If you're reading about education, nine times out of ten it's depressing news of some kind. So this makes a nice change - about a success story north-west of Glasgow in getting rid of illiteracy, an experiment 'being held up as a model for education authorities across the world'.
Synthetic phonics, where children learn to sound out the single and combined sounds of letters, has been at the core of the scheme...Mackay is Dr Tommy MacKay, the educational psychologist who pioneered the scheme. But what is blootering?
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First, a robust early intervention programme from nursery onwards reduced the number of children experiencing reading failure. Then, those who did fall through the net were caught in the later years of primary school and given the intensive, one-on-one Toe by Toe programme. "You pick up every one of them, and you blooter them with individual help," says MacKay.
Oh.