How children learn to read well and what kind of teaching helps them is
a scarcely penetrated mystery. This book is a fascinating and
informative research report by a group of teachers who set out to teach
children who have failed to acquire a useful degree of literacy; in it
they discuss their experiences. The authors are presenting evidence
about a central and constant problem in education, an essential kind of
evidence which is often ignored, because it is so difficult to collect
and present. The report presents enough case-notes and recordings of
lessons and discussions to allow readers to make their own
interpretations alongside those of the writers. Highly informative about
many of the central topics of teaching literacy it discusses children's
motivation, the influence of social and cultural background on learning,
and different methods of teaching reading.