Furthermore, Spell Read instructors seem to have administered the tests, a situation in which content familiarity may contaminate both student and teacher results. Many of the individuals hired to teach the Spell Read program have no teacher certification. In fact, instructors in Spell Read Canada receive only a 12 week training course in a very narrow area. Proficiency in diagnosing reading difficulties and employing strategies to meet these difficulties requires extensive course work at a university level in the fundamentals of reading and language. Programs and curricula promoted by a school or district should be taught only by certified, qualified teachers who have been hired by school districts in accordance with certification regulations and proper hiring practices in the province.
Education is a universal right.
Parents should not be expected to pay private fees to access programs to which they are entitled and which school boards are obliged by law to deliver. Furthermore, schools should not be expected to expend large sums of money from limited budgets to provide a commercial program which has not been properly assessed and authorized by the Department of Education and school boards. Spell Read Canada started in Prince Edward Island in 1994. To date it has not been authorized by the PEI Ministry of Education for inclusion in the school curriculum and has not been supported by the Prince Edward Island Teachers' Federation. Therefore, in that province, the program has a very limited presence despite the claimed success which Spell Read promoters advocate.