"A MON TH!" This is the main reaction I received to the news that I was going away for a month to write a book (about motherhood, as it happens). I couldn't work out whether it was men or women who were more likely to stare in incredulity. As if I was leaving my children on a frozen hillside, or having an affair with a well-known politician. Of course there were some people who got it (I think), who didn't react with a quickly-suppressed cough of scandal in their throats. These people said, “Go for it, just make it worthwhile, get that book written already! How brilliant that you've got a room of your own!” Of course it’s the doubtful and silent judgers I believe. Yes yes, it’s wrong to go, I should be safely at home, doing the washing, shopping for the endless routine of children’s teas, monitoring the activities, the homework, the notes home from school, the Forest Schools equipment, doing the Guides run, making inane conversation at drop off...
As my son 'revised key words for year 4', it became clear that his list of spellings this week contained all the proof you need to refute the teaching of reading and spelling through phonics. I present… five ways to pronounce '-ough' in English: English is not a phonetic language In the last couple of years in the UK, the methodology of phonics has, delightfully, been converted into a government-devised and compulsory ' phonics screening check ' at the end of year 1. Kids who know how to read can fail this check , if they baulk at pronouncing made-up words using the rules of phonics. They are then given remedial attention — to get better at phonics. Which is then abandoned as children move through primary education… because it stops working once you are writing anything beyond 'cat'. For example, 'Kate'. Or 'Keith'. Or 'knight'. I know, I know, the 'phonics method' is really about helpin...
My beautiful daughter has always sucked her thumb. She found out how to do it just days after her inordinately long birthing ordeal, and fastened herself to a tiny triangular comforter, christened Flossie by her father. This creature has travelled all over the world, greying and fraying on her way. She has been lost for months at a time on several occasions. Flossie has become so central to the mental health of this family that when we moved back to the UK from Australia, and Flossie was not to be found, we returned feeling as though a part of ourselves had been left behind. We were triumphant when she emerged serene and intact, six months later, from an old handbag, which had been co-opted by my daughter. We were complete. Recently my daughter has been teased at school (not in a bullying way, just out of thoughtlessness) because she cannot quite say her 's' clearly. We have never really noticed it, but once the thoughtless boy had drawn it to our attention, it quickly assu...
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