A leading educational publisher has stopped selling a series of books used for teaching reading after being told of spelling mistakes.
Teachers at Linthorpe Infant School in Middlesbrough were horrified when they discovered the errors in the All Aboard reading scheme series published by Ginn.
A book for reception class children entitled Pancakes spelled “margarine” as “margerine”, while a book on dinosaurs spelled “tyrannosaurus” with an extra “r” and only one “n”. Another book for older children included the sentence “Have you see these signs?”.
The school had paid Pounds 220 for the series which would be used to teach children to read alongside other books. But when the headteacher complained to the publishers she was even more shocked to be told they would correct the mistakes when the series was reprinted later this year - and would continue selling them until then.
The company originally confirmed its policy when contacted by The TES but later decided to stop selling the books and promised to replace any already sent out.
After the school complained, Frances Ridley, a commissioning editor at Ginn, wrote apologising and promising replacements.
She said: “Reprints do not take place until existing stock has been sold. The reprint for these books will not take place until at least the end of the year.
“All our books are thoroughly checked before going to press, but sometimes mistakes such as these do slip through the net. We are always pleased to be informed about them, as this gives us the opportunity to put them right as soon as possible.”
Linthorpe’s acting headteacher Patricia Saunders said this week: “We were disgusted by their reaction. We were really excited about the new reading scheme but we couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw the mistakes.
The company told The TES that about 10,000 of the books were printed but it was not known how many had already been sold. They would be reprinted probably in December.
Later, sales and marketing director David Crowther said mistakes inevitably occurred and all educational publishers had books in circulation with errors in them.
The books would be withdrawn from sale and reprinted. Any school which asked for replacements would be given them. He said: “This is not simply a knee-jerk reaction to an unfavourable story.
“We will review our systems most thoroughly to ensure that as far as possible errors are eradicated before publication.”
