DISORDERS DO EXIST
Mr Stringer is right (News, 22 January) - no-one should 'invent brain disorders' in pupils to mask poor teaching. Moreover, some approaches to early reading are, plainly, more effective than others. But children are not identical machines. However well-oiled by the appropriate methods, they do not necessarily automatically kick into learning gear.
Consider the following scenario, an actual example from my own tutoring experience. An otherwise intelligent, co-operative seven-and-a-half-year-old boy was brought to me because his sole attainment towards literacy was the ability to set out his first name in mirror writing. He could not read at all. Most of his fellow pupils were well on the way to reading or completely literate. All had the same teacher and the same 'methods'. It would not have been helpful to say that his difficulty was 'invented' in order to protect an incompetent teacher.
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