This book sells the reader short. It claims to locate learning to read within an overall perspective of children’s learning, but the result is that generalities replace what should be discussion of reading research.

The author chooses to abjure references and this, together with his lax expression, leaves the reader uncertain both of where the concepts come from and, indeed, what they are.

The laxness is compounded by widespread inaccuracy in the use of technical terms (eg, phoneme, blending, digraph). What is evidently intended to be a discussion of miscue research consistently uses the term “mistakes” rather than “miscues”, so a student reading it would be unlikely to be able to recognise the subject elsewhere.

Confusion is compounded by misdirection. Typically, the contents of the chapters fail to address their titles, so the chapters supposedly addressing the processes and skills of learning to read say nothing about children’s learning but, rather, provide disorganised ideas for teaching.

The chapter on fluent reading offers tips about writing, comprehension and vocabulary: for example, since accuracy is important in reading, ideas for training in accuracy in all sorts of other areas are provided. Cullingford’s claim that “all these techniques teach more about reading than they seem to do at first glance” is unconvincing. He has nothing to say directly about the processes and skills of reading.

Why did Cullingford write this book? He has nothing new, or even up-to-date, to say.

He says nothing about the national curriculum and the National Literacy Strategy. He appears to be ignorant of any reading research since the 1970s. For example, when he discusses phonemes (inaccurately) and syllables, he makes no reference to onsets and rimes, nor to the work of Bryant and Goswami.

While a few relevant names appear in the notes at the end of the book, it is not clear that any concepts have percolated through into the text.

He spends more time discussing ita than phonics. He has not done his homework.

This book is a disservice to students. Its tendency is to coddle them in cosy ignorance and imply there is no knowledge about reading development out there to be addressed.

“One day we will no doubt knowI”, but as of now it is a mistake “to make a scientific system out of what is an art.” In context, this conclusion sounds like a justification for intellectual irresponsibility.

Nicholas Bielby

Nicholas Bielby is a freelance writer and English consultant