Dr. Myra Barrs is an Honorary Senior Research Associate at UCL. She is a freelance writer and researcher. She was until recently Co-Director of the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE). She has worked as a teacher, a publisher, an adviser, and a consultant in the UK, the USA and Canada. Myra Barrs is co-author and editor of many publications, including the Primary Language Record Handbook, The Reading Book, Whole to Part Phonics, Boys and Writing, The Reader in the Writer and Boys on the Margin. She produced the CLPE video series Learning to be Literate. Other publications include books on assessment, such as Words Not Numbers and Record-Keeping in the Primary School. She has written many articles for academic journals and professional journals on topics including assessment, children’s writing, gender and literacy, and imaginative play. Her research interests include children’s writing and its links with other ways of symbolizing meaning.