Excellent link Villan.

Not a word on there I could disagree with.

As far as I can see it is Canadian and they may be in front of what we do here. At the University in Quebec where we stayed last year, there was a notice for students about dyslexia for French speakers and they seemed very aware of different learning styles. Certainly this bi-lingualism may be a factor. Our friends in Ottawa brought up their children bi-lingually and one of them struggled because it was thought she might be dyslexic. She was tested at a very young age (and as it happens found not to be).

And I agree whole-heartedly about the whole class improving. I know when I had the quadriplegic student I referred to earlier in my class, I had to change things in the class and for the better.

When my wife was studying for her dyslexia assessment qualification she had to do some practical teaching experience and chose to work in the local primary school with a particular child. It worked really well and the headteacher and class teacher were well pleased with the progress made, not just with the particular child (who measuringly improved) but with the rest of the class.

So why does it take so long to change things when the answers are so blindingly obvious?

Well I can make some suggestions.

Some of the methods are anathema to parents who can easily revolt. When a secondary school in Sheffield tried to alter the way children were taught the parents went barmy because the children were not being taught by "traditional" methods - next to no time the press were down and around their ears. Try as he might the headteacher could not convince anyone and it went out of the window. And there is much less freedom to experiment nowadays.

We know how much difference a decent meal makes at lunchtime for many young pupils and students - remember the revolts over that? Parents feeding chips to their children through the school railings?

All people "know" about education because virtually everyone goes through some sort of education system amd "it worked for them". Look how difficult it was to stop corporal punishment in schools, and there are those who will still justify it on the grounds "I was thrashed within an inch of my life and it never did me any harm guv". See here. You might care to note that the school is Independent and Christian. Current charge is £3.600 + per year. And it goes up on joint incomes over £40,000.

In addition of course - to change things like that can be very expensive. It would take a long time to permeate the techniques through the system. Undoubtedly smaller classes help but that costs money. More computers would help and that costs money. Specialist dyslexic assessors and teachers cost money to train and the training is not easy as I explained in an earlier post. So that costs money.

All those in favour of much higher taxes to ensure better education, the benefit of which may not be fully felt for twenty years - raise your hand.

So it is possible that far from it being teachers fault that things don't change, it can be parents who "know" about education who can be just as much at fault.