball bit was funny".  But I personally felt that the pictures were poor in this book: all close ups when there was scope for great pictures of the action.  That was as far as her review went, although she has selected the Thomas book, "Snowy Tracks" a few times since for bedtime story.

Here's the elders' (6 years old) review...

"It was really a surprise when we got home and got the books.  The one I really enjoyed best was the Mr Men one because it had Santa in it, it was Christmassy and it was seasonal because it was nearly Christmas.  The 'Everything's Rosie' book was quite a fun book because it had sledging in it and I liked the characters, because they are different and not all people.  The 'Snowy Tracks' Thomas book; it was very, very, very fun because it had snowballs and it was snowy, so that one was really quite nice, so I enjoyed that one as well, as well as my sister."

I asked her what she thought of the size.  She said "it was good because the big books are quite heavy".

I asked her what she thought of the pictures.  "They were quite good because they had detail; so like, if it said Rosie had an album then the picture would show you that Rosie had an album,so it told you what was actually happening."  

I asked, why's that a good idea for children? 

"Sometimes for children, if you tell me a word, like 'survive' I might not know what that means.  And 'album', some children are smaller than me and don't know what that means, so they can look at the picture and see what the story is and see what that means, so it's quite good."

I personally love books of this size.  The length is perfect for bedtime stories, the size is perfect for little hands, and the stories are written in a langauage accessible to early readers (my 6 year old can read them herself) and in a suitably large font size.  My only disappointment, as already mentioned, was in the pictures accompanying the Thomas story.   

The books we received were:

Mr Men meet Father Christmas by Roger Hargreaves
Snowy Tracks (A 'Thomas the Tank Engine' Story)
The Last Snowball (An 'Everything's Rosie' story)  
All published by Egmont.  

You can purchase them via Amazon via the links above.

*The Thomas and Everything's Rosie titles are approximately 1cm larger than the Mr Men books, but made with the same paper and in paperback.</

The Phonics Screening Test Debate

The first Phonics Screening Test results have been issued.

When the Department of Education announced the introduction of these tests back in December 2011 we had a debate on this blog about the usefulness of the test.  My concern was, and still is, that the results of the test will be used to measure children's ability rather than the purpose for which the tests are intended, which is to measure what 'method' of reading they are using in order to check if the teachers are teaching in the way the Department of Education would prefer them too.

The difficulties in interpreting this test include the following issues:

1. The teacher may be teaching reading using phonics but a child may be exceptionally good at reading and is reading many words by sight, only to be thrown by the phonics test and score poorly on it.
2. The teacher may not be using phonics as the main method of teaching, but may be having great success with other methods or a combination of methods.  Their class's phonics test results will be poor, but their class may be brilliant at actually reading.
3. Many words cannot be decoded using phonics. Our language isn't 'neat' enough.
4. And my main problem, which is that the Press and Media will use the results of the test to show how well our children are doing or not doing at reading, when actually the test check's method, not success.

The debate was reignited last week, when children came home with slips of paper detailing their results.  This thread on Mumsnet raged for 336 posts, with mums querying when they should worry, what they could do to help if the phonics score was low and asking how the test worked.  Children's author, Micheal Rosen, joined the discussion in his blog post here, and pointed out that phonics alone wouldn't help children read for pleasure.

Our daughter got 37/40. The expected level they are aiming for is 32/40, so I was happy.  But then realised I had no need to be 'happy' per se, as it hadn't tested her reading ability, just what method she primarily used to read.

This goes against my management style.  In the office I prefer to ask staff to produce a piece of work and I leave it up to them to decide what 'method' they will use to do it.  If the work is completed effectively and on time, then the 'method' isn't particularly important to me.

Here the powers-that-be are defining the 'method' that the teachers use.  It's one job where they persistently seem to be afraid to let the teachers just 'teach'.  Each teacher is different.  Each will have success with different methods.  Each child is different and will require a teacher who is adaptable and emphatic to best succeed.

Please can we stop testing whether teachers are 'doing what they are told' and simply let them teach?  The results will speak for themselves.*

*Assuming the SATs and GCSEs are appropriately set and test real knowledge and not just the ability to churn out facts the child doesn't understand of course!

The Oxford Reading Tree: Chip & Biff & why I hate them

The Oxford Reading Tree Read At Home collection

I really don't like the Chip and Biff books. 

I was at the stage of mild dislike, where I tolerated them because I could see that my daughter was able to read the ones she brought home from school.

And clearly school were using them as part of their reading scheme, so my first reaction was to trust that they have a plan; a strategy; and that Biff and Chip must somehow play a part in that plan.

However, after my 5 year old brought home "The Magic Key" last night I moved on a stage - straight to hatred. 

She might as well have been reading a list of words to practise her reading.  The story "The Magic Key" is less of a story and more of a vague throwing together of scenes where the cast have a limited vocabulary that generally involves some, or all, of them saying "Oh no".  The gist of this 'story' was that Chip and Biff found a magic key.  They picked it up and it made them shrink.  They picked up a few random objects on the floor (pencil, pin) and marvelled at how heavy they were (at this point I was vaguely interested in why, of all the objects them could find, a sharp pin which was now the size of a sword, should be chosen. I needn't have bothered)  Then they saw the dolls house and tried to get inside.  OK, so far there is some promise of adventure.  They have, after all, a weapon.  But no.  They couldn't get in the house and that 'storyline' was abandoned.  Then a dark shadow scared them. Oh, I thought, somewhat foolishly, here we go, here's the action.  But no.  It was a mouse.  A boring mouse that looked at them and went away again.  And that, dear readers, was the end.

I can't work out where the drama is in that.  I can't work out where there is consideration of plot.  Of a beginning, a middle and an end.  Of conflict and resolution.  Of character development. 

I refuse to accept the answer that "there doesn't need to be any".  Of course there does.  You wouldn't try and teach a child to read by making them read the dictionary.  The reason to learn to read is to be able to experience other worlds, to jump into stories and enjoy them.  And of course, to be able to learn things from non-fiction books, to read newspapers, to read road signs, to communicate.

Children will not get a love of books (actual books, made of paper) or even a love of reading, if this is what they are subjected to.  You wouldn't produce a film with this plot, so why is it acceptable in a book?

I understand that when writing for a reading scheme you are supposed to use a certain batch of words.  What I am less sure on is why?  Why not just read stories; any stories.  The common words, by their very nature, will appear more often and will be picked up quicker due to their repetition.  There will be tricky words, but then again, I'm in my late 30s and still have to occasionally ask what a word means.  

There are hundreds of stories out there that are good stories.  With all the Roald Dahls, Julia Donaldsons, Enid Blytons, A A Milnes, Roger Hargreaves' out there, why oh why oh why do we need this rubbish?

I have a set of these at home gifted from a neighbour who is also a teacher.  Of all the books my girls have these Chip and Biff stories are NEVER selected by them when it's bedtime story time.

I don't know what frustrates me more.  The fact that my daughter has to read this stuff to tick the box in her Reading Record, or that I could write the stories so much better!

What do you think?  Why do teachers use these 'schemes'? Do you use them at home? What are the advantages of this kind of book? I presume there must be some, otherwise someone, somewhere, is making money out of a con.

I'd appreciate your thoughts.  Biscuits at the ready as ever.

Read my thoughts on the teaching of phonetics and the new phonetics test here.

Che-re-is-te-me-as: Why Phonetics can only take you so far.....

"Two-thirds fail new primary phonics reading check" announced the BBC yesterday in response to the publication of the results of the pilots of the new phonetics screening check for 6 year olds that the Department of Education officially announced the introduction of yesterday.

The BBC pointed out that 32% of pupils taking the test failed it, and went on to express the view of the General Secretary of the National Society of Headteachers, Russell Hobby, who said that "large numbers of teachers who used the test during the pilot found it...less useful than their existing means of diagnosing early reading ability."

I was upset by my initial reading of the story, as I couldn't make sense of the statistics as the BBC went on to say that the test results were inconsistent with the results of national curriculum tests which show that 8 out of 10 children in England routinely meet the levels expected of them at age seven and eleven.

I studied statistics at school, at university, and as part of my chartered accountancy qualification.  I know how statistics work and how easy they are to manipulate.  But because I am particularly interested in teaching my children to read well, I thought I'd delve deeper in to this story to understand the discrepancy.

It turns out that it's pretty simple.  The new test only tests the 'method' the child is using to decode words.  It tests whether the prescribed 'phonetics' system is being used.  It includes non-words, to ensure that the children  literally read sound-by-sound the word in front of them regardless of whether the result is a word they recognise or not.

Of course you will get inconsistencies in results.  Because straight away you could have children that will 'fail' to decode non-words using this system.  That can read perfectly fluently and enjoy stories, but are confused and thrown by these words that they have never seen being presented out of context.

So as a tool to check if the 'system' is being used, then it will probably give correct results.  But to use the new screening test as a tool to present children's ability to 'read', that would be a mistake and would provide unhelpful results.

All children learn in different ways*.  Learning in context is really important.  My daughter will get stuck on a word, and her method for decoding it is to continue reading the sentence.  She'll get to the end of the sentence, and based on the context of the story and the letters she can see in the problematic word, she can 'work it out'.

Assuming that 'just' phonetics will create better readings is a blinkered, naive, potentially dangerous view.  People are not all the same.  People do not learn the same.  One 'method' will work for some and not for all.  Learning methods should be tailored to the individual child, not enforced on all.

Besides, using phonetics alone, without context, would give a very strange version of the word "Christmas" now wouldn't it?

The BBC News report can be found here.
The Department of Education website detailing the introduction of the new test and the associated materials are here. 

*I learn through visualisation, meaning that even now, in my late thirties, I still picture a chocolate cake in my head when I'm doing fractions so I can 'see' the fractions and percentages involved.  (Being an accountant, that probably explains my almost constant chocolate cravings at work!)  My husband tends to learn 'rote', that is, you tell him something and it sticks.  He doesn't necessarily need to work it out again in future instances, he just 'knows' it.  A big difference between us is memory function.  My visualisation technique works fine and enables me to work out things through logical steps, seeing the results.  That is until I am asked to do mental arithmetic that requires breaking down the workings in to more than say five chunks, because my short term memory is so shockingly bad, I will have forgotten what answer I got to the first chunk by the time I get to the last chunk.  And so I have to write a lot of things down.  Step by step.  That's me. 

Worried your child isn't doing well at school?

Seriously, don't fret!

Particularly if they are in Reception and are young for their year.

My daughter is now 5 years old, as of last week; and she is writing well even if the teacher continues to criticise her method of writing (she likes to start at the bottom of letters, not the top.  I'm a big believer in results, not method, so can't see why this is a problem), and she is reading well, struggling only with naughty words like "was" and "here" which don't sound like themselves at all when you try and sound them out a letter at a time.

She's been at school now since September 2010.  8 months.  Her sister won't start school until a week before she turns 5 years old, and therefore, in order for her to be anywhere near the same stage as her sister as at her 5th birthday I will have to have taught her all the stuff that school have been teaching my eldest for the last 8 months.

And so, when the teachers compare my eldest's performance (one of the youngest children in her year) with the oldest children, I am frustrated, as the developmental differences between children of 4 and 5 years old is vast, and yet the teachers seem insistent on them all being the same.

Don't worry.  Don't fret.  Reading and writing are important.   But they are only young, and have plenty of time to work it out.  Plenty of time.

Convinced yet?

Reading books for pre-schoolers.....

My eldest is currently reading a series of children's books at school about Biff and Chip.  It's an Oxford learning tree series and I'd never come across it before, because I obviously haven't read children's books for a good 30 years.

And so I've purchased the first six Peter and Jane books by Ladybird.  These are the books I remember fondly, and despite being a member of a family of hoarders, haven't managed to save.  I had to order them of course.  Books that are 30 years old don't tend to be regularly stocked on the high street!  But they are as good as I remember them, and seemingly completely unchanged and no worse off for it.  The eldest is enjoying them.

The process of thinking about learning to read though bought with it a strong, and sudden, memory out of seemingly nowhere.  A name popped into my head.  Billy Blue Hat.  And another.  Roger Red Hat.

To start with I didn't understand the memory.  The words came with a feeling of fondness, and a memory of bright colours.  So I did some quick research.  It turns out I'm remembering a series of 1970/80s books commonly known as the Roger Red Hat Books, but actually called the One Two Three and Away series.  More pictures on Childofthe80s.

Anyone else remember these!?  I'm wondering where I could now find a copy!