Orthography for Tutors

Dr Sharon McMurray

Dr Sharon McMurray is Principal Lecturer and Head of the Literacy Unit at Stranmillis University College, Belfast. She taught in primary schools from 1980 until December 2006. She taught in mainstream primary schools, a prep school, a school for children with moderate learning difficulties and a unit for children with dyslexia. She also worked as an outreach support teacher providing support for children with literacy difficulties in mainstream primary schools. She has been working in higher education since January 2007. Alongside her teaching she engaged in intensive study in the area of literacy difficulties and commenced her research into orthographic processing difficulties in 1997 with a Ph.D in learning to spell. She was awarded an MBE in 2017 for services to children with literacy difficulties and those with special educational needs and also received a lifetime achievement award from the BDA in 2017. In September 2021, at the request of the BDA, she presented to a Westminster All party parliament group (APPG) on what the research on phonics tells us. She is the author of the CSP Spelling and Language Programme and the Harberton Reading Programme.