We spend a lot of class time talking to students. Explanations; questions and instructions all require students to comprehend what … More
Tag: comprehension
Physics Nouns and Verbs
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, English has become the international language of physics. For most physicists, English is … More
Why Don’t Physicists Just Write Clearly?
Physicists have a terrible reputation for being bad communicators. Physics English is known for being dense and impenetrable. Everyone loves … More
Making Reading Comprehension Visible in Physics
Let’s say you’ve got a class full of students who are strong readers. You give them a text that you … More
Born Listening? Why Listening Is Hard and How to Help Your Students Listen and Understand Better.
This blog is about the forgotten half of oracy: not talking but listening. Listening is often described as the Cinderella … More
This week’s surprising news: some readers aren’t concentrating as hard as we’d like.
My Trust has an online reading programme which sets quizzes based on short texts. The pupils have a choice of … More
Words Flowing Through Me: Nothing Going In
Sometimes when I read, the words just flow through me. The meaning doesn’t go in. Comprehension isn’t passive: it takes … More
Build better sentences in science writing
How can we ensure students understand complex scientific ideas, beyond just recalling facts? Developing their ability to write clear, precise … More
What Is the Point of “Reading Comprehension”?
Is the goal of reading something to comprehend it? In class, we give our students a text and then ask … More
Tier 2 Experiences
This post is the result of a conversation with the great Alistair Gittner on Bluesky. We go back a way … More
Reading for Learning 