This is brilliant! My idea of a blog was where someone could sound off about something - a bit of a modern day Hyde's Corner! Trouble is, until now I've had nothing to whinge about but I've just seen a forum where someone is complaining about the difficulty of teaching phonics in New Zealand. Thank GOD I say! What's wrong with actually teaching children to spell and write properly from Day ONE?

It's the baby talk syndrome. A parent spends the first 12-18 months of a child's life telling them that WOOF WOOF is that four legged creature they call Rover and once the child has mastered that they tell them NO, WOOF WOOF is actually a DOG!

Dumbing down? We had no idea what that was - now everyone knows and guess what??????