Closing the Reading Gap by Alex Quigley

I read and thoroughly enjoyed Closing the Vocabulary Gap and The Confident Teacher. Alex Quigley writes with clarity and concision covering a great deal thoughtfully. As a teacher of politics and geography- both subjects rich in vocabulary and reading, I have always felt that I fumble my way through those aspects of my teaching. I

Bringing Words to Life by Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown and Linda Kucan

As a teacher of social subjects, I am always keen to read books that support literacy. I stumbled across this recommendation on Twitter as a key read about vocabulary. It was listed alongside some recent books I have thoroughly enjoyed but was published back in 2002. It focused on widening the vocabulary of students. Much

The ResearchEd Guide to Literacy by James Murphy

The new ResearchEd series is producing enjoyable short books on key topics. Each is edited by an expert in the field and collates essays from a range of educationalists, often including some ResearchEd favourites. This book was focused on literacy and aimed to summarise the best evidence around about promoting literacy, it did so in

The Writing Revolution by Judith Hochman and Natalie Wexler

I had seen this book recommended a couple of times and had assumed it was a review of the current state of writing standards and a call for changes in what is being done. What it actually contains is a very thorough and systematic writing curriculum. The authors contend that extended writing is extremely challenging

The Secret Literacy by David Didau

Didau applies his insight and an extraordinary clarity of thought, when writing about all aspects of teaching and learning. In this book he turns to an area where he has particular expertise- literacy. Before focusing on consultancy, he was an English teacher and I would imagine a very good one. As part of his consultancy

Closing the Vocabulary Gap by Alex Quigley

This is a fascinating read on the importance of vocabulary in school. It is not simply a review of how to teach vocabulary and develop literacy. It is a strong argument that improving the vocabulary of the word-poor is at the heart of improving social mobility. Quigley is an advocate of the Matthew Effect- the

The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker

I read this because I am keen to improve my writing- in particular my accuracy. It was a thoroughly enjoyable, if detailed, look at how to write well. A style guide for today. However, I am pretty sure I improve simply by reading a style guide, it didn’t lead to me undertaking much deliberate practice.

The Reading Mind by Daniel Willingham

Daniel Willingham is famed educationally for writing one of the great books on how learning happens and how we could teach much better. But he has also written some other great books including one on spotting good science over bad. This book was a journey into the mind and how it helps us to read.