The framework is neither a gamble nor a deficit model, and it is certainly not a conspiracy by the Office for Standards in Education. Rather, it is a structured curriculum pulling together the best of best practice.

It has been extended after a year because it is starting to turn in results already; the funding was not put forward to buy the support of local authorities but to enable them to carry it forward; the literacy hour was introduced to rescue English from the curriculum crush which has forced it into pockets of silent reading and “practice” in other subjects.

For thousands of subject co-ordinators who were left to re-invent the literacy wheel themselves, the framework is a welcome attempt to put accumulated experience into a form that others can share - a practical teaching plan.

SUE HACKMAN Regional director, National Literacy Strategy National Centre for Literacy and Numeracy London House, 59-65 London Street Reading