""The book's strength lies in the ability of the contributors to draw conclusions in relation to the reading debate and constructively justify moving away from the reliance on a single phonics approach based on evidence from empirical research. ...The book offers a timely warning against reading becoming synonymous with synthetic phonics instruction, of children becoming mere 'functional decoders of print' (p. 53). The argument turns to the very real need for children to develop and understand the 'joy, relevance and use for reading' (p. 79); indeed in the current climate of synthetic phonics...