The VITAL YEARS Early English Literacy Programme was born out of a mother’s love for her children. By 1974, English Masters graduate Lam Kam Foong had taught every stage from pre-primary to university. A passionate scholar of language and linguistics, she became increasingly concerned about the literacy problems that she confronted on a daily basis. She was convinced that reading was never meant to be hard, that it had to be a natural process in a child’s development. A parent already, she promised herself that her children would be bonded to books from an early age.