Aims
The Society's main priority at present is to draw attention to the economic and social costs of traditional spelling, with the object of opening up minds to the possibility and desirability of some change. On this matter, the Society believes that recent research, together with the continuing concern of governments in the English-speaking world (ESW) about literacy rates, strengthens its position. In particular it points to evidence that children throughout the ESW take up to three years longer to learn to read and write than children speaking other major Indo-European languages It quotes evidence that dyslexia is less of a problem in countries such as Italy, which have a highly phonemic spelling system compared with English. (English spelling has the unique disadvantage among Indo-European systems of having letter patterns that represent more than one sound and sounds that can be represented by more than one letter pattern – the so-called "spelling double whammy".) Finally, it points to a recent study by the KPMG Foundation that estimates the total costs to the public purse to age 37 arising from failure to read in the primary school years at £1.73 billion to £2.05 billion a year.
Read more about this topic: English Spelling Society
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