A special educational needs coordinator in a bilingual secondary in North Wales has experienced a very strange phenomenon. Recently, she experimentally introduced a new strategy in her school in an attempt to boost literacy. Her pupils’ literacy skills improved dramatically, not only in English but also in Welsh.

The strategy she used was contrary to Department for Education recommendations, which dictate that only ritual phonics indoctrination will resolve literacy skills deficits: her approach contains no phonics components whatsoever. In any event, the letter-sound correspondences in Welsh orthography are not the same as those in English. I wonder how the government’s phonics gurus would explain this curious anomaly.

Eddie Carron, Condover, Shropshire.