We are often asked what books we would buy for our own children or for friends. Here's an insight into some our top picks of 2016 that may be landing in a stocking near you soon... Pippa recommends... Ada Twist,…
Read MoreHere at The Literacy Tree, we often find ourselves recommending different books for different purposes without qualifying exactly why. One might be wonderful for phonic application, another as a guided reader or a teaching text. Lately we have found ourselves…
Read MoreWe like this time of year. Y6 moderation time. And although this year is different in many ways, essentially we get to spend the next few weeks reading children’s writing and this is still the best part of the job…
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As another season of SATs draws to a close and the yearly cycle of moderation begins, we thought this an apt time to reflect upon assessment. Never has school assessment been so controversial, drawn so many headlines or created such…
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We are often asked to recommend books for particular year groups, and we know all-too-well how vital it is to match a text to children's interests as well as finding content that is age-appropriate and readable. So what happens when…
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Since the arrival of the curriculum, we've been asked to clarify quite a few grammatical terms. We've also been asked if we could explain which terms are relevant and which are now redundant. Having used many pages of flipchart paper…
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Our literature review this time covers a range of books, but essentially all of them this time are about how powerful our imagination and dreams can be – if we allow them to be realised... Demolition Dad by Phil Earle…
Read MoreAt The Literacy Tree we ponder about words and their origins a fair amount – more than some people would say was healthy, to be fair. We love a fact about a piece of language, such as how a word…
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For our spring literature review, we’ve picked three very different books. One appeals to the escapist, lover of fantasy in us, one appeals to our sense of humour and sense of the ridiculous, the last to the animal lover within…
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In the last few years there has been a revolution in children’s publishing which has meant the choice of attractive books is wider than ever before. Illustrated novels are now commonplace, understanding the need for books which give visual representations…
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As we start to near Christmas, we have picked three books (one picture book, one illustrated short novel and one non-fiction) that we think we would like to give or receive, although when we asked a few friends to help…
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It seems that, as teachers, the summer holiday has hardly begun, when at once we are inundated by an unavoidable abundance of those (ever-so-slightly infuriating) advertisements reminding us that it is not very long until we go back to school.…
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We are back to school this month and so we’ve picked three books we think will make great class reads (or bedtime books!). As always our aim is to find ones that you should enjoy as much the children. They…
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Our books this time reflect the good moods we’re in – it must be summer! Not only is one solely centred on how to do help people be happy through good deeds, but the other two books tell tales of…
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DEAR READER: BEWARE, THE CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG ARE GORY AND USUALLY ALWAYS END IN THE PROTAGONIST MEETING HIS OR HER MISERABLE END IN THE MOST HIDEOUS OF WAYS. We were recently asked to develop a poetry text-based teaching sequence…
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And surely as Spring arrives, so does a pile of new books to review…In our Literature review this time, we’ve picked some recently published books to share with you and this month we have a look at three books by…
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Some of the texts we find ourselves advocating the most are the ones which themselves have no words. Yes, all hail the wordless picture book. Often misunderstood, frequently overlooked, commonly mis-shelved, the wordless picture book is a genre difficult to…
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Over Christmas many of us, young and old alike, were enchanted by an advert for a well known store that told a tale of a bear and a hare. The tale was a simple but magical one, which explored essentially…
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