LITERACY I N THE IK

I think I may have said this in the thread that OP refers to (and I'm talking more about OP's post and some of the comments than about the survey itself) but: People of a certain age, e.g. mine, have always felt that things were better in the past. That is largely because things were better in the past: we were young. But if OP and I feel that standards have declined since our youth, and our parents felt (as I know mine did) that standards had declined since their youth; and if their parents felt etc., then if you go back three or four hundred years you ought to find a time of amazingly high standards, where everyone is writing perfectly and no one is making grammatical or spelling mistakes (or mathematical errors), etc. But no matter how far back you go, you will find people making mistakes and otherwise behaving badly, and other people complaining about the mistakes and the bad behavior and saying that things like that didn't happen under good Queen Hatshepsut or whomever. It's always possible that things are getting worse, but a subjective feeling that they are is no evidence at all.

(Back when I had a dial-up connection, I used to keep something to read in my lap while at the computer so I had something to do while the next screen loaded. I'll have to start doing that again. The time between clicking "Reply" and getting to this screen is interminable. That's something that was better in the old days, last week.)

I was taught in Psychology A-Level that believing in the "good old days" is a psychological illusion, caused by the brain concentrating on good memories to avoid depression. But I still have questions about the different methods of teaching reading that have been used in the UK. Which works best? Or, do different methods work for different children?

"I was taught in Psychology A-Level that believing in the "good old days" is a psychological illusion, caused by the brain concentrating on good memories to avoid depression."

Can't agree with that. I don't look back on my childhood at school as the happiest or best days of my life but one thing that has stood me in good stead was the drumming in of the very basics and I believe that the basics are the foundation stone of the education that follows on.

I am English and had my basic education 40+ years ago, going to a state primary school and a grammar school. I was lucky in that both these places were known to have very good standards and academic results and gave me an excellent grounding in reading, writing, mental arithmetic and much more. Having said that, I always had plenty of contact with people who were less fortunate than me and educated at less effective schools and, though their spelling was not always as good, they seemed to be quite able to express themselves, read and do the mental arithmetic one needs to work out change and so on. Gradually, over the years, I have noticed a progressive decline in my fellow English people's vocabulary, spelling and ability to work out change (for instance, nowadays, when we oldies are charged £13.03 in the supermarket and helpfully proffer a £20 note and £3.03 in change, the cashiers will look at the money blankly and then look at us as if we are completely mad and it is only when they key in what we've given them to their till do they see they only need to give us a whole £10 in change and the light begins to dawn). It's all very depressing. Their general knowledge seems much less than it was for my generation at their age too, which may well be down to not reading books and newspapers so much. I truly think the education system is much worse than it used to be (how can using calculators teach you how to do maths - please explain to me, someone) and I also think that too much time is spent watching television, etc. A lot of my vocabulary was learned from my parents when we were all sitting around at home talking (or reading!) as we had no television (banned from our house). I despair for the future, really.