My blood just boils.

My blood just boils.

I know I am no expert in this area but I also know that in the 1970's I was taught that teaching children to read is complex and is best done using a variety of methods including phonics and whole word approaches.

This morning on the radio John Humphries led a feature on literacy that lauded the phonics approach which led to "everyone being able to read" (more of less) he said. Such a low standard of analysis would never be allowed over politics, economics , environmental or health issues. Humphries sounded like Ali Gee with his simplistic comments. "Like this drug problem right? How can we get the quality of the gear to be better, right?" How much longer can we maintain this naiuve innocence about reading?

The last 30 years have been repeatedly puctuated by phonics is best-whole word is best debates in the popular press manwhile anyone in the know does both.

Well, it forced me to check with Ruth Miskin, the government adviser for literacy. She has a website. Well low an behold it states that phonics at first is a good thing but then for more complex reading, for words that are not phonetical, toher strategies might be used. makes good sense.

My sheer amusement came with the above example, M-O-M . I know no one in my local area that says Mom. Then again down our way we used a different phrase, one I still use today, which more or less sums up the limitations of just phonics. "Ennit, Muvva".