Absolutely agree Chris. If it ain't broke don't fix it!
Yet this is exactly what these so called rationalists have done!
And as the first consequence, have hugely multiplied the level of illiteracy now leaving our education establishments.
One notes the almost medieval zealotry fervor, with which they defend their fundamentally flawed and still entirely unproven intellectual concepts!
End results still count, or put another way, the proof of the pudding is in the eating!
Given apples with apples comparisons and bench marking completely proves your well elucidated erudite argument Chris!
Therefore it's high time for this misbegotten machismo Machiavellian mischief, be replaced by patent pragmatism and a return to what worked, and the earlier the better!
At the end of the day it's all about kids, not organised militant miscreants, merely masquerading as teachers!?
A good education is like a well constructed building; both must have a good foundation, upon which everything else must stand or rely on!
Rhrosty.

U properly defend the importance of spelling in literacy acquisition and use. But u take it too far. Your defense of "correct spelling" as being necessary for reading is overkill.

By "correct spelling "u ar (sic) referring to what i call traditional spelling (TS), with no connotations of correctness or incorrectness.

If i use some non-TS spellings, i may slow your reading (until u become familiar with them) but i dont necessarily prevent the message being delivered. Words ar words, and may be represented visually in a number or ways. For instance, TS before can be represented as befor, b4, befour, beefor, befaur, and probably further variants (based on TS forms). U would claim that only before was "correct" but u would still be able to read the others, possibly having to use context to help because of your unfamiliarity with them.

"Correct" spelling has no place on a pedestal. It is flawed, irregular, unpredictable, and a barrier to easy literacy learning. There ar better versions of many of its representations. For the sake of better literacy learning, it needs a good clean-up.

I would have agreed with the author once, but I watched the program about William Tyndale last night and it struck me that the spelling of the English language has changed over the years and it will continue to do so. The usage of grammar also seems to have changed since my boyhood. I am not sure whether grammar is taught any more. Certainly the language has changed. One only has to listen to our present youth to realise that the meaning of many words has altered. My biggest grouch is that most people no longer use, or even know how to use punctuation marks. A fluent speaker will pause for effect, so why not similarly use the comma or semicolon when writing.
We need to encourage more reading, and in the process, develop an understanding of what the author is endeavouring to convey. Every child should have access to a dictionary and also a thesaurus so that they can find the meaning of unknown words or phrases. The English language is full of nuances which are sometimes misunderstood, and it it is only by doing a lot of reading that any child will become competent in their use of the language.
David

It is indeed only "by doing a lot of reading that any child will become competent in their use of the language". - So if at least learning to read English was made much easier than it is now, we would enable more children to so.

Relatively bright children, who get lots of help from their parents as well, manage to learn to read in roughly three years, despite English abuses of the alphabetic principle by using identical letters for spelling different sounds (e.g. are - care, on - once, gave - have). If we at least removed substantial amounts of letters which serve no other function except to make learning to read more difficult, we would improve literacy standards, save much pointless educational expenditure and improve the life chances of many children.

Anyone interested in seeing how this could be done, should visit my EnglishSpellingProblems and ImprovingEnglishSpelling blogs.

I am disappointed by the very small number of postings on this subject. One would have thought that an important subject such as literacy would have attracted greater interest. It does not bode well for improvement in the future levels of literacy.
David

VK3AUU: Maybe it has closed down because arguments on the place of spelling in literacy learning and the need for spelling upgrade hav all been answered in previous discussions here! :-)