The less-than-impressed Pro Vice-Chancellor of Massey University College of Education Professor James Chapman believes the New Zealand Government has already proved that financial investment into promoting literacy over the past 10 years has had less-than-favourable results. Results from a 2006 international adult literacy survey that focused on adults in the workplace showed minimal improvements over a similar 1996 survey. "In fact, the results are worse for young adults who were most recently in school, with considerably more adults aged 16 to 24 years featuring in the lowest two levels of literacy in 2006 than in the 1996 survey," says Prof Chapman. Half of the young adults tested were not performing at the minimum level needed to function properly in all aspects of life – work, family, and community. He says New Zealand's experiment with the whole-language approach to literacy instruction and early intervention has now flowed through into adulthood.  “A key skill in learning to read is learning the links between sounds in spoken language and the letters of the alphabet that represent those sounds. Children who can’t figure out words when they’re reading get bogged down and many eventually give up.