How different it would be for us, though, if we swam in a different affective ambience - one brought about by consistent and publicly obvious failure at literacy, the first, and apparently lowest, academic fence; society’s educational baseline. We would, in such dismal circumstances, be unlikely to be drawn to literacy tasks. We would expect to fail. When we did fail we would attribute this to our own ineptitude. We would lack the confidence to judge the writing, especially to judge it adversely. Our self-esteem, at least in respect of literacy, would be low and easily eroded even further. Difficulties would actively oppress and repel us. We would be intimidated, depressed and humiliated by literacy; we would be demotivated. (And see Jones 1991, Pflaum & Bishop 2004, Sainsbury & Schagen 2004, Strommen & Mates 2004, Triplet 2004, Twist et al 2004, Wang & Guthrie 2004, Waterland 1994)

Riddick et al (1999 p. 241) write that:

In the literature on school-aged children the strongest relationship is between poor reading performance and low self-concept or self-esteem; this has been found to be independent of general ability and therefore indicates the powerful mediating effects of literacy performance on how individuals perceive themselves and are perceived by others.

And vice versa, let us loudly note. For many people, of course, their school years delivered exactly such consistent literacy failure and exactly such negative perceptions of them by others. This was public humiliation indeed, experienced among and before the victim’s immediate and closest peers and significant others, day upon day upon day. The powerfully and intimately negative emotional environment thus engendered around literacy may last for decades - ask any adult literacy student. Leichter (in Goleman et al 1984 p.47) quotes one as saying ‘… some kids used to freeze … you’d go blank and you’d get slaughtered again … [the kids who couldn’t read] …got beat more than anybody … they got more stupid by every day.’ In the words of Judy Wallis (in Mace 1995 p.61) this may be a result of classroom literacy being ‘… reduced to a set of booby traps designed to expose the unwary writer to ridicule and contempt.’ I recall (and so can you, probably) tough boys who dominated the playground being reduced to tears of excoriating humiliation and rage in the classroom when failing at the task of reading aloud to their peers. Miles and Varma (1995) quote adult ‘dyslexics’ reminiscing as follows:

‘There was a terror campaign waged against me to get me to spell properly.’ and ‘while I was at school I was educated to feel shame and worthlessness, to feel doubt in my own abilities and self-hatred. I was educated to feel small and worthless.’ (ibid. p. 65)

Arnold (1999 p. 89) quotes a study claiming that ‘… on average children receive 460 negative or critical comments a day and merely 75 positive ones.’ Pumfrey and Reason (1991) quote a case study of ‘dyslexic’ boys carried out in 1990. This study speaks of their ‘emotional reactions’ to their ‘… extremely adverse experiences of education.’ thus:

…they are reported as having experienced … violence; unfair treatment/discrimination; inadequate help and humiliation … emotional reactions included truancy, psychosomatic pains, isolation, alienation from peers, failure of communication within the family, lack of confidence, self-doubt and denigration, competitiveness disorders, sensitivity to criticism and behaviour problems. The case studies reveal in clinical detail the pressures and the pains experienced. (ibid. p. 65)