Thank you to everyone who came to my Spelling in a Complex Orthography talk!

And thank you also to the wonderful Tracey King, Toni Seiler and Rosemary Roberts from Think Forward Educators Gippsland branch for being such gracious hosts!

I have created a hub on my website where you can view the video and access the links to what we talked about on the night.

This hub will be accessible for two weeks from today, so please try to access all the resources before September 26th.

As a person who registered for the talk, you are now on my mailing list. However, please rest assured that you will receive no further contact from me unless you decide to remain on my list. This is a one-off for all those who unsubscribe. No drama at all!

Go to your resources hub here!

Spelling for Life book launch party!

As mentioned in the webinar, there will be a Zoom-based book launch party in October to celebrate the second edition of Spelling for Life.

We are beyond thrilled to announce that our guest speaker is none other than

Associate Professor Lorraine Hammond

from Edith Cowan University.

Lorraine has already been super-kind about the book (check the back cover) but has now also agreed to come to the party and launch the book for me! How lucky am I?

This event is also an opportunity to hear an overview and ask questions about the second edition of Spelling for Life.

The $10 ticket will go towards a $500 scholarship voucher for one applicant to use in order to take a range of online training offered by Lifelong Literacy for 12 months. We may even award two! Applications for this scholarship can be made through our contact form.

YES! There will be a recording available to view for all registrants.

Date: Thursday October 28th 2021

Time: 7:30pm -9pm (Melbourne time - but 4:30pm-6pm Western Australia time)

Venue: Zoom. We will send your Zoom link on registration.

We will also decide on the recipient of the scholarship voucher and announce the successful candidate on the night. Please fill out the form online if you wish to be considered for the scholarship. It will entitle you to up to $500 to spend on any courses run by Lifelong Literacy, online or live for 12 months from October 26th 2021-October 26th 2022.

Register now

Spalding program misconception

It has come to my attention that certain attitudes toward the Spalding Writing Road to Reading Program have been falsely attributed to me. I received an email from a participant and a comment in the chat accusing me of denigrating Spalding.

On listening to the video and re-reading the chat, I am happy to say that I stand by my words regarding Spalding. They were not a baseless criticism of the program and should not be construed as gratuitous negativity. Here is my stance, for anyone interested:

I am Spalding-trained. I have also done its various offshoot trainings here in Australia. I have the greatest respect for this body of work.

As a practitioner, working 1:1 with students who struggled as a result of developmental language disorders or low quality literacy teaching, Spalding was not entirely suitable and had to be adjusted to get the best results. Big deal. That's what a good practitioner does. Beware the dogmatic practitioner who only has one approach to draw on..

No program is perfect and I'm happy for others to point out the flaws in my own ones, hell, I'm constantly revising and improving my work. Again, big deal. There are flaws in Spalding. Teaching that the letter <o> represents the third sound /u:/ is flawed. There are more words where <o> represents /ʌ/ for starters. If I don't say that, who will?

Spalding is an example of what a high quality Tier 1 language arts program should look like. If you haven't done the training and are looking for an excellent start on your SoR journey, Spalding is a great place to go.

If you have done the training and can't bear to have it scrutinised, maybe my works aren't for you.