Posted by Peter Ceresole on January 19, 2008 at 18:57:37 from 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Introducing children to reading (was FLASHMAN) posted by Jock on January 19, 2008 at 14:04:58:
Then "unwillingly to school" he went, trudging the leafy pavements through pea-souper London smogs. From then on the stories were not magical, and they weren't musical either. Words were to be properly spelled, properly punctuated, with neat handwriting.
Hmmm. Yes. I know this is the classic thought- that natural wonder is squashed by education. I guess the equivalent is the '60s slogan 'Don't think, feel'. I never reckoned it. I never resented being expected to spell and punctuate properly; it was an exciting new skill, in the same way that discovering science and applying it to life and the universe made it all more wonderful, not less.
At primary school we read 'The Wind in the Willows' in class, and I rather enjoyed it. One of my later teachers, at secondary school, introduced us to the idea that poetry was good and I have never forgotten him, or stopped being grateful for his enthusiasm and insights. Later in my life, I made my living partly by writing scripts for documentary TV programmes and I'm sure I owe it to those teachers that I was never afraid of a blank page...
Let's hear it for proper grammar, and spelling, and Lynn Truss! Down with excessive adjectives!
In fact don't walk like an Eyptian; write like Arthur Ransome.