The Guardian 3 May, 2024 Editorial
The pleasures of reading and books have been swapped for phonics and grammar. It’s time for change. Too much of what is valuable about studying English was lost in the educational reforms of the past 14 years. A sharp drop-off in the number of students in England taking the subject at A-level means fewer are taking English degrees. Teaching used to be a popular career choice for literature graduates, as Carol Atherton warmly describes in her new book, Reading Lessons. In it, Ms Atherton, a teacher in Lincolnshire, explains the pleasure she takes in teaching novels such as Jane Eyre that she first encountered herself as a teenage bookworm.
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