When I was working with Margaret Meek Spencer on the book Achieving Literacy, she suggested that I watch the videos of reading lessons that I had made, but with the sound turned off. What a revelation. I had been robbing adolescent readers of the very things that they could do themselves; for instance, I was turning the pages over for them.
She asked me to look at how I “dramatised” the reading. I saw that the pupils’ engagement, their recollection of the story and commitment to the book owed much to my unplanned re-enactments and gestures. Thereafter my teaching improved.
Judith Graham
When a Froebel Institute colleague and I were preparing a book on teaching foreign languages in primary schools, Margaret Meek Spencer put us in touch with the exciting work going in that area, and encouraged discussion of it.
David Westgate
