[senco-forum] Re Literacy

It is tempting to wonder how Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, Daniel Defoe, Walter Scott, Robert Burns etc etc etc managed to become the greatest literary giants in the world in spite it being most unlikely that they were taught by synthetic phonics but the answer is of course, that they were probably part of the 80% or so, who self-evidently managed to become literary Gods without it.

 Once again, I strongly support the use of synthetic phonics and I know that a number of very productive resources exist which are based on SP principles but unlike the fundamentalists, I would reserve their use for those who need them. Any notion which supports the imposition on all children of a teaching strategy which is known to be unnecessary for the vast majority of them, is in my view, seriously flawed and we have surely had our fill of illogical philosophies already. Can we not just for once, go with commonsense?. 

Eddie C.