Book excerpt: Originally published in 1981, this title is based on the author’s doctoral thesis and the research reported was carried out at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford. By the 1980s it was generally recognised that there are a number of children of adequate general intelligence who nevertheless experience inordinate difficulties in learning to read. This book examines some of the possible reasons for those children’s reading difficulties, and at the same time explores the basis of a teaching technique which was reputed to help them to learn to read. Although the terminology is very much of the time, this book will still be of interest to those concerned with the reasons behind the difficulties children have in learning to read.