Monday 17 December 2012

The essence of phonics

Torus Copywriting

An introduction to MARIE KILGALLON ASSOCIATES LTD blog by Carl Quartermain of Torus Digital Marketing


I was very excited about meeting Marie Kilgallon in December 2012 with a view to assisting her with social media for her business. Marie is exceptionally busy and rarely has time to enjoy (suffer) social media marketing. I had met her in Middlesbrough, at a training seminar on "The impact of Social Media for Small Businesses". We were both late!

Admittedly, when Marie explained what she did, my ignorance was glaringly obvious - until she described it in more detail. Marie specialises in PHONICS CPD training for educational practitioners. Phonics is a method of teaching literacy by correlating sounds with letters or groups of letters in an alphabetic writing system.

Wikipedia states, "Since the turn of the 20th century phonics has been widely used in primary education and in teaching literacy throughout the English-speaking world. More specifically synthetic phonics is now the accepted method of teaching reading in the education systems in the UK and Australia."

Having spent part of my own career in training (and another part in social care for special needs teenagers) I am particular interested and delighted to have the opportunity to offer my services to promote Marie's business in the North East. She is based in Marton but travels nationwide delivering her exceptional skills and services to the very teaching staff who are educating our children with literacy.

Recently, I got a personal taste of the valuable work that Marie does. I have four children and I recently discovered, through a verbal testimonial, that Marie's training within the school, has had a direct impact on at least one of them, my seven year old daughter, Scarlett.

And... funnily enough, a couple days after I met Marie, Scarlett approached me, when I was chilling out on the sofa reading some ridiculous SEO article claiming to guarantee "Google Page One Ranking #1 slot". (I ask you, it beggars belief!)

She said,

"Daddy? Why do they call them bare arms and bare legs?"

Half listening and half reading, I made a noise of acknowledgement and then looked at her quizzically.

Looking at her arm and stroking it, she said. "Bare arms?"

It took a second for the penny to drop. "No darling they don't mean BEAR arms, like a grizzly bear arms. It's BARE arms  AH - RUH - EH."

She looked up at me as quick as a flash with her eyebrows raised and grinning like the Cheshire Cat. "That's right Daddy. You're right because AH-RUH-EH makes the ARE sound."

Phonics in action and you don't even realise it.


 Please check out Marie's website and share with your networks. She is now also active on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. Thank you.


LINKS

http://www.mariekilgallonliteracy.co.uk/#
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonics 
http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/pedagogy/phonics