Kathy Rastle is Professor of Cognitive Psychology at Royal Holloway University of London. Her research, writing and communication with education practitioners has made her one of the most important academic voices in the world on the teaching of reading. 

Distinguished Professor Pamela Snow is renowned internationally for her advocacy of evidence-based reading instruction, and has a profound grasp of the barriers to implementing educational change to ensure that all children learn to read well. In this wide-ranging interview, she talks about educational fallacies, the instructional provision that students deserve, and where change needs to start. 

Tony Giles is principal of Mahurangi College in North Auckland, New Zealand. We discussed the recent changes to New Zealand's curriculum and what is needed to deal with NZ's wide achievement gap in literacy.

Mike is principal of Antonia Pantoja Preparatory School in South Bronx, New York. We discussed the challenges his students face, the liberating power of reading and what it takes to really have an impact through education.

Carole Herman is executive director of the Association of Secondary Heads in Essex, known as ASHE, and has previously been headteacher at two secondary schools. We spoke about her time at Shenfield High School in Essex, where she brought about major changes to the school's approach to literacy and the life chances of her students.

Vic Goddard is a veteran headteacher at Passmores Learning Community, and star of Educating Essex. In this episode we discussed his school's transformation in its approach to literacy, and what he's learned along the way.  

A key theme of this series is that there is hope. Reading problems are solvable, and in this episode, we explain what it takes to do that, and that we can achieve far more than is usually thought possible. For people who mastered reading as children, it can be difficult to imagine the life-changing power that learning to read brings. The stories you’ll hear will make clear the radical changes in people’s lives when they finally learn to read after struggling for years.

For more on Thinking Reading, visit https://thinkingreading.com

Inside the Reading Gap is a Thinking Reading and Made by DBM co-production

Written and created by James and Dianne Murphy

Narrator: Emilie Carrington

Editing, audio production, script supervision: Rob Birnie at Made by DBM https://madebydbm.com/podcasts

Additional interviews: Alice Ball and Emilie Carrington

Administrative assistance: Charlene Johnstone

As a society, we have a wide range of explanations for why so many can’t read after eleven years of formal education, including deprivation, lack of intelligence, poor motivation, and presumed disabilities. In this episode, we show how those beliefs don’t hold water and instead show that teaching is the solution. We look at what can be done in schools to prevent literacy problems at the scale we currently see in our society.

For more on Thinking Reading, visit https://thinkingreading.com

Inside the Reading Gap is a Thinking Reading and Made by DBM co-production

Written and created by James and Dianne Murphy

Narrator: Emilie Carrington

Editing, audio production, script supervision: Rob Birnie at Made by DBM https://madebydbm.com/podcasts 

Additional interviews: Alice Ball and Emilie Carrington

Administrative assistance: Charlene Johnstone

The correlation between imprisonment and poor literacy is strong. While correlation is not cause, there is no doubt that poor literacy increases the chances of incarceration, and that it makes it much harder for prison to have a positive impact. In this episode, you’ll hear experts describe the links between poor literacy and imprisonment, the challenges of the prison environment for improving literacy skills, and what it will take to make things better.

For more on Thinking Reading, visit https://thinkingreading.com

Inside the Reading Gap is a Thinking Reading and Made by DBM co-production

Written and created by James and Dianne Murphy

Narrator: Emilie Carrington

Editing, audio production, script supervision: Rob Birnie at Made by DBM https://madebydbm.com/podcasts

Additional interviews: Alice Ball and Emilie Carrington

Administrative assistance: Charlene Johnstone

The number of people who lack basic literacy skills is of epidemic proportions, but most able readers will never know that friends, colleagues or relatives can’t read properly. In this episode, we explore what ‘functional’ illiteracy means, the multi-faceted impacts on all aspects of their lives, and the costs to us as a society. And all this raises the question: how did we get to this place, when we fund education for every child to the age of at least 16?

For more on Thinking Reading, visit https://thinkingreading.com

Inside the Reading Gap is a Thinking Reading and Made by DBM co-production

Written and created by James and Dianne Murphy

Narrator: Emilie Carrington

Editing, audio production, script supervision: Rob Birnie at Made by DBM https://madebydbm.com/podcasts

Additional interviews: Alice Ball and Emilie Carrington

Administrative assistance: Charlene Johnstone