Wednesday 6 January 2010

No benefit in learning to read early?

I have been reading with interest the newspaper reports about research by Sebastian Sugatte in New Zealand. The gist of the matter is that according to this man, there is no advantage to children in learning to read early, as opposed to waiting a few years and then starting at seven. Music to the ears of autonomous educators!

There are a few things worth noting about this piece of work. Firstly, this is reported as being; "a report published by Otago University" written by "Dr Sebastian Sugatte". Precisely as in the case with Paula Rothermel's research, this report fails to make it clear that this was a thesis written by a student, rather than academic work conducted by the university itself. This does not of course invalidate the findings, but it is worth bearing in mind.

Another point to remember is that this is not exactly an unbiased piece of work. Sebastian Sugatte was for years a leading light in the students' Anthroposophical Society at the university. He has always been a dedicated supporter of Rudolf Steiner's theories about education. In other words, he did not embark on this research in order to test whether children did better if they delayed learning to read until seven. Rather, he believed this firmly and went looking for evidence to support the hypothesis. That this is so can be seen from the wording he uses. He talks of the age at which children are, "forced to start reading"! How's that for objective, academic language? There is a lack of candour on the part of the man, as can be seen in this quotation from the New Zealand Herald. He is speaking of the apparent discovery that children learning later were not disadvantaged, "Dr Suggate said he was surprised by his own findings that this was not the case." For a dedicated anthroposophist to make such a statement with a straight face suggests strongly that there is an element of deliberate deception involved.

One hesitates to be snobbish about these matters, but perhaps controversial findings of this sort might be given more attention if they emanated from work carried out by professors at Harvard or UCL, rather than by a student at Otago. The whole thing is a little dubious, regardless of who carried it out though. I have had dealings with a couple of Steiner schools in this country and a few things strike me at once. Firstly, just because the schools themselves don't encourage children of five and six to read, that does not mean that parents are not teaching them at home. Indeed, I have actually seen this for myself. Some parents prefer the Steiner schools because they are gentle and non pushy, but they supplement what happens at school by giving their children informal little lessons at home. Some children attend part-time, just for social reasons and their parents then teach them at home. The report in the Telegraph talks of children, "left without books until they turn seven", but I would be surprised to hear that that is really the case.

In short, this is interesting, but far more needs to be known about it. I observe that Sebastian Sugatte took into account such factors as income, literacy in the home and so on, but unless the situation in New Zealand is dramatically different from this country, there are huge differences between those families who favour Steiner schools and those who send their kids to the local state primary. Delaying the formal teaching of reading from five to seven is perhaps not one of the greatest of these differences.

34 comments:

  1. Interesting document here, http://www.emie.ac.uk/publications/other-publications/conference-papers/pdf_docs/AGMearly.PDF

    "1870 Education Act. There was very little parliamentary debate on this issue at the time, although some MPs clearly favoured six as the school starting age. Reasons put forward in favour of setting the school starting age at five were related to child protection (i.e. protection from exploitation at home and unhealthy conditions in the streets). There was also a political imperative to appease employers because setting an early starting age enabled an early school leaving age to be established, so that children could enter the workforce. Woodhead points out that the school starting age was not decided on the basis of any developmental or educational criteria."

    "But for younger (summer-born) children, those with the full reception year did not do as well as those of the same age with one or two terms less time at school. This relationship held even when other factors (such as sex, and children’s eligibility for free school meals) were taken into account."


    "I have drawn evidence on age of starting reading from two sources: an article by Peter Blatchford and Ian Plewis describing research with a sample of children in London (Blatchford and Plewis, 1990), and an overview of US research on reading by Jeff McQuillan (McQuillan, 1998). Both demonstrate that children who can read early do better later. According to McQuillan, children who can read before they start school usually come from homes where books are available and where parents read books. Although parents of these early readers supported their children’s reading they do not ‘push’ them to read, nor do they use most of the formal strategies used in schools. So if early readers do better later, is it not a good idea to teach children to read early on? McQuillan reviews the evidence from a small number of experimental studies of US children taught to read ‘early’ (at age five). These showed that any advantage was short-lived: the later readers had caught up by around age eight. He concludes that early interventions to teach reading are unlikely to combat disadvantage, but that early access to reading with supportive adults is a key factor."

    " First, a well-known piece of research by Schweinhart and Weikart (1998) followed a small number of disadvantaged children who attended one of three pre-school programmes. A feature of the design was that children were randomly allocated to the three types of programme. The use of random assignment is important because it means that any differences between the groups are likely to be the result of the programmes, rather than the influence of selection effects. The programmes in question were High/Scope (where children are encouraged to follow a pattern of plan-do-review), Direct Instruction (teacher-led, with academic lessons) and Nursery School (teachers used themes and children had free choice of activity for much of the time). At first all three groups showed a jump in IQ, followed by a decline to age 10. But the strongest differences emerged in the long-term. At age 23, both the nursery and High Scope groups were doing better on a range of ‘real-life’ measures (such as rates of arrest, emotional problems and suspension from work). The authors suggest that an emphasis on child-initiated activities in these two pre-school programmes developed the children’s sense of social responsibility and their interpersonal skills, and that this had a positive impact in later life."

    "As far as the types of experiences offered in early childhood settings are concerned,
    there does appear to be some consensus from the research evidence. Young children
    (aged five and under) seem to do best when they have opportunities to socialise, make
    their own choices and take responsibility for their own learning."

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  2. In this case and in your comments on Paula Rothermel you've disparaged work by PhD students as though they were some undergraduate essay unseen or unsupervised by any academic moderator.

    I can't comment in the individual cases or psychology in general, but the research for a PhD thesis in a university is supervised by an experienced academic and the degree is awarded after examination by an external expert in the field as well as an internal academic other than the supervisor. In some countries a panel of expert examiners is involved.

    The result might not be the same as a peer-reviewed paper in a professional journal but it is unreasonable to suggest that such work has no academic credibility purely on the basis of your own "research" based on a bit of googling. Your insinuation of deception is simply rude but par for the course.

    I'll follow your example and suggest that, as in so much of what you write, you are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of your readers when describing studies with which you disagree.

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  3. When a dedicated Anthoposophist expresses surprise at the discovery that children taught to read later than usual are not at a disadvantage compared with those taught at five, this is deception. There is no other word for it. The research was concerned with Steiner schools; at no point at all in any of the reports was it revealed that the researcher was a disciple of Steiner. If a well known academic working for a renowned university publishes findings in a peer reviewed journal, that is also one thing; a Phd doctoral thesis from a place like Otago is something else again.

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  4. "hen a dedicated Anthoposophist expresses surprise at the discovery that children taught to read later than usual are not at a disadvantage compared with those taught at five, this is deception."

    If the Steiner method were used with the express aim to teach reading more efficiently you might have a point. However, the aim of their method appears to be, "to provide young people the basis on which to develop into free, moral and integrated individuals, and to help every child fulfil his or her unique destiny, the existence of which anthroposophy posits". It seems reasonable for someone to be surprised that this a method of education with particular aims does not disadvantage a child by the measures used by other educational philosophies that have different (and possibly conflicting) aims.

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  5. I think you should also apply the same criteria to your own opinions, Simon. You have a child who has done very well academically, who you also taught to read very early. Not surprising, therefore, that you assume that there is a connection between these two events.
    I, on the other hand, have a child who was a late reader and has done almost as well academically. He was clearly not disadvantaged by his late reading; in fact by the time he had been reading for a year, his reading age was measured as 3 years in advance of his actual age.

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  6. Simon wrote:
    "this is deception. There is no other word for it."

    Very objective, I'm sure. You have no substantial evidence for this accusation.

    Why is your analysis of this research superior to that of the internal academics and the external examiner responsible for reviewing this work? Do you even know anything about those people?

    Before trying to disparage "a place like Otago" it's a pity that you didn't bother to find that Otago is ranked in the same league as places like Durham, Maryland, Stony Brook, Liverpool and other places that you might find strange and distant but are well respected. Search for "world top 200 universities" and look for the Times Higher link.

    By the way, you failed to mention that Suggate was a finalist in the 2009 MacDiarmid awards, a national prize for new researchers in New Zealand. Clearly his work is rated more highly than your bitter and deceitful comments would suggest.

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  7. "I, on the other hand, have a child who was a late reader and has done almost as well academically. He was clearly not disadvantaged by his late reading"

    Anecdotal evidence can be an important pointer towards the direction in which future research might move. However, it's not really possible to reach the conclusion that an individual child has been disadvantaged (or not) by the approach taken with them (unless it were possible to use a time machine to compare two different approaches) so it's still possible that your son was disadvantaged by your approach. However, it's just as possible that Simon's daughter was disadvantaged by his approach.

    The new research suggests that there is no advantage in early reading in terms of final reading and academic ability (which confirms experiences in other countries). However, many HE parents of late readers have remarked on how quickly their children learn to read (as you have noticed). These same children may have taken much longer to learn to read when younger (how many 6 year olds are reading at an 9 year old level after one year of learning to read). The time saved may have been better spent on other learning. They may also have experienced less stress around learning to read which seems likely to be a positive. Possibly an interesting line for research in future. If adult reading ability is not disadvantaged by late reading (as suggested) it seems at least possible that there will be advantages as a result of less stress and more time.

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  8. "That this is so can be seen from the wording he uses. He talks of the age at which children are, "forced to start reading"! How's that for objective, academic language?"

    Did he say this? The only place I've seen 'forced' used is the sub-heading in the telegraph article, which doesn't appear to be a quote.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/6937462/Reading-at-five-fails-to-boost-skills.html

    Do you have a link for the research paper itself?

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  9. Ah, Anonymous, you reveal yourself by casually mentioning Otago and Durham in the same breath! I regard Durham as being a very good British university and whenever people make silly remarks about their degrees being equivalent to a Grade 4 CSE, I am always quick to correct them. You ask why my analysis of this research is superior to that of the internal academics at Alice Springs, or wherever it was. The answer is that it is not, nor was I attempting to conduct an analysis. I was pointing out that when a disciple of Rudolf Steiner carries out a survey involving Steiner schools and then professes surprise at the results, this is deception. I have no idea why I would feel bitter about this, as you put it, nor why it would be deceitful to draw attention to it.

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  10. Erica, I have no idea at all whether my daughter's early reading was connected to her later academic achievement. I am more concerned about the undue weight being given to a piece of partial research than about my family circumstances!

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  11. Anonymous, here is a link to the research which talks about children being "forced" to start reading. It is certainly worth reading the whole thing, rather than relying upon abstractes from the Daily Mail or somewhere!

    http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2009.05.001

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  12. "Anonymous, here is a link to the research which talks about children being "forced" to start reading."

    Err, still can't see the word 'forced' anywhere. Why have you attributed it to Suggate? In fact, it's not even a link to the same research paper discussed in the Telegraph article which does use the word. The article described in the Telegraph and other recent articles involved 400 children over 3 years in (I think) 1 country. The research you link to, which incidentally I had just been reading and quote below, looked at 400,000 children in 56 countries. It was published in a peer reviewed journal.

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  13. The accusation has been made that I have researched Steiner schools by googling. Perhaps I should point out that I posted a piece on this subject back in October, under the title "Here come the Gnomes". I have in the past had quite a few dealings with Steiner schools; more so, from the sound of it, than those who are now criticising me!
    I am not going to delve too deeply into this nonsense, but it is enough to point out that the Steiner philosophy and Anthroposophy are far more than just another educational philosophy. They entail buying in to a barking mad world view in which the planet Earth is a giant vegetable and those who are unpleasant in this life face being reincarnated as gnomes. The age of seven for the beginning of learning to read, was revealed to Steiner in a trance and ties in with various other odd ideas. In fact seven as the ideal age to start reading was chosen as arbitrarily as five was in this country. In my view, both are much too late.

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  14. Here are some quotes from Suggate's analysis of Programme for International Student Assessment data (from the full article). He found that school starting age did not affect average achievement at 15. I think it's significant that countries with younger starting ages displayed a larger variance in reading achievement. Possibly because some children (those who would have been late readers if allowed to choose) were put off by the difficulties caused by being asked to learn to read too early (for them).

    Published in the International Journal of Education Research, Vol 48, issue 3, 2009, pages 151-161.
    School entry age and reading achievement in the 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
    Sebastian P.
    Department of Psychology, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand
    Available online 5 June 2009.

    "It might well be expected that the extra years of reading instruction associated with an earlier school entry, would lead to a long-term advantage in reading achievement. However, as will be discussed, surprisingly little evidence directly investigates this question."

    "Given the scarcity of research into the relationship between SEA [school entry age] and later reading achievement, this paper contains a quantitative evaluation of results from the recent Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study. Before presenting this analysis, review will be undertaken of evidence often taken to necessitate early reading instruction onset. This brief overview will then be followed by consideration of national and international research."

    "Two of the same features mentioned with regard to predictive research also apply to intervention research. That is, although evidence has shown that early reading intervention targeting struggling readers can positively affect reading performance in the short term ([Bus and van Ijzendoorn, 1999], [Ehri et al., 2001], [Elbaum et al., 2000], [Suggate, 2008], Talbott et al., 1994 E. Talbott, L. Wills and M. Tankersley, Effects of reading comprehension interventions for students with learning disabilities, Learning Disability Quarterly 17 (1994), pp. 223–232. Full Text via CrossRef[Talbott et al., 1994] and [Therrien, 2004]) evidence for meaningful long-term effects is weaker (e.g., [Ehri et al., 2001] and [Suggate, 2008]). Again, when research includes a long-term follow up, the effect of the intervention decreases (e.g., Ehri et al., 2001) as, either the intervention group regresses or the control group makes subsequent gains without the intervention. Therefore, it appears that either the skills targeted by the intervention are, after time, learned by the control groups without intervention, or that the gains dissipate."

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  15. final quotes:

    "Participants in the original 2006 PISA study were about 400 000 children aged from 15 years and three months to 16 years and two months from 56 countries. Within each country, two-tiered stratified random-sampling was employed to ensure a representative mix according to socio-economic status, and rural versus urban schooling (Telford and Caygill, 2007 M. Telford and R. Caygill, PISA 2006: How ready are our 15-year-olds for tomorrow's world?, Ministry of Education, New Zealand (2007).Telford & Caygill, 2007). One country began schooling at age four, three at age five, 33 at age six, and 19 at age seven."

    "Consistent with Elley (1992), an index (hereafter social and economic factors index: SEFI) of country characteristics that relate to the well-being and prosperity of the citizens was compiled. Data for this index were mostly obtained from United Nations databases and, replicating that of Elley (1992), comprised economic, health, and literacy factors. "

    "In these secondary analyses of the results from the 2006 PISA study, the reading performance of 15-year-old children in different countries where reading instruction began at different ages was investigated. Taking into account social and economic factors, SEA was not a significant predictor of countries’ mean reading achievement. There was a tendency for earlier beginning countries to have a larger variance in reading achievement."

    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VDF-4WFPPGC-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1157652115&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=5186ff790d96ac0de8c838162f0ca13f

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  16. Sorry anonymous, you are quite right. try this;

    http://www.library.otago.ac.nz/services/docdel/thesis_request.html

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  17. "Sorry anonymous, you are quite right. try this;

    http://www.library.otago.ac.nz/services/docdel/thesis_request.html"

    So have you bought a copy of his thesis? If so, can you quote the passage where he uses the word, 'forced'. If not, why have you attributed the word 'forced' to Suggate?

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  18. "If a well known academic working for a renowned university publishes findings in a peer reviewed journal, that is also one thing; a Phd doctoral thesis from a place like Otago is something else again."

    What, like Suggate's work in a peer reviewed journal that you provided a link too?

    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VDF-4WFPPGC-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=b44799349d902cafc134bd6b5ad07c43

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  19. "In fact seven as the ideal age to start reading was chosen as arbitrarily as five was in this country. In my view, both are much too late."

    Based on what evidence?

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  20. Just a passing thought... is Steiner's world view any more barking mad than one in which a man called Jesus Christ was a product of the impregnation of his mother by a discorporate being called God, and by dying on a cross saved us all from the wrath of his immortal, invisible, omnipotent father? Personally, I think it's just as likely that I'll turn into a gnome, go to Valhalla or come back to haunt you. Which doesn't stop me from thinking that Jesus said some good stuff. And so did Steiner.

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  21. Simon wrote:
    "Ah, Anonymous, you reveal yourself by mentioning Otago and Durham in the same breath!"

    What on earth are you talking about? I mentioned them in the same breath because they are adjacent in the Times Higher Education top 200 university rankings. I have no connection with either place.

    You attempted to disparage Suggate's PhD work and as I indicated, this is not justifiable - you simply don't know what you are talking about in this respect; you could not tell us anything about those who supervised and reviewed it. You also tried to disparage Otago university - probably without any knowledge of its academic standing.

    But - bummer! - Suggate published his PhD research in a refereed journal. You'd better be more careful about jumping the gun next time. Google a little further first!

    As for the Steiner world view being "barking mad", being atheist I don't see this as being any different to a lot of religions including your own christianity - a mixture of empirical good ideas (don't kill, don't covet your neighbours' wife/donkey/4x4 etc.) mixed-up with some mumbo jumbo.

    Believe what you like so long as you don't try to inflict it on me or mine - one of many good reasons to keep my children from school - but I'm always amused when a believer from one sect rants about another in the way that you do. Pot...kettle...

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  22. We seem to be talking at cross purposes, Anonymous. What sect is it that you suppose that I belong to? I hope you are not saying that I am a Christian, I'm nothing of the sort, although I do attend church regularly. The Phd thesis that Sugatte wrote is available for payment. I have not got a copy, but was shown one by a journalist friend.

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  23. "The Phd thesis that Sugatte wrote is available for payment. I have not got a copy, but was shown one by a journalist friend."

    ...yet again, does he use the word 'forced' as you attribute to him? Can you ask your journalist friend to quote the passage to you and post it here? Or can you admit you made a mistake when you attributed the comment to him?

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  24. Anonymous, you ask what evidence I have for believing that early reading is desirable. You might start by reading some of what Dolores Durkin wrote. If you are really interested, I could list a few sources that would help point you in the right direction. You could do worse than read up on what Montessori wrote about this. She believed four or five was the ideal time; many believe that younger is better.

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  25. The expression used was, I think, "forced to start reading", which is slightly different from how it appeared in the headline. i will try and get the exact passage, though it may not be for a few days.

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  26. "You might start by reading some of what Dolores Durkin wrote."

    I can only find instructional manuals and a few, very small, short term, old studies, one about the teaching of comprehension and the other about children who could read before entering school. They appear to be qualitative rather than quantitative. Her work appears to be too old to appear in publication libraries. The current debate seems to be about children having to learn to read early in school, quite a different subject. Do you have any larger, more recent studies related to teaching children to read early in school?

    Ahh, just found this,

    A six year study of children who learned to read in school at the age of four.
    Delores Durkin

    "Reports the reading achievement during grades 1-4 of children who participated in a 2-year, pre-first grade languate arts program. It also compares their achievement with that of classmates who did not participate in the program but who had attended kindergartens in which some attention wen to numeral and letter naming and to the development of a small reading vocabulary. For each of the 4 years, the reading achievement of experimental subjects exceeded that of the control group. With reading test raw scores as the experimental variable and the intelligence-test raw scores as the co-varient, an analysis of covariance indicated that the differences in grades 1 and 2 were large enough to be significan beyond the .05 level. In grades 3 and 4, this was not the case. For both experimental and control groups, correlation coefficients for reading achievement and chronological age were always small and non-significant. T-tests indicated that differences in intellegence test scores for the 2 groups of subjects were also non-significant."

    So it appears that Durkin found that early read instruction made no difference in the long run. Can't find the full paper, it's a bit old, I think.

    "You could do worse than read up on what Montessori wrote about this. She believed four or five was the ideal time; many believe that younger is better."

    One of the concepts behind Montessori is freedom for self-directed learning, how does this fit with your ideas of formal reading instruction?

    "# Inner guidance of nature. All children have inherent inner directives from nature which guide their true normal development.
    # Freedom for self-directed learning. The Montessori method respects individual liberty of children to choose their own activities. This freedom allows children to follow their inner guidance for self-directed learning. "

    Doesn't sound as though Montessori would be in favour of children having to learn to read at 5 or before, unless their inner directives from nature happened to coincide.

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  27. "The expression used was, I think, "forced to start reading", "

    BTW, how would you describe a child having to learn to read when they don't want to? Would they be being, 'encouraged', 'motivated', or maybe 'persuaded' to start reading? The bias works both ways.

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  28. There is a huge push from the Anthroposophy movement in the UK at present who are also busy demonizing the current education system.

    The UK Open Eye campaign on first glance appears a worthy cause until one realizes it is co-founded by two Anthropsophists Richard House and Graham Kennish.

    http://openeyecampaign.wordpress.com/about/open-letter/

    Further research shows the majority of the names who signed the original petition are connected to Anthroposophy.

    Their agenda is not about 'saving childhood' it's about saving Anthroposophy. It appears to be working, many of the Steiner Waldorf early years settings have just obtained exemptions from the EYFS and the Conservatives have promised to give them state funding.

    I'm also concerned by the hysterical language they use - no one 'forces' a child to read, the majority of the teachers working in state primaries are wonderfully kind, bright and creative people bringing out the very best in each child.

    For anyone interested in looking in depth at the workings and history of the Anthroposophical movement and the many names it goes by the following links may be helpful:

    http://www.social-ecology.org/author/peter-staudenmaier/

    http://www.rationalist.com.au/images/stories/papers/Six_Facts_You_Need_to_Know_About_Steinerism.pdf

    http://sites.google.com/site/waldorfwatch/links

    http://ukanthroposophy.wordpress.com

    http://steiner.thruhere.net/

    Best wishes

    H

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  29. Thanks for that Hamish. there is a general impression that Steiner schools are somehow soft and child frinedly. The underlying philsophy certainly deserves a closer look though.

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  30. "I'm also concerned by the hysterical language they use - no one 'forces' a child to read, the majority of the teachers working in state primaries are wonderfully kind, bright and creative people bringing out the very best in each child."

    Maybe 'forces' is a little emotive, but how would you describe a situation where a child is not allowed to join the others in free play until they have completed the worksheet on the 'letter of the day'? Does force need to involve physical threats or actions? Presumably if the child had ignored the teacher sanctions would have been applied (that was certainly the impression gained by the child who stayed put only because they didn't want to get in trouble). This happens in our local school and similar methods were employed in at least one other school in the UK (where I've observed it in action in person). Are you suggesting that this is a rare occurrence? I've only spent time in the classrooms of these two schools so it's a very small sample.

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  31. "In short, this is interesting, but far more needs to be known about it. I observe that Sebastian Sugatte took into account such factors as income, literacy in the home and so on, but unless the situation in New Zealand is dramatically different from this country, there are huge differences between those families who favour Steiner schools and those who send their kids to the local state primary."

    Yet you recommend Durkin who select students who could read before they started school and then studied them. These children represented less than 1% of the total population surveyed. Do you think the parents of the few children that were reading before school were the same as those whose children were not?

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  32. For an intro to the writings of a Peter Staudenmaier recommended above as "information" about the background of Waldorf education, see "Scholar"?.

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  33. For the more general implicit argumentation in his writings, see Myth: "Anthroposophy is anti-Semitic".

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  34. hello Simon - old post to comment on but as Swedish ex-Steiner Waldorf school pupil discovered, Thebee (above) is paid by the Swedish Waldorf Federation to monitor those sceptical of Steiner education in the UK (mostly ex-Steiner school parents) and their comments on blogs like yours. He posts links to his own sites, which are supposed to back-up his case. When he finds out who these parents are, he writes opinion pieces about them too, including in one case giving out a mother's name and address.

    Since Steiner schools are hoping for state funding in the UK through the Academy or free schools policies, the stakes are high for the Steiner movement.

    http://zooey.wordpress.com/2010/05/29/supervising-the-attacks/

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