Primary English: Knowledge and Understanding

Now with online resources to support subject knowledge!

Secure subject knowledge and understanding is the foundation of confident, creative and effective teaching. To help your students master this, the 8^th edition of this established text now comes with a range of online resources available on the brand new companion website including:

• Interactive English subject knowledge audit: to assess your students subject knowledge in primary English. Save valuable teaching time at the start of the year by setting is as a pre-course audit and ensure students have an accurate picture of their ability before they begin. Grading your students′ overall performance, results can be shared with you immediately and include further reading suggestions so students can revisit areas where they require improvement.
• Reflective self-assessment questions: more than 70 ‘check your learning’ questions help consolidate students’ understanding of each chapter topic and monitor their learning as they work through the book.
• Irregular verbs: a handy reference of all the irregular verbs so trainees can teach English confidently.
• Glossary: building students′ knowledge, the full online glossary of terms for English helps them know their ‘digraph’ from your ‘soliloquy’.

This 8th edition, covering the whole primary curriculum, also includes new chapters on handwriting and the nature of learning. Updated interactive activities throughout the book engage students in their learning and enable discussion. Using this book in conjunction with the free online resources really makes this the complete package for developing English subject knowledge. 

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.