Sir, - While it is encouraging to note that spending on adult literacy programmes since 1997 has more than doubled (Editorial, July 13th), I am concerned that the Green Paper on Adult Education does not place enough emphasis on developing more effective instructional approaches, in the light of the results of the latest research in this area.
The ability to produce speech sounds accurately and fluently and to discriminate between them at a very fine level of detail is of primary importance in learning to read. This is a skill partly innate and partly learned. Training in this skill has proved to be successful for both adults and children with reading difficulties. It is not covered by the traditional "phonics" programmes or by a "language experience" approach, but it has revolutionised the teaching of beginning and remedial reading in the areas of the world where it is presently being used.
Many reading tutors and teachers lack proper training in the full range of techniques and strategies which are needed for the difficult task of teaching an adult with severe reading difficulties. Volunteers become disillusioned when they are unable to effect any improvement in their students. The introduction of phonemic awareness techniques into adult tutor training schemes would give literacy tutors, who often have no formal qualifications, a useful resource and would help them to be clearer and more strategic in their objectives. - Yours, etc., Jan Bellenger, Master of Education Student,
Clonskeagh, Dublin 14.