Researchers present their findings tentatively, but practitioners need clear next steps. In this article, Dr Christine Braid examines some key literacy puzzles of practice to analyse what we know from research, questions that still exist, and what this could mean in practice.

Defining sentences can feel like a technical nightmare but it is shared language that is necessary for teaching students to write well. The article looks at unhelpful definitions that are common and suggests alternatives that allow for a better understanding of simple, compound, and complex sentences.

Many teachers find that explicit teaching of decoding can result in sound by sound reading, painful to listen to and unhelpful for fluency. This article examines why children read sound by sound, when to be concerned, and some possible teaching moves to help children make progress.