You’re clearly also of the ‘old school’ who doesn’t believe in punctuation either!

There are very few schools in Telford where the proprtion of those with English as a second language is significant, and it’s quite astonishing how quickly these children pick up our language (they’re also well-supported by their parents in this) – would that our indigenous kids could apply themselves to learning foreign languages with equal enthusiasm and aplomb!

The problem with reading amongst boys has nothing to do with immigrants, and your attempt to blame them is boringly predictable. It has far more to do with reading not being regarded as ‘cool’ these days, and our need to find ways of encouraging enthusiasm for this skill.

Sadly, relatively few parents read to their children these days, and it appears that this is part of the problem – unless a child has been shown the simple pleasure of becoming engrossed in a story, and the stimulus to the imagination that this can provide, they’re unlikely to see reading as a pleasurable activity.

The benefits of reading to children are well-established – I have two daughters, and have read extensively to both over the years, including amongst others, the entire of the C.S Lewis Narnia chronicles, the whole of the Harry Potter series and the Philip Pullman ‘Dark Materials’ trilogy.

Both girls now have excellent reading skills, and an extensive vocabulary – I believe the simple task of 15 minutes of reading each night has contributed significantly to these skills.

It’s far too easy to blame teachers, immigrants, the TV, game consoles etc. – the simple fact is that the solution to this lies first and foremost with the parents.

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Please provide evidence to back up your claim that much of the blame lies with ‘trendy’ teachers.
Please provide details of what the methods of these teachers are and how evidence of how they contribute to the problems of literacy.
Please provide evidence of how political correctness causes males literacy problems but not females.

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