Basic Education

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 148667

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Rebecca Dreiling" <srbecca at ...> wrote:
>
> Rebecca writes: 
> I've always wondered about this particular thing.  I'm sure 
> that it has to have been discussed but I'm curious to hear people opinions 
> on it now.
> 
> If most wizarding children don't start school until they enter Hogwarts 
> where do they learn to read and write?  I don't recall any mention of it in 
> the first book so I assume there isn't a basic english class.
> I know that Harry went to school before he entered Hogwarts but he was 
> raised in a muggle house so it would make sense that he was taught to read.
> 

Pippin:
JKR's website FAQ says  that wizard children are mostly home-schooled
before they go to Hogwarts. I suppose that in the case of less enlightened
headmasters than Dumbledore and less important students than Harry,
no great effort was made to follow up on students who didn't respond
to Hogwarts letters. That would self-select for literate students, magic
or Muggle. I'd guess that far fewer Muggle students made it
to Hogwarts in the days before literacy became common in the Muggle
world, which would put some developing social and economic pressure 
behind the purebloods' support of Voldemort's radicalism.

Pippin