[senco-forum] Separate forum for the teaching of reading/literacy

Personally I would prefer to keep one forum. Although I consider my
particular 'field' to be speech & language / literacy, I still work with
pupils who have a range of other difficulties. The Forum members between
them have an enormous amount of expertise and I have learned much from
reading the contributions of others. I am always interested to find out
what I DON'T know and I find that this Forum - which addresses all types
of special need issue - is really useful for me. I mainly work with KS1
& 2 (occasionally 3)but still read through the KS4 issues as I feel that
I need to know what the current concerns are. I would prefer not to
fragment this forum.

Clare

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-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of eddiecarron
Sent: 07 December 2006 15:23
To: senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: [senco-forum] Separate forum for the teaching of
reading/literacy

I have re- subscribed only to post this one message.

I unsubscribed some months ago because I felt that Senco-forum members
were
no longer interested in my own special area which is the promotion of
literacy and the initial teaching of reading. I take the view that a
resolution of the initial teaching of reading issue would remove many of
the
''special needs' which later emerge on the basis of the idea that
prevention
is always better than cure and since we are obviously not very good at
delivering 'cures' anyway.  Even a cursory examination of the topics
discussed on the Senco forum shows that SENCo are now more concerned
with
the administration of illiteracy than with its remediation. Since I have
no
interest in its administration, I simply unsubscribed. This is not to
denigrate these causes or issues - I know they are of great interest to
SENCo and others but they are of no interest to me personally. I felt
that
by unsubscribing that would be the end of the matter.

I have recently been emailed by someone who had I believe also
circulated
others, on the subject of the poor representation on literacy topics on
the
forum. This person indicated an interest in anther forum lwhich would be
ring-fenced for literacy issues only and in particular, for the intitial
teaching of reading to the exclusion of all else.

I wondered if there would be others interested in pressing BECTa for the
establishment of such a limited forum since some very interesting things
are
currently happening this field in which our performance is presently so
abysmal compared to that of many other countries who appear to take 98%
literacy as the norm whilst we have bumbled along for decades with a
miserable 81%.  We really do continue to allow about one child in five
to
leave school at sixteen, less than functionally literate.  Surely this
is
worthy of its own debating forum?

Eddie Carron 