I’m old enough that I had phonics education all through elementary school in Ontario, Canada. I remember loving it.

English spelling can seem strange and arbitrary and phonics made sense of it.

I grew up to be an avid reader and, decades later, my spelling skills are still top notch, even when I do not have access to a computer checking it over.

My wife, on the other hand, went to a hippy school in Manitoba, Canada, where they didn’t do phonics. They used the Whole Language method instead and, to this day, she can’t spell worth a damn. New words are basically jumbles of letters to her.

Until moving here, my daughter was also learning to read and write through the Whole Language method. Sure, she’s only eight but, from where I’m standing, her spelling ability is pretty poor.

I was delighted to discover, then, that the school we’re sending her to in Malta, San Andrea, is using phonics in their English programme. Here’s hoping the Maltese education system can repair the damage that the Canadian one did to her.

And I wish that schools back home would follow Malta’s lead and consider re-incorporating the phonics programme.