According to the OECD (1997), more than 100 years of universal education in the UK has resulted in less than half of the UK adult population becoming literate: less than 50% of children grow up to become accurate and fluent readers. What’s more, only half of those who do learn to read can spell accurately enough to become fluent writers. These appalling figures have been replicated across the world in other English speaking countries such as the United States, Australia and New Zealand. The sad thing is that the whole structure of education from top to bottom, whether we’re talking about the Department for Children, Schools and Families, the teacher training institutions, or the schools, seems to support practices based on belief systems rather than high quality evidence-based research. For a system this large, employing and involving millions of people in English speaking countries throughout the world, to fail so spectacularly in its basic goal of teaching literacy requires something to be very wrong with those generally accepted belief systems. It is time for a proper discussion to challenge those widely held beliefs to try to determine what is fundamentally wrong with them and to suggest ways in which present practices can be changed to ensure that all those who are capable of becoming literate (98% of the population) receive the appropriate and necessary tuition to do so.