Over the coming weeks, Think Forward Educators will be posting a series of blog articles written by educational experts providing ready-to-use tips on how to implement the Science of Reading into the classroom. Inspired by Tom Sherrington’s Five Ways Collection, the posts have been edited and curated by Brendan Lee and Dr Nathaniel Swain. The second blog post of the series comes from teacher and consultant, Lindsey Bartes, on Phonics teaching.

When we say we are following the Science of Reading, few of us are really following the original research, but rather the curricula and programs chosen by our school leaders. Unfortunately, the translation of research into practice is a hazardous route, and one that practitioners should navigate using our own in-depth knowledge of the research. Linnea Ehri is an American educational psychologist and expert on the development of reading who has empowered us teachers of reading. Her legacy of theory and research has given us remarkably accessible insight into how we learn to read. Her insights reflect a deceptively simple, but very powerful, theory of the development of our mental ‘lexicon’, and should form the working models of all reading teachers.

Over the coming weeks, Think Forward Educators will be posting a series of blog articles written by educational experts providing ready-to-use tips on how to implement the Science of Reading into the classroom. Inspired by Tom Sherrington’s Five Ways Collection, the posts have been edited and curated by Brendan Lee and Dr Nathaniel Swain. The first blog post of the series comes from structured literacy specialist, Jocelyn Seamer. Phonological and phonemic awareness (PA) are the bridge between oral language and decoding (Kilpatrick, 2015).