Closing the Reading Gap with Alex Quigley

This week I am joined by Alex Quigley. Alex is a former English teacher and school leader, of over 15 years standing, who now works for the Education Endowment Foundation, supporting teachers to access research evidence. He can be found on twitter @AlexJQuigley and blogs at www.theconfidentteacher.com He is the author of ‘The Confident Teacher’, ‘Closing the Vocabulary Gap’ and ‘Closing the Reading Gap’. In this episode Alex & I explore the vital importance of reading in our schools and Alex clearly articulates why it should be the number one school improvement priority.  In this episode we discuss the following and so much more: The history of reading and writing systems and why they are important for us to know about. What the science of reading tells us on how we should teach reading. How teachers can develop reading comprehension in their classrooms. Academic and disciplinary reading and how they are different within each subject discipline. Discussing the topic of reading with Alex has served to sharpen my own thinking and I came away with so many notes to unpick. Get involved and share widely. Keep the conversation going using #becomingeducated and tagging me @dnleslie If you have time I would love for you to review Becoming Educated and share what you love about the podcast. You can support the podcast by buying me a coffee here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dnleslie This episode is sponsored by UpLearn: Up Learn is an online, curriculum-learning resource for A Levels that helps teachers improve educational outcomes amongst students, whilst reducing their own workloads. Developed by an experienced team of educators, Up Learn courses contain high-quality videos, quizzes and exam preparation material. Teachers direct students to certain sections of Up Learn as homework, facilitating flipped learning, consolidation of classroom material and independent learning. 97% of students who complete an Up Learn course achieve A*/A, with many starting from D's and U's. What could yours achieve? Find out by booking a demo today at uplearn.co.uk, and be sure to quote Becoming Educated for a 10% discount. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.