How to foster a lifelong love of reading

SIR – Ros Groves (Letters, December 7) claims that teaching reading by the “look and say” method – whereby children are taught to recognise whole words – is like building a house without buying the bricks.

As a former primary teacher, headteacher and Ofsted inspector, I disagree. On the contrary, teaching phonics in isolation before introducing children to whole words is like giving them the bricks without giving them any idea of what the building will look like.

Of course children need a structured approach to phonics, and the benefits are clear. But to teach individual sounds without whole words makes no sense, especially as many common words are not phonetically regular so cannot be read that way. Children recognise shapes from a very early age, and that is what a word is.

I taught my grandchildren to read before they went to school using a mixed method of “look and say” and phonics. Children taught that way will enjoy reading all their lives; those who are taught purely phonetically will simply see it as yet another learning task to be ticked off and ignored thereafter.

Fareham, Hampshire

SIR – While reading levels have perhaps improved as a result of teaching using the phonics method, I do wonder what effect it has had on writing ability.

Winchester, Hampshire

SIR – Why do parents think it is the duty of the school to teach their child to read?

They have had years of one-to-one contact with their child, with no interruptions and no extraneous noise from a classroom of other children demanding attention.

Loughborough, Leicestershire