Sir, In the list of priorities set out in the Early Years Statutory Framework (report and letter, July 24), the under-5s will be required to reach targets on 69 writing, problem-solving and numeracy skills, but physical development comes fifth on the list of goals and programmes. This ignores that it is physical development that supports all other aspects of learning and behaviour.

Studies carried out with more than 670 children in mainstream schools in Northern Ireland between 2002 and 2003 revealed that 48 per cent of four to five-year-olds and 35 per cent of eight to ten-year-olds still had traces of infant reflexes, which should not be active beyond the first year of life, together with immature balance and co-ordination. The study also found that the educational achievement of children with immature physical skills was lower than children whose physical skills were commensurate with chronological age.

Balance and co-ordination, including the fine muscle co-ordination needed for clear speech articulation and writing, and the control of eye movements necessary for reading, are all developed through physical interaction with the environment (free play) and social engagement. The drive towards the assessment of formal learning skills at the expense of free play and developmental “readiness” in this younger age group runs the risk of condemning a generation of children to educational underachievement in the future.

Sally Goddard Blythe
Director, the Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology

Sir, In my practice I see several children a week who can read, write and make excellent conversation, and who are well under school age, some as young as 2. No parent or teacher can make a child do this if they are not capable. The children are otherwise normal and happy and keen to learn. The numbers of them that I can see could doubtless be multiplied by many hundreds around the country. The proposed prohibitions by the anti-early-literacy group to stop enthusiastic children from getting the basics of literacy at nursery would be a cruel blow to their lively searching minds.

There is no shortage of evidence to show that children who are read to themselves read earlier and do better in life. If children don’t get this at home they must get it from outside, and if the school is prevented from teaching early literacy all children lose out. There is a desperate need to provide a suitable education for early learners and the Government’s “toddler’s curriculum” would provide welcome manna in the present educational desert.

Professor Joan Freeman
Chartered Psychologist
London W1

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