Joanna MW

Independent specialist in SpLD (M.Ed, AMBDA); previously 10 yrs as English teacher & Glos LA Lead Teacher. Wife, mama of 4, SEN parent carer, vicar’s wife. ND

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

My shelf, when my oldest were toddlers. Adult books, well worn. Paterson's point isn't just about what you hand a child — it's about the environment reading lives in. Children know when books are for something.

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

https://t.co/diVtWigxau

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

Most vocabulary teaching asks children to memorise words - hard going for a dyslexic learner. Teaching words as things that are built ('port' = to carry, so transport, import, export) works better, and the evidence is strongest for struggling readers. New in the Compendium:

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

Red kites from our garden. One has gone; one hasn't yet. James wrote this in 1899 and it's still a good description of reading fluency. Before it, effort. After it, sky.

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

https://t.co/LV9dsVlQ1H

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

My son just finished Year 7 without an EHCP. His brother had one — very different experience. I've written what I wish I'd known before September: CTF transfers, report timing, the mid-June SENCO window, reasonable adjustments from day one.

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

Hope at the Natural History Museum.

Blue whales aren't extinct — which is the point.

Darwin said a language, like a species, when extinct, never reappears. A language dies roughly every two weeks.

It takes its whole way of seeing the world with it.

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

The phonics screening check starts Monday for Year 1 children in England. If you're worried about your child's reading — here's what the check can and can't tell you, and what to ask your school: https://t.co/cWHoLDWveu

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

The building is fixed. The ivy did what it wanted anyway.

Chomsky said language works like this — the grammar is the stone wall, what children do with it is the ivy.

Same rules, never the same twice.

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

@LeShuttle_Help Evie - you’ve not even read my DM. I’m stuck on a stationary train with 3 disabled children in 30+ degree heat. You are giving me no information whatsoever by DM either!

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

@LeShuttle_Help we’ve been sat in a train that’s not moving for what feels like approaching an hour. We couldn’t hear the announcement other than ‘apologies’ because other passengers were noisy. We have 3 kids with additional needs, and we’re all boiling. When are we departing?

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

@Jilly_holli @LeShuttle_Help Exactly - why keep the answers in DMs? This page used to be useful. Also currently stuck in a stationary train.

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

Just had my first SAR data through.

That’s a parenting milestone, yes?

📍 Castelnau-de-Montmiral, Tarn

#SENDparents #parentcarers #SEND

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

A teasel follows precise mathematical rules it knows nothing about. Lévi-Strauss said language works the same way. Children have the deep structure long before we teach them anything. What we teach is just the surface.

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

Buttercups are technically weeds.

But ‘buttercup’ is simply ‘butter’ + ‘cup’ — colour + shape in plain English.

Botanical name?
‘Ranunculus’ = ‘little frog’ (Latin ‘rana’).

Two naming systems. One May meadow.

Full post:
https://t.co/uRHs5vpC5A

#etymology #Wordhord #buttercup

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

A Roman mosaic floor in the Dordogne — every tessera placed by hand, one at a time. Atwood wrote this in a poem about teaching a daughter to spell.

Same principle.

Not the grand gesture.

The next piece, placed deliberately.

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

Mid-March, first warm evening, lit a fire immediately in case it was the only one. Hugo understood the same urgency about reading: catch the spark when it's there. Every sound counts.

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

https://t.co/j5Goi9ogZy
https://t.co/j5Goi9ogZy

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

Old English 'scoh' meant a covering for the foot. German has 'Schuh', Dutch has 'schoen', Swedish has 'sko' (pictured here, a Stockholm shoe-repair shop). Romance languages went another way - French 'chaussure', Italian 'scarpa', Spanish 'zapato'.

[Joanna MW @jbalaena]

During lockdown I made bread every day. Same ingredients, different results depending on what you brought to them. Reading works exactly like that. Locke knew it in 1706. We're still catching up.