 |
 |
An interesting article in this week's Spectator. The writer, Laura Freeman, evidently a priamry school English teacher, was bemoaning the fact that her children are unable to express their emotions other than being 'good' or 'sad' , or though the emojis on their smart-phones, because of their lack of vocabulary, due, in many cases, to their inadequate reading skills (which meant that they could not read for pleasure) and lack of grown-up conversation..
But, she wrote "The children in my more confident group" (she was talking, Ithink, about 8-9-year-olds) "came alive with Rudyard Kipling's How the Camel Got His Hump. They loved 'frouzly head' and 'snarly-yarly' Anyone who didn't do their homwork that term was 'most 'scruciating idle'. They were hungry for novelty. I might even say starved of it. We talk of food poverty. But not word poverty. We are appalled by diets of popcorn and chips. We should be as outraged about the children whose reading and writing diet is hearts and stars and aubergine emojis."
Alastair Wilson