Peter, while I would never wish to deride the valuable work done by the good Friars scratching away with their quills in order to have your standard texts prepared for the following term, let alone all that gold-leaf and lapis lazuli...all very illuminating I am sure.
But...
When I was finally imposed upon to schlep across the meadows and the slag-heaps to what was laughingly described as our local school, replete with my newly wall-papered text books that were the very acme of the printers art, though the regimen was uninspiring and served only to pass on a lust for violence that took some shaking-off. As a child you learn in spite of yourself. It was only later that I discovered that reading decent prose not only instilled in one a certain style...nay styles and gave one ample opportunity to brush-up on the incongruities that together make up the English tongue.
The work went on then to be rid of the more flowery affectations.
That work continues...
Your, "without writing there can be no reading" is wrong in so many ways (as I suspect you are aware) even the most gormless, ham-fisted oaf would find it easier to hold a book open and read English like wot it shood be rit than waste their days agonising over hand-writing and 'I before E, except...'
How jolly life would be if you had to make your own shoes before you could go out into the world, then your own bus, train, ship...
Get 'em reading, I say.
