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When the Academy Awards show airs on Sunday, Texas speech therapist Lana Dodgen will be rooting for “The King’s Speech,” up for a dozen Oscars for its depiction of British King George VI’s struggle with stuttering. Ms. Dodgen, who runs the Mesquite Independent School District’s chapter of the National Stuttering Association’s children’s-support group, said she and other advocates hope the film will bring awareness to stuttering the way “Rain Man” did to autism. The movie has already drawn broad interest in the disorder, which affects about 5 percent of preschoolers at some point in their language development and leaves 1 percent, or more than 3 million Americans, permanently struggling to speak.

So writes my colleague Sarah D. Sparks, who writes about education research here at Education Week.

Check out her story about some recent research about stuttering.

The ten minute test, in which children will read out up to 40 words to a teacher, will include a series of real and made-up words.

Nonsense words including zort, koob, dar, grint, pronk, gax and ploob are expected to feature in the test, which will be piloted in June before being tolled out in June 2012.

The idea has drawn criticism from literary and phonetics experts, however, who say the approach will confuse those beginning to read.

The UK Literacy Association described the plan was “bonkers” as the purpose of reading was to understand meaning.

The government said non-words were being included to check pupils’ ability to decode words using phonics – the reading system by where words are sounded out using letter sounds.

Non-words were being included to check that children were not just regurgitating memorised words, a spokesman for the Department for Education said.

But critics claim the test may mean that children who cannot read may still do well, while those who can read may be stumped. <

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It may become harder to keep up with all of the proposals floating around about what to do with the federal budget, but my colleagues here at Education Week are managing to keep things straight.

The big news so far (which could presumably change at any moment) is that the U.S. House of Representatives voted to restore the $557.7 million cut to special education state grants in the fiscal year 2011 spending bill they are considering. This is the bill that would finance the government through Sept. 30 and overall, still cuts nearly $5 billion from the education budget. This would keep special education spending at $11.5 billion.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash, whose 3-year-old son, Cole, has Down syndrome, restored the money through an amendment. But to make up for restoring the special ed money, Rep. Rodgers’ amendment also cuts $336 million out of the $545.6 million Title I School Improvement Grant program, and $500 million out of the $2.95 billion Improving Teacher Quality State Grant program.

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Monday, February 21, 2011, will be a regular school day for Hudson City Schools. Preschool will not be in session. The District has used 4 calamity days for weather; however, current legislation only allows 3 calamity days for Ohio schools. February 21 is the first designated make-up day on the school calendar. The second make-up day, should it be necessary, is June 9. The Hudson Hub-Times inadvertently published the wrong date for the second make-up day in a recent article about snow days.

Shiver me timbers! Pirates have been a source of fascination for children for generations. There are many childhood stories, films and books about pirates and there’s something about them that really catches a child’s imagination. Of course, recent films like Pirates of the Caribbean have fuelled this popularity but there’s nothing quite like playing with a wooden toys pirate ships and making those captured enemies walk the plank into shark infested waters or raising the Jolly Roger and setting sail into the sunset to search for that legendary buried treasure. Toy pirate ships truly are timeless and although pirates are a long and distant memory their spirit lives on in our children’s imaginations as they just love playing pirates! Oooh aargh me hearties!