The more I read about reading instruction, the clearer it becomes: treating whole words as the starting point ignores how alphabetic writing actually works. Children don’t benefit from memorising word shapes; they benefit from understanding how letters represent sounds. Orthographic knowledge and rapid word recognition come after secure decoding, not instead of it. If we want genuinely confident readers, we need to teach the code explicitly and systematically, then let fluency build through meaningful practice.

The third episode of Talking Scottish Education is available now. In it @stuartphysics & I speak with Carole Ford & Lindsay Paterson on the importance of a knowledge-based curriculum, the role of assessment, and the need for coherence in educational practices.