View article

This paper draws upon a growing body of research emphasising the importance and prevalence of domain-specific practices in teaching and learning. Different disciplines have their own reasoning practices, conceptualised as reasoning styles, which are used to justify conclusions drawn. Although there is widespread recognition of the importance of teaching reasoning, this has proven difficult in practice. This is particularly challenging in subjects where reasoning practices have received limited attention. This paper focuses on reasoning in the curriculum subject of English in primary schools (as taught in compulsory education in England). Drawing on a theoretical framework of reasoning styles constructed for English, this paper asks: how can domain-specific reasoning styles be promoted in English for primary schools? It is suggested that engagement in domain-specific reasoning can be promoted through …