[Mr Ramsbotham]

The best solution is that parents, when their children are two, three or four, start teaching them the alphabet and the sounds.

It works like magic.

[achilles2000]

“The best solution is that parents, when their children are two, three or four, start teaching them the alphabet and the sounds.
It works like magic.”

Yes, indeed, it does. AND you don’t need 4 wasted years in a school of Ed to do it (plus “in service training” and an M.Ed.).

That is exactly why it isn’t done in government schools. Publishers need curriculum churn; the imbeciles who call themselves “professors” of education need to make themselves feel important by inventing bogus new learning “strategies”, and the unions love the fact that the status quo creates make-work jobs for “reading specialists” and a host of other parasites.

No parent should have his children in government schools - and the academic failure of the schools is the LEAST of the reasons. (And - to the usual suspects - don’t bother posting that “our schools are different”. They aren’t in any way that matters morally, spiritually, or intellectually.)