Primary English: Knowledge and Understanding

All the subject knowledge you need to teach primary English.

If you are training to be a primary school teacher, you need to understand what you need to know about primary English before you can teach it.

Secure subject knowledge and understanding is the foundation of confident, creative and effective teaching. To help you master this, this comprehensive text includes subject knowledge from each part of the primary English curriculum and comes with a wide range of resources so you can test your growing knowledge as you progress through the course. 

• an online English subject knowledge audit with the ability to share results
• end of chapter self-assessment questions 
• Interactive tasks
• an English subject knowledge checklist
• useful weblinks for primary English teaching
• Recommended further reading

This new edition has been updated and includes a new chapter on children′s common misconceptions in English.

Jane Medwell taught in primary schools in Cardiff and South Devon, before moving into teacher education. She has lectured at the Universities of Cardiff, Plymouth and the College of St Mark and St John, and is currently Director of Teacher Education and Associate Professor at the University of Warwick. Her research and writing has covered areas such as the teaching of writing and the use of electronic books to teach reading. More recently she has begun a major research programme exploring the teaching of handwriting, and has begun a unique programme of teacher education in primary Modern Foreign Languages. She is fluent in French and Russian, and is learning Chinese.

David Wray taught in primary schools for 10 years and is currently Professor of Literacy Education at the University of Warwick. He has published over 40 books on aspects of literacy teaching and is best known for his work on developing teaching strategies to help pupils access the curriculum through literacy. His work was made an integral part of the National Literacy Strategy in England at both primary (1997) and secondary (2001) levels. More recently he has acted as consultant to a number of electronic learning projects and has begun new research programs exploring the importance and teaching of handwriting, and the use of mobile learning devices.

George Moore, now retired, was Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Education, University of Warwick.

Vivienne Griffiths is a Professor of Education at Canterbury Christ Church University.