JUSTIN Tomlinson’s desire to stamp out illiteracy is very commendable. However, the actions he speaks about in order to achieve this are questionable. I am intrigued to know how he thinks introducing tests in spelling, punctuation and grammar will help those that cannot read and write. I am an educator with several years of experience and I have come across two acute cases where children were unable to read the simplest words. This was not however due to poor teaching or lack of care in any way by the school they attended.

These particular children just found the act of reading extremely hard and had one to one support throughout their school lives and had been placed on intervention programme after intervention programme.

I do not like to think about how these children felt about school knowing they would arrive every day and be forced to try and do something they were just unable to do time after time. Yes, teaching phonics does help the majority of children develop their reading, but there will always be a minority of children that do not respond to phonics teaching. Phonics teaching by itself is not the magic bullet many politicians believe it is.

We must remember that illiteracy is not a new phenomenon. It has always been there. My own grandmother was unable to read and write. I do not wish to be defeatist about this but I feel as a society we should be more caring towards those that reach adulthood and cannot read.

Being unable to read may not be the fault of the individual or the schools they attended and will definitely not be cured by creating tougher tests to assess English skills. The technology must surely be out there to capture an image of text with a hand held device and then convert this to speech via a discreet earpiece.

ANDREW WILKINS Collett Avenue Swindon