Designed to help tackle global illiteracy and the challenge of keeping teachers up to date, leading teacher educators and educational researchers, headed by Marilyn Leask, Research Professor in Educational Knowledge Management at Bedfordshire, have launched online guidelines for the teaching of English spelling.

The teaching spelling guide is one guide of many using the MESH approach (Mapping, Mobilising and Managing Educational Specialist Knowhow), the project focuses on the issues of learning and teaching, as opposed to the improving of new curricula or structures of schooling.

Using smart phones, computers or tablets, teachers from across the world will be able to view the online guidelines to aid their professional development.

“This programme is the most exciting application of technology in the education sector I have come across in my entire career as a professional educator,” said Professor Leask, who has been editing the main textbooks for UK secondary teacher education for more than 25 years.

“We have been working with colleagues and organisations representing teacher educators and educational researchers around the world.”

The pilot results of the MESH approach will be presented by Professor Leask at the World Literacy Summit this week in Oxford.

Professor Leask added: “We are developing a means to give all educators open access to the most effective literacy teaching advice based on research available anywhere in the world. The UK, Australian and New Zealand teacher and university teacher educator networks have also taken an active part in the programme.”

Professor Colin Harrison from the University of Nottingham, who has worked with teachers in several schools to develop and test the MESH approach to the teaching of spelling, added: "The feedback we gained was positive, constructive and highly encouraging, demonstrating that MESH, if adopted, would prove to be an invaluable tool for use in staff training sessions.”