Lighthouse offers a structured series of guided reading books, grouped into 10 levels of difficulty. Each has its own teaching notes, and a programme organiser advises on setting up and monitoring guided reading groups. One CD-Rom offers a database of other reading programmes, to show how the Lighthouse books correlate, and a second carries photocopy masters.

The children’s books are well written and appealing, and include fantasy, rhyme and non-fiction. Early levels are designed to match children’s spoken language, a crucial support to the development of reading strategies, and introduce more formal language as reading ability grows. Non-fiction for novice readers is notoriously difficult to get right, but Lighthouse has some gems.

The only worksheet included in the inspection pack was disappointing (colouring in and copying). Given the lively, book-centred dialogue portrayed in the teaching programme, and the range of writing styles and text types, there are more creative ways to use writing to support learning in reading and vice versa.

The programme claims to make guided reading easy to manage and enjoyable. In fact it also addresses the processes of teaching and learning and provides a framework within which teachers are helped to teach. Records support their professional judgement and an assessment checklist goes to the crux of the matter - is the way the child approaches reading gaining power? All of this draws heavily on the work of Marie Clay; it would have been nice to have seen that debt acknowledged.

Julia Douetil is the Reading Recovery national co-ordinator