1. Summary of chapters one and two
  2. Chapter Three: The Great Debate or “Reading Wars‟ (In practice – and a review of phonics theory.)
    1. The alphabetic principle (which isn't the same as phonics).
    2. Politics, history and the teaching of literacy
    3. The reading wars in the UK & the US. Falling standards?
      1. Refutations & debate
      2. Effect in classrooms
      3. Real books and whole language vs. phonics
    4. A critical analysis of the debate on phonological awareness & reading - correlation or cause?
      1. A critique of today's received wisdom
      2. Confounding variables such as personal histories & SES
      3. Is it really phonological awareness or is it letter awareness?
      4. Reading & phonological awareness – which is cart and which is horse?
      5. Statistical analysis and phonological awareness – how valid is it?
    5. Do we read by sound or sight? There is an answer!
    6. Language Management: from speech to meaning Modelling and logic
      1. Auditory analysis – the direct route
      2. Phonemic code & the auditory input lexicon
      3. The evanescent phoneme and literacy
    7. Language management: from text to meaning Modelling and logic
      1. Visual reading - the direct route
      2. Graphemic code & the visual input lexicon
      3. Sublexical or assembled reading – an indirect route
      4. Reading by sound as a secondary, back-up system
    8. A critical look at phonics
      1. Frank Smith's trenchant views
      2. English spelling as a visual signal
      3. More evidence that we read primarily visually in the main
      4. The threat of exclusive phonics
    9. A caricature summary of the reading warrriors
  3. Chapter Four: Reading: what is it and how do we do it?
    1. Why do we read?
    2. Reading for meaning
    3. Reading as active search
    4. Interactive-compensatory reading a probable model for reading
    5. Tunnel vision & functional blindness
    6. Memory & meaning Chunking, organisation, categorisation & meaning
    7. What is “seeing”? Top-down & bottom-up interpretation of vision
    8. The Ames illusion. An ambiguous figure
    9. Vision - Data-driven or concept driven?
    10. Kinds of reading and kinds of text – horses for courses
    11. Saccades and fixations eye movements and reading
    12. “Mistakes” and anxiety – The joy of approximation