Madam, – After 25 years of targeted education programmes, almost one-third of children in disadvantaged areas still have severe literacy problems? (“Severe literacy problems persist despite 25 years of programmes”, June 18th).
Questions must be asked about such spectacular failure. Even if rates had been halved in this period, there would still be serious accountability issues arising from such misery-inducing, wasteful failure, and the complacency, from all sides, of those who allowed it to happen.
Either the literacy methods employed were defective, or the failure has to do with the children. As the latter is clearly absurd, the focus must be on the methods used, and on the training of those who used them.
Those of us who advocate properly delivered synthetic phonics as a basic linguistic grounding for all children, are hoping that the authors of the final National Economic and Social Forum report will take note of this approach to literacy. If we persist with the same mishmash of methods that have failed so catastrophically, we will see no significant improvement in the next 25 years. We need teachers who know what to do (and who know what not to do), and parents who are required to be involved in the day-to-day education of their children, particularly those who need extra help. All this can be achieved for relatively modest sums. Leadership is badly needed on this issue and it is to be hoped that this report will provide it. – Yours, etc,