Blog

Reflections on working with an artist

December 2023

Gill Adams, Parinita Shetty, Cathy Burnett

Since the field of primary literacy research in England (and elsewhere) brings together so many different communities, we are constantly looking for creative new ways to communicate our research findings to diverse audiences. In this podcast episode, Layla Gharib talks to Cathy about how she visualised the findings of a scoping review of literacy research that Cathy produced.

About a year and a half into the project, when we’d generated data on teachers’ encounters with research in primary literacy and were deeply engaged in analysis, we wanted to work with an artist to represent the complexity of teachers’ encounters with research and the way these were entangled in their work and their personal lives. We were fortunate that Lo Tierney was able to take on this work.

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Different ways of looking: Exploring interdisciplinary collaborations and multiple approaches to literacy research

This post is a transcript of the second episode of our podcast Research Mobilities. It looks at how researchers can collaborate with designers to visually represent their research to new audiences. Professor Cathy Burnett chats with designer/researcher Layla Gharib about how the process of developing the images together resulted in new ways of thinking and working. They also explore how these images provide space to invite different interpretations, questions and conversations.

You can listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts by looking for Research Mobilities. 

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Developing a culture of research engagement in education – webinar recording

September 2023

Last week, the OECD (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) invited Cathy Burnett, principal investigator of our project, to participate in a panel discussion “An evidence-informed education: Empowering schools and policy institutions through a culture of research engagement”. The panel and subsequent Q&A session explored the challenges and opportunities of engaging with research in schools.

Cathy drew on our interviews with primary school teachers in England about their encounters with literacy research to respond to the following questions:

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What can corpus linguistics tell us about primary literacy research in England?

April 2023

This post is a transcript of the first episode of our new podcast Research Mobilities. It introduces what corpus linguistics actually is and how we’re using the method in our project. Dr Anna Lindroos Cermakova explains what analysing newspapers and Twitter conversations can tell us about how people understand and talk about literacy in primary schools in England.

You can listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts by looking for Research Mobilities. 

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Exploring the movements of research in the wild

January 2023

Cathy Burnett 

When we try to explain the focus for the Research Mobilities in Primary Literacy Education project, we often say that we are interested in ‘how research moves to, from and among teachers’.  At this point in the project it is worth expanding on what we mean by this as we have found that this statement can be interpreted slightly differently from how we’ve intended it.

First of all, when we refer to ‘research’ we adopt an inclusive definition. In other posts I have made the point that we are interested in literacy research associated with a wide range of methodologies and topics. Here I want to emphasise that we are not just interested in research that originates in universities or other institutions but also in teacher-led research and enquiry and in research that is coproduced by academics and teachers[1] .

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Reflections from Literacy Research Association’s annual conference

December 2022

Julia Gillen

I was extremely privileged to attend this year’s Literacy Research Association’s annual conference in Phoenix, Arizona from November 29th – December 3rd.  With the title: Crossing Boundaries and Borders – in pursuit of equity, solidarity, and social justice, it promised to be an amazingly interesting conference and so it proved.

I will first outline this project’s contribution and reactions and then add a few reflections on the conference overall.

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Not just ‘what works’ but ‘what else’ in literacy education

11 October 2022

Cathy Burnett

As I explored in a post at the end of May, the Schools’ White Paper adopts a particular stance on what ‘counts’ as evidence. I argued that it’s important not to discount evidence that doesn’t fit this mould but which could be highly relevant to teachers.

The importance of engaging with a range of research was very much on my mind in early July when I attended the United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) annual international conference in Birmingham. The conference included over 100 presentations by teachers, researchers, teacher educators, librarians, literacy charities and many others from across the UK and overseas. These featured a vast array of topics, themes and research methodologies. The UKLA conference is always an inspiring and stimulating event not least because of its warm, inclusive atmosphere that makes it possible to exchange ideas, engage in genuinely critical dialogue and explore possibilities with colleagues with diverse experience and perspectives. This year, it provided plenty of opportunity to reflect on why it is useful for teachers and schools to encounter a range of research on different topics and drawing on varied methodologies.

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The research raincloud

13 September 2022

Daisy Johnson

During one of my final meetings with the Research Mobilities in Primary Literacy Education team, I looked into the corner of the Teams window and watched myself gesturing vaguely to the area above my head. I was trying to explain how I sense there is a ‘raincloud’ of research that I can feel and see implemented around me, but as a classroom teacher, I have my umbrella up to it for much of the time because there are so many competing demands in my working days. Putting the umbrella away and making time for research to enrich and inform my teaching practice was, for me, a rare gift from the pandemic.

Illustration of Research Raincloud

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Encountering research: glimpses from England

15 August 2022

Gill Adams

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In our last blog, Julia noted how municipalities in Norway worked to bridge research and practice. This got me musing on this notion of bridging across and the separation it suggests, even as it points to possibilities of connections.

As summer holidays are approaching, thinking about bridges took me off in my mind to the Scottish islands. Many were once only accessed by sea, often involving challenging navigation around low lying reefs and rocks that were likely to sink sailors without local knowledge or clear charts. Now some of these islands are connected by bridges and causeways as well as, or instead of, ferries. The ferries remain my favourite way of travelling, giving time to experience the journey, to pause and notice seals basking. That slowing down on the boat crossing acts as a preparation for island life and reminds me of the change in pace I experience between teaching and research in my university life. A different focus, a slowing down, time to play with ideas, to linger. How do teachers in schools manage this shift?

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Glimpsing bridges between primary literacy research and practice on distant shores

June 29, 2022

Julia Gillen

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I’ve been fortunate in the last couple of months to gain insights into endeavours that share with our project an interest in bridging primary literacy research and practice.

 

On 3rd May I attended a virtual event coordinated by Dr Shelley Stagg Peterson of the University of Toronto and hosted  by Dr Rachel Heydon, Western University, Canada, entitled, “Building Bridges between Literacy Research and Practice: diverse perspectives.”  I thought this an extremely worthwhile, inspirational and rich event and so quote its description:

“We are teachers and teacher educators with many decades of experience teaching young children to read and write. We bring diverse perspectives on the roles of oral language, phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, critical literacy, multimodal texts, comprehension, motivation, writing and spelling to literacy learning. We wish to support teachers in continuing to provide equitable literacy learning environments to ensure that all students receive the instruction they deserve. The goal of our presentation is to provide evidence from our classrooms on ways to bridge the science of reading-based recommendations of the Right to Read Inquiry’s report with research on literacy teaching and learning.”

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