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Rosie Watch - Editorial Expert

Rosie Watch has taken her childhood passion for literature from classrooms in Cusco to Chelsea. With over 30 years of teaching experience and hundreds of books later, Rosie is still as eager as ever to get her hands on her next tome. Alongside a career in education, Rosie has also raised three boys and is well accustomed to separating the literary wheat from the chaff.

While running various English departments in schools across the country, Rosie has also had the chance to meet and run workshops with many children’s authors and poets including Nigel Hinton, Roger McGough and Michael Morpurgo. A firm believer in the importance of a willingness to look beyond what we already know and embrace change, Rosie has, in her teaching, maintained that elusive balance between the sharing of best practice and having a few lesser known ‘secrets’ up her sleeve in order to keep both children and her fellow teachers engaged.

Latest Reviews By Rosie Watch

Big Ideas From Literature: how books can change your world

A beautiful book before you even open it. It both feels and smells as you imagine a book should and is a pleasure to handle. The text, illustrations and design of each page is beautifully put together and welcoming. On every page, even those without illustrations, there are little sketches or symbols, or change in colour, to draw in the reader. This is a book about books! A snapshot of literature throughout the ages, asking big questions such as how does literature work, how do stories help us understand life, what is reading really for? It is a fascinating read ... View Full Review

Dandelion World is a new series of non-fiction titles within the Dandelion Reading Scheme. This is a collection of very structured phonic reading with clear guidelines as to the focus of each book, and would work well with any current reading scheme. This set of books, unlike many phonic schemes, is truly phonetic and reflects the obvious input of dyslexic and reading experts. There are 7 levels, each one with a set of books focusing on CVC words. There is a clear introduction, and at the back, there is a ‘knowledge builder’ based on the text. So, for example, &... View Full Review

This book is a punchy manual on ‘how to make school work for working class students’. It is written from a knowledgeable educational background and the two authors are passionate in the belief that working class children get less of everything in education and in life, including respect. They believe a working-class child starts the educational race halfway behind a middle class child. Whether or not you agree, the book is presented in a positive and convincing style. The authors confront the argument that a working-class child is disadvantaged by design and not by accident and that social ... View Full Review

This book is available directly from Crown House Publishing here This book is all about the power of asking the right questions and using effective questioning to enable effective teaching. It is about the importance of questions being purposeful and used as a measure of demonstrating a pupil’s understanding. The theme is in some way obvious, but Chiles, in his book, highlights what we as teachers, all sort of know, but rarely focus on to this degree. The book is comprehensively set out into sections; - why we ask questions, how we ... View Full Review

Toad and Newt - Dandelion Readers Level 4

A set of graded phonic reading books, each book focusing on a particular sound or phonic blend. They link to the much-used sound-write reading and spelling programme. Each book is part of a level, with various units within it. The sounds are clearly indicated on the back of the books, making it quick and easy for a teacher to match the book to the phonic programme being used, or the relevant blend being taught at that time. These books have been popular and well used in classrooms for nearly 20 years. The stories are written by Tamar Reis Frankfort and Wendy ... View Full Review

Each series in the PhonicBooks Catch-Up Readers collection contains a selection of ten stories, each one focusing on different CVC words and containing a contents page, chapters, a vocabulary list of words used and at the bottom of each page, any new or multisyllable words are split up into manageable syllables for the reader. There is also a page headed ‘reading practice’ to help reinforce the target phoneme. All these books are well written and illustrated, but also very clearly marked with the relevant CVC and CVCC levels and targeted phoneme making them accessible to teachers and assistants ... View Full Review

Each series in the PhonicBooks Catch-Up Readers collection contains a selection of ten stories, each one focusing on different CVC words and containing a contents page, chapters, a vocabulary list of words used and at the bottom of each page, any new or multisyllable words are split up into manageable syllables for the reader. There is also a page headed ‘reading practice’ to help reinforce the target phoneme. Lost is the first in the Alba Series, a set of 12 stories about Alba and her exciting world of adventures in a family of scientists and researchers. All these ... View Full Review

Each series in the PhonicBooks Catch-Up Readers collection contains a selection of ten stories, each one focusing on different CVC words and containing a contents page, chapters, a vocabulary list of words used and at the bottom of each page, any new or multisyllable words are split up into manageable syllables for the reader. There is also a page headed ‘reading practice’ to help reinforce the target phoneme. The Man in the Mist is the first in the Magic Belt Series, with 12 more stories following the adventures of Zak and his friend Finn. All these books are well ... View Full Review