26 July 1996

I was interested to read Maureen Guy's letter (TES, June 21) in which she commented on Alan Davies's THRASS programme, saying that it was the successor to Alpha to Omega.

Mr Davies, of course, claims that THRASS is the first programme to be based on the premise that there are 44 sounds in the English language, but only 26 letters.

Therefore, the one letter/one sound method of learning phonics is unproductive unless names accompany the sound, so that digraphs, letter strings and other spelling patterns can be described logically and meaningfully.

Alpha to Omega, first published in 1974 and now on its fourth edition, was, of course, the first programme to address this problem from an in-depth knowledge of phonetics and linguistics.

DR BEVE HORNSBY
Principal Hornsby International Dyslexia Centre 261 Trinity Road London SW18

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