Sound and fury signify much in a war over words

August 17, 2005

Ah, Mem Fox, the voice of common sense and reason ("Phonics has a phoney role in the literacy wars", Herald, August 16). Reading is about making meaning, not making sounds. Sounding out is like driving around in first gear. It may get you started but it won't get you far.

Sue Dowd Kellyville

Mem Fox is as wrong to dismiss phonics' role in learning to read as conservatives are to insist it's the only method that works. Some children learn through phonics and some through a whole-of-word approach. That's why NSW teachers use a variety of techniques in their classrooms.

Norm Neill Leichhardt

Anthony van den Broek hits the nail on the head (Letters, August 16). Parental involvement is the way to go. But spare a thought for the many children from illiterate and/or non-English-speaking homes, whose parent(s) can't cope. Many schools welcome volunteers to help fill this most rewarding role.

Basil Johnson Weston

A grasp of phonics, drilled into me as a child, has been scant comfort at times in my life when a rough cough or a hiccough plough me through.

Megan Brock Summer Hill

As long as I can remember, someone or other has claimed that educational standards are falling every year. If that's the case, how come they haven't reached zero yet? Maybe the people making these claims failed mathematics.

Brendan Jones Annandale

Nice to hear we're going back to the basics again when teaching children to read. Assuming we have made small retrograde steps every umpteenth time over the past couple of decades that the back-to-the-basics mantra has been mooted, then I can only assume the logical result of this latest exhortation will be the issuing of a slate and a piece of chalk to every child. If that's too modern, I have a pretty sharp stick that makes interesting symbols in the ground.

Ian Luscombe Westleigh

whIl U aL RgU bout how 2 teach kds eng, mob fonez wiv SMS R screwing it up entirely :-).

Daniel Lewis Rushcutters Bay

I am not sure Morris Iemma is smart enough to run the state if he has trouble understanding his daughter's school report ("Reports to rate children against their peers", Herald, August 16). Most parents can comprehend that "achieving" and "working towards" mean just that.

There is something intrinsically cruel about ranking children throughout their school life. No doubt Mr Iemma and the federal Education Minister, Brendan Nelson, are confident their offspring would always land in the top 25 per cent. There are other parents who know that their children will always be in the bottom 25 per cent because they were born with less intellectual capacity than 75 per cent of their peers. Nelson's claim that a student is likely to be in the lowest band because of a problem ignores the obvious: we are born with different levels of ability. This becomes a problem only if insensitive governments insist that some of our kids are labelled as inadequate for 13 years.

Students at the bottom of the pile have just as much right to achieve their individual potential as the high-flyers.

Isabelle Wharley Willoughby

Two questions regarding the new "plain language" reports: Where is the educational research to support the view that ranking students fosters real learning? As a parent, can I request not to receive such comparative reporting about my child?

Kimberley Pressick-Kilborn Stanmore

Talk about mixed signals from Brendan Nelson: "Someone's got to be in the bottom 25 per cent of the class and if it's my son or daughter I want to know about it; they're more likely to be there because there's a problem." Does he mean that if the "problem" is "solved" no one will be in the bottom 25 per cent?

Jan Kent Farmborough Heights

Latest efforts show timetable is only an excuse

It was never the timetables, it was the failure to honour them ("RailCorp's new theme takes commuters back to the sixties", Herald, August 15). It doesn't take CityRail's $900,000 "Dylanesque" campaign to plug another one of its "new" timetables. If it's any good the increasingly wearisome Sydney commuters will be the judges.

John Watkins is new to the transport throne but he's already draining the piggy bank of money better spent on employing more drivers. How can fewer trains, slower services, and German computer software improve CityRail's dismal batting average? It's a public service where profit outshines performance, where ticket booths go unmanned, where grey-shirted thugs prey on the underclass with a gang-like mentality, where cancellations are second nature, and where passengers are told to disembark so that their train can turn around and make up for the train that wasn't there.

Mr Watkins, my advice is to spend a week in Japan and take notes on its excellent rail services.

Alex Coovre Strathfield

Congratulations to CityRail. Having just perused the new timetable I find that I will need to be at the station 20 minutes earlier to get to work on time. Serves me right for complaining about late-running trains.

Geoff Barnes Glenfield

Did I read correctly? Mr Watkins is spending $900,000 on ads for timetabling changes?

We already know the timetable itself is late. Can someone please check their timetable and wake up to themselves?

John Castrission Kiama Heights

Mr Watkins is astounded at the cost of petrol and road tolls. Does this mean he a) buys his petrol on a government credit card; b) uses a ministerial car with driver and petrol supplied; c) uses public transport?

Mary-Jane Gleeson Annandale

Would it be cynical to suggest the private road and tunnel builders were promised minimal competition from public transport to maximise their profits? Ergo rubbish trains.

Glenn Holmes Katoomba

Dissenters still need protection

I do not feel sympathy for David Hicks because I share his politics - I find them abhorrent. However, I do believe that in a representative democracy we should not imprison people for holding unpopular opinions and we should grant a speedy trial by jury. None of the activities described by Gerard Henderson constitutes a crime within the Australian legal definition of the term ("This young revolutionary was true to his word", Herald, August 16).

I find the lack of support for David Hicks by the Australian Government to be disappointing and frightening. When did the Government decide that only Australians holding popular political views deserve its protection?

Ingrid King Hong Kong

I wonder why justice systems around the world waste time and money on prosecution and defence lawyers and juries and judges when they could just ask Gerard Henderson whether the suspect is guilty?

Geoffrey Anderson South Grafton

Doctor, doctor

"Ready for delivery: midwives through Medicare" (Herald, August 16) says it all - we are running out of doctors to help our "population increasers" at their time of need. No disrespect to midwives and their expertise, but that's the only reason they are getting a Medicare number.

Debra Atwill Gordon

Pollies should stay away

In "days of old", rulers who started wars had the good grace to lead their soldiers into battle. Modern day rulers sit in their safe seats in parliament or the US congress and send young men out to die.

It is very offensive to see politicians who have never served in combat hogging the limelight at commemorations of past battles. Let those who put their lives at risk do the commemorating and keep the politicians out of it.

Richard Keyes Enfield

Now that VP day is over, a big happy birthday to the baby boomers who will start turning 60 from today onwards.

M. Stewart Allawah

Not much between us

In the same issue that carries an editorial stressing distance and difference in the trans-Tasman relationship ("A parting of the ways", Herald, August 16), we find an article saying Australia is home to some 10 per cent of New Zealand's population ("NZ comes looking for its lost sheep"). Let's cut the guff: our populations and our economies are already so integrated that it is hard to tell us apart. The sooner we celebrate Anzac Day as one country, the better for all of us.

Ian Alexander Porto Alegre (Brazil)

So 10 per cent of Kiwis live in Australia. Can any of them bat or bowl?

Paul Dorron Redfern

In limbo on Nauru

It's great more detainees are being considered for visas but there is no mention of the 32 on Nauru ("Detainees freed before Ombudsman steps in", Herald, August 16). They have been there for more than two years. The only visas offered to these people have been extensions of their special purposes Nauru visas for another six months. When will their cases be acted on?

Deborah Brooks Barrington

Against creationism

No, Ben Newhouse (Letters, August 16), your idea of creationism taught in scripture lessons and evolution taught in science lessons will not satisfy all parties. Most mainstream churches have not taught creationism for many decades and would not want children taught it now.

Reverend Dorothy McRae-McMahon Rozelle

Beyond breeding

Paul Sheehan overlooks the fact that a lot of women "put off" having children because we want to be more than baby-making machines ("In praise of female sexuality", Herald, August 15). We want to be educated, to travel, have careers, develop our character before assuming the responsibility of childbearing. Are we supposed to hit the age of 17 and squeeze out a couple of sprogs because our wombs are at their healthiest? Is that what women are reduced to? Isn't there slightly more to being a mother?

Kate Dass Marrickville

Paul Sheehan says that sexually promiscuous women are "just doing their job". Outside of brothels, I don't think that statement is correct.

Marise Watson Stanmore

Pleas on deaf ears

Funny (not!) how the Prime Minister can find $1 million to fund a search for a sunken warship yet when an orchestra or dance company is in urgent need of funds nothing is available ("PM offers reward to find sunken warship", Herald, August 15).

David Polson Elizabeth Bay

A smile and the paper

On Sydney characters, Bill was the ever-smiling, totally blind paper seller who was on the corner of King and Pitt streets for more than 30 years, starting in 1950. He could remember his customers and their orders by their voices and, some say, by their footsteps. He was astute enough to see war rationing coming and had another stall through the 1940s outside the Queen Victoria Building where customers would queue for scarce razor blades, flints and shoelaces. I remember him proudly because he was my dad.

Barry Arnold Epping

Roger and out, please

I am enduring multiple calls from gentlemen with thick Indian accents trying to flog me the telephone and allied services of Optus. Introducing themselves with unlikely names such as Roger, Bill and Reginald, they try to discuss my phone bills in English so muffled the chances of communication are limited. Do any of these calls bring profit to Optus? Or just irritation?

Frank Hatherley Rozelle

Good riddance to tax

Taxpayers of NSW should count their lucky stars Ross Gittins is not at the helm of this state. He has constantly lamented the demise of vendor tax. Like a dog with a bone, he just won't give up ("NSW slump: Reserve Bank chief exonerates vendor tax", Herald, August 15).

The abolition of vendor tax reinstates the state's competitiveness and protects jobs and retirement savings. The Premier, Morris Iemma, understood the tax was sending millions of investment dollars and thousands of jobs interstate. No doubt he also realised that keeping a tax which failed to reach revenue targets while costing the Government revenue was pointless.

Gittins's claims that the vendor tax was efficient and equitable are wrong. It was economically inefficient, unfair and complicated, facts (supported by eminent economists) that Gittins prefers to gloss over. This tax distorted the NSW property market, driving investment elsewhere and threatening thousands of jobs. For many, vendor tax made it harder to pay the rent, afford a new home, get a job and save for retirement. Its abolition marks the end of a failed tax experiment, unlikely to be repeated.

Ken Morrison Property Council of Australia, Sydney

A frisky audience for the Opera House

It appears not everybody is upset with the prospect of being frisked at the Sydney Opera House. Here in Canberra I have an excited group of nursing-home women begging me to take a bus load up for the next show.

Ed de Crewis Isabella Plains (ACT)

Michael Stanbridge (Letters, August 16) suggests listening to opera would deter would-be bombers. I fear it would only encourage them. Nevertheless, if the opera was Wagner, would anyone hear the bomb?

M. Mercurius Summer Hill

Posh and Paris

Surely there must be less than six degrees of separation between Victoria Beckham and Paris Hilton ("No bookworm", Herald, August 15).

Judith Capps Mittagong

In hot water

Bought only three months ago, Stephen Fox's rusty coffee maker (Letters, August 16) is already a has-bean - I think he might have grounds for complaint.

Jim Dewar North Gosford

Cabin pressure

The difference, Susan Anthony (Letters, August 16), is that "air pressure" is the ambient pressure we feel at ground level. At altitude, it is much less, meaning that an aircraft has to be artificially "pressurised" to maintain a comfortable environment.

The problem wasn't "pressurisation", but that of "de-pressurisation". The air at altitude is thinner, which starves the body of oxygen, leading to unconsciousness.

Robert Asplin Engadine

Too long an innings

When a taxpayer-funded broadcaster provides wall-to-wall cricket from 7.30pm till 2.30am with one half-hour news break, then rational people who don't lead their lives through the tedious statistics of the willow need to stand up and be counted.

Jim Gentles Coogee

Setting the clock

The correct time at either the North or South Pole (Letters, August 16) is whatever time you want it to be. However, take a step in any direction and the time will depend on the line of longitude you happen to be standing on.

Peter Kenny Bexley

Time traveller

Louise O'Rance (Letters, August 16) claims Victor Hugo (1802-1885) as some sort of genius. He sure was, managing to send a one-symbol telegram a decade before Marconi invented the telegraph in 1898.

Michael Throssell Narrabeen

Racing for recognition

The list of 50,271 names proves that finishing the City to Surf is an easier way to get a mention in the Herald than a letter to the editor.

Morris Graham Georgetown