"Toddler literacy" sparks controversy in Great Britain

A powerful lobby of leading authors and educationists are accusing the British government 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.

They accuse Beverley Hughes, the Children’s Minister, of ignoring her advisers and shelving research commissioned by her department because it contradicted policy. 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. Read about the controversy in The Times online.