The Bookseller.com

5th December 2008

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Authors question plan for child literacy

24.07.08

A powerful lobby of leading authors and educationists accuse the Government today of setting children up for failure. In a letter to the Times they say that ambitious education targets – including using punctuation before a child turns 5 – are unrealistic and risk harming pre-school children by setting back their development.

Philip Pullman and Michael Morpurgo, the children’s authors, Susie Orbach, the sociologist, and Steve Biddulph, the psychologist, have joined dozens of academics to demand that the reforms be scrapped or turned into a voluntary code before they come into force this autumn.

The Times

Authors children's child literacy